Machine-Perfect Finish

The smooth industrial surface finish that 20th-century construction norms have accustomed builders to; Alexander argues the slight roughness of styrofoam-formed concrete is positively life-like.

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Findings (1)

finding

Carpenters at Eishin refused to use styrofoam formwork for giant capitals, objecting to surface roughness
supports
Documents a practical obstacle to adoption of adaptive construction methods due to aesthetic norms of machine-perfect finish.

Related by similarity (8)

cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edge

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

mechanical perfectionconcept0.802
The 20th-century ideal of uniform exact dimensions and surfaces, which Alexander argues drives out real life.
comfortable completionconcept0.743
A sense of being complete and comfortable, as in the friendly house edge, that enhances life.
Machine psychologyconcept0.730
Emerging field studying psychological properties of LLMs; the paper aims to bridge psychometric methodology with this field
What is an appropriate definition of machine, and does it apply to all, some, or no living forms?question0.729
Central interrogative driving the paper's entire argumentative structure.
Machines can now make machines.claim0.728
Evolutionary algorithms and self-organizing systems blur distinction between evolved and designed.
What is an appropriate definition of 'machine,' and does it apply to all, some, or no living forms across the tree of life?question0.722
Foundational definitional question motivating the entire paper
Turing Machineconcept0.719
Theoretical construct establishing classical demarcation between machine and environment via input/output channels.
Machine Intelligenceconcept0.717
Intelligence realized in a non-organic, technological substrate, potentially free from biological constraints.