Notes on More


Andrew Holder. “Notes on More.” Harvard Design Magazine #43. Fall / Winter 2016.

"A better name is 'more'—more as a noun instead of a determiner. The switch drops the comparative aspect of the word in favor of an orgulous state of poise that absorbs addition without effort or change in state. It is analogous to surveying a hoarder’s living room: more is here; more is on the way. As a speech act, more is positive, open, extensible, and undramatic. More is impervious to an assessment of its relative goodness or badness. A 'jeremiad . . . that veers into denunciation,' à la Koolhaas’s Junkspace is completely unhelpful in the face of more. More is a fact of the physical environment. Like all facts of the physical environment, it can be subjected to acts of architecture and design, provided we have a sketch of its qualities, a theory of its operations, and a prescription for the design strategies that are likely to succeed in its milieu. Because of the nature of more—its immense scale and nearly incomprehensible structure—'the form of jottings, rather than an essay (with its claim to a linear, consecutive argument) seemed more appropriate.' "

- Andrew Holder