form follows behavior

The urban environment is a container of information. Anything can be treated as information, in as far as it is quantifiable.

As Aldo Rossi points out in The Architecture of the City, the city consists of Urban Artifacts, the constants in the changing urban fabric. As an adaptive construct, the city contains both constants and variables. The constants, however large or small, tangible or intangible, provide a parametric framework through which the city defines itself.
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I am inspired by moments in which a seemingly mundane street scene is interrupted in an unexpected way, and disparate geometries collide, creating tension. These are what I call syncopated moments. They happen when one intent collides with another intent or parameter, resulting in a manifestation of compromise.

Philosophically, I think of these moments as bumps in a smooth space, with a nod to Deleuze and Guattari. Smooth space is the space of the idea, while bumps may occur when the idea comes into contact with parameters: forces acting on or defining a conceptual space. I am interested in this bumpiness, as a container of evidence—evidence of parameters, and of the idea.

Any reasonably dense urban area is filled with syncopated moments, if you only look carefully. From a highway overpass, to a construction scaffold, to a drainpipe, their scale is of little importance. It is the way these moments appear in context that makes them syncopated. They are what makes life in urban areas enjoyable and interesting.