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The introduction of automated algorithmic processes (e.g. machine learning) in creative disciplines such as architecture and urban design has expanded the design space available for creativity and speculation. Contrary to previous algorithmic processes, machine learning models must be trained before they are deployed. The two processes (training and deployment) are separate and, crucially for this paper, the outcome of the training process is not a spatial object directly implementable but rather code. This marks a novelty in the history of the spatial design techniques which has been characterised by design instruments with stable properties determining the bounds of their implementation. Machine Learning models, on the other hand, are design instruments resulting from the training they undertake. In short, training a machine learning model has become an act of design. Beside spatial representation traditionally comprising of drawings, physical or CAD models, Machine Learning introduces an additional representational space: the vast, abstract, stochastic, multi-dimensional space of data, and their statistical correlations. This latter domain – broadly referred to as latent space – has received little attention by architects both in terms of conceptualising its technical organisation and speculating on its impact on design. However, the statistical operations structuring data in latent space offer glimpses of new types of spatial representations that challenge the existing creative processes in architectural and urban design. Such spatial representation can include non-human actors, give agency to a range of concerns that are normally excluded from urban design, expand the scales and temporalities amenable to design manipulation, and offer an abstract representation of spatial features based on statistical correlations rather than spatial proximity. The combined effect of these novelties that can elicit new types of organisation, both formally and programmatically. In order to foreground their potential, the paper will discuss the impact of ml models in conjunction with larger historical and theoretical questions underpinning spatial design. In so doing, the aim is not to abdicate a specificity of urban design and uncritically absorb computational technologies; rather, the creative process in design will provide a filter through which critically evaluate machine learning techniques. The paper tasks to conceptualise the potential of latent space design by framing it through the figure of the paradigm. Paradigms are defined by Thomas Kuhn as special members of a set which they both give rise to and make intelligible. Their ability to relate parts to parts not only resonates with the technical operations of ml models, but they also provide a conceptual space for designers to speculate different spatial organisation aided by algorithmic processes. Paradigms are not only helpful to conceptualise the use of ml models in urban design, they also suggest an approach to design that privileges perception over structure and curation over process. The creative process that emerges is one in ml models are speculative technical elements that can foreground relations between diverse datasets and engender an urbanism of relations rather than objects. The application of such algorithmic models to design will be supported by the research developed by students part of Research Cluster 14 part of the Master in Urban Design at The Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

Solo un numero esiguo di chartae rogate sin dall’alto medioevo si può dire abbia avuto una vita parallela alla consueta e preminente destinazione giuridica o amministrativa notarile grazie alla scelta d’incidere su pietra, il più delle volte da parte dei legatari, anche una sola parte del contenuto testuale pergamenaceo al fine di notificare, di pubblicizzare e di perpetuare, generalmente pro redemptione animae, la memoria di quanto veniva disposto da agiati benefattori a favore, in un primo tempo delle istituzioni monastiche ed ecclesiastiche e più tardi anche gli enti assistenziali, sia religiosi sia laici. La maggior parte di queste non numerose iscrizioni, che classifichiamo come chartae lapidariae, per lo stretto rapporto con le chartae notarili da cui derivano, sono state per la maggior parte prodotte in Italia sin dalla fine del secolo X per essere esposte con una certa frequenza nei luoghi sacri o molto attigui degli stessi. Nella maggior parte dei casi si parla di iscrizioni contenenti atti testamentari o di donazione inter vivos o mortis causa; meno frequentemente il loro tenore dispositivo e probatorio riconduce a bolle papali, decreti o a diplomi regi o imperiali. In ogni caso, siamo sempre di fronte a documenti incisi indiscutibili secondo qualsiasi piano giuridico ma che, per la consuetudinaria perdita del documento notarile da cui derivano e per la facile mancanza anche di uno degli elementi essenziali della charta, per esempio, della datatio, probabilmente per la funzione generalmente assunta, sin dall’impiego romano, di “regesto” dell’atto originale, per la mancanza, si diceva di alcuni elementi essenziale del documento notarile difficilmente possono essere considerati “documenti in senso proprio”, ma solo dei “monumenti” epigrafici a sé stanti, quindi particolarmente interessanti da analizzare solo per il loro “peso” storico. Malgrado ciò, per tutti gli elementi fin qui considerati e riassumibili nella difficoltà di dimostrare l’attendibilità dei contenuti incisi su pietra data l’impossibilità di ricostruire l’intimo impiego epigrafico/documentario intrinseco delle carte lapidarie con il loro originale notarile perduto, qualche importante attenzione verso questo tipo di documentazione è comunque giunta nel secolo scorso grazie ai lavori di Pietro Sella, di Cinzio Violante e di Ottavio Banti. Ciò nonostante, ancora oggi, le chartae lapidariae risultano poco considerate sebbene dinanzi a una rarefazione documentaria, per esempio nel caso di Milano, risultino efficaci per definire il ruolo dei laici sia entro lo spazio ecclesiale sia nella società; sia nello studio degli enti assistenziali, sia religiosi sia laici, come dei ceti dominanti dell’Italia e in special modo di Milano, del secolo XI. Se, dunque sull’interesse storico, seppur analitico dei contenuti della chartae lapidariae, sembra aver spesso prevalso il “peso” diplomatistico, che pone dei limiti all’attendibilità giuridica delle carte lapidarie, con questo lavoro si vuol richiamare l’attenzione su tre casi importanti e eccezionali prodotti nell’ultimo ventennio del secolo XI a Viterbo, a Milano e a Collescipoli.

Political ontology reveals the processes of domination at play in the enactment of realities in a(post-) colonial context. In this article, we illustrate the implications of the power asymmetries inherent in conservation and co-management of protected areas involving Indigenous populations. We do so by exploring the case of Pilón Lajas in the Bolivian Amazon region, an area with double legal status as an Indigenous Territory and Biosphere Reserve. Drawing from our ethnographic fieldwork, we describe how indigenous relational ontology and the modern ontology of 'cultural diversity' are enacted by different stakeholders, and analyse critically the problems that arise for protected area management owing to the domination of a single ontology in a context where different ontologies are enacted. We finish by presenting our argument that solving such problems requires a cognitive justice approach.

Social institutions are considered as generally stable entities but, at the same time, prone to unpredictable and even dramatical changes. The paper draws some considerations on this issue by means of an analysis of the notions of validity and objectivity, seen in the light of the critical situations that institutions may face. Consider the case of an irregular election that leads anyhow to a result accepted by authorities and population at large. Such an election seems to be valid and not valid at the same time. These contrasting intuitions reflect the twofold nature of institutional reality: it depends on one side on what is accepted by those who are dealing with it, but on the other side also on what it is actually going on according to its rules. The article frames this problem in terms of response-dependence. In this respect, it follows, but also expands, Hindriks (2006), to reach the conclusion that institutions are easily prone to fall apart. Anyway, not in all cases this actually happens; on the contrary, institutions seem to be quite stable. We propose that what makes them stable, but also unpredictable, is, in a sense, a sort of misunderstanding among the involved agents. Explaining such misunderstanding amounts to analyze the notion of objectivity in social reality. We argue that objectivity is more a requirement than a feature of institutional systems, being institutional objects mind and context-dependent.