vector guerrillas

More Saffo_ science to technology

2008-01-30T22:26:00.000+11:00

Saffo charts the transcending of sciences into technolgies in an interesting if not very simplified diagram. Links these changes to a 30 year cycle. We have just entered by this estimate the bio age, who would disagree, yet we in architecture at least remain fairly fixated on the machinic. I'm thinking there is an argument to be made here about a "disciplinary lag" that puts architecture's innate conservatism at a 30 yr handicap.
see http://www.saffo.com/idea3.php
So while we are all getting off on computational this and algorithmic that, the rest of the world is investing in a completely new bio regime. Are we 30 yrs too late? or does this mean in 2050, we'll be waking up to biotech materials, organizational paradigms etc, which means todays bio tech is tomorrow's architecture. //// think about that....

you gotta feel the terror

2008-01-30T22:25:00.000+11:00

Great to see Gerard joining the fray, but I should say it was the in-laws, suburbanites through and through that put me onto the terror article. Its only now I'm reading the pulse of the nation.

from the Saffo Journal...

2008-01-30T22:18:00.000+11:00

But what a very odd race, for it so neatly captures this moment of profound uncertainty. Dicken’s famous opener, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” barely begins to capture the schizophrenia behind this improbable race to $850. Times are great, and Google is leading a nervously bullish market upwards. Times are terrible and that is fueling goldbug fever, driving gold into the stratosphere.

And meanwhile, the compass is spinning wildly, pointing in all directions: The Dollar is at a historic low against the Euro (a bad thing), but unemployment also is down (a good thing). Crude prices closed today at a record $94.53 and surely will cross $100 in the near future. Such a price was forecast to be apocalyptic for the US economy, but so far at least the race-up hasn’t seemed to hurt economic growth, which has rebounded a bit compared to earlier this year. The mortgage market is in meltdown, consumer confidence is at a two year low, and yet Apple can’t make iPods and iPhones fast enough to meet demand. The Iraq war is a gathering but still distant disaster.

In short, change is clustering at the schizophrenic extremes. And as a forecaster, I know that when change clusters at the extremes, it is a powerful indicator that much more fundamental change lies ahead. Listen carefully and one can hear the doppler whistle of something approaching and it isn’t merely the hubub over the rising price of Google -- or gold.

get too http://www.saffo.com/journal/entry.php?id=830 for the full text.

drawing

2008-01-29T23:26:00.000+11:00

first i have to say it is disturbing to get onto this blog only to find that ant is reading the telegraph.

the issue of drawing is an interesting one. its also the most contentious proposition i would argue out of ant's list - the other things re google etc do seem quite clear, but the role of the architect is more troubling i think. i am not saying it is wrong, it is just more speculative. the question then would be how much do you need to make this point to prove your point?

notwithstanding the above, i think the bill viola reference is a good one (this exhibition came to oz too) and i am certainly convinced that an argument against printed representations in favour of digital representations with some embedded intelligence is a good angle. these images are also almost always more beautiful on the screen than when printed anyway.

how the west became a workers paradise

2008-01-28T11:38:00.000+11:00

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23092446-5001031,00.html

article from Daily Telegraphy 23/0/08
I'll scan it and post tomorrow.

the feeds_ extended representation_ a rant

2008-01-26T03:31:00.000+11:00

After our meeting at Terroir today, the nature of representation comes back into question as a key question for our city vision. Not so much what is our critical vision, but how will we see critically in 2050. We speculated on the possibility of slowly evolving animated/filmed posters, some thing like a cross between slow cinematography and a gursky image. Think of a evolving or unfolding image. Also reminds me now that I think about it of a beautiful Bill Viola exhibition I saw in LA at the Getty called the Passions. Portraits of people presented mostly in portrait hung flat panel monitors maybe 60" high, with a super slow unfolding of emotions playing out across the subjects face. Titles that linked the subjects to biblical scenes, and the slow change of mood on a persons body from tranquility to anger.
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/viola/
probably worth watching the short film on the exhibition pages on Viola talking about his work in this series.

So we have an initial set now of animated panels to produce. I think we need to speak to the Customs house people and get four large LCD monitors mounted like A1 panels in the line up. Not submit still's but submit four looping videos/photograph/animation/collage/info panels.

So thinking about this a little more as I cant sleep and I'm not thinking terribly clearly but...

I start thinking about what we are really presenting in 2050. How will we represent and what will we represent.

The Feeds
2050 architects no longer draw. The drawing itself is a fine art, something of a craft, architects dont draw. Rather architects manipulate symbols, and organize flows. Drawings in 2050 are calculations, algorithms continuously updating and feeding from live "public" and specialist information flows that have different levels of professional access, much the same as military grade GPS information now vs public information. Its a question of access and resolution (fidelity). Architects will have a level 3 access. So we construct simulations based on organization of flows of information, through manipulating symbolic elements which stand in for chunks of code, perhaps a bit more like the symbolic view of GC or the symbolic view of Max/MSP, which can be visualized in a host of ways, from photo real/real time to the abstractions of the flows of information themselves. There will be several main flows to tap into, all overlapping to any degree.

Bio.
Every human on the planet and off, will have their DNA mapped and stored. We will be monitored through the things we touch, and the chemicals we take. Our bio-states (bio histories and bio futures) will be the next big flow of real time information that we began mapping in 2008 (the first 1000 people have their entire DNA mapped) (see the link http://www.1000genomes.org/ ) each newborn has their DNA taken at birth while the rest of us get updated into the system whenever we pass through a security barrier http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23385864-details/EU+police+will+access+our+DNA+database/article.do The real consequence of which we are only now feeling in 2050, as bio data is both temporalized and spatialized (integrated with databases of past activities and with GIS) and searchable in real time from the office or the windshield of my car. Looking at this information for groups of people is the work of demographers and also available. This is the first flow.
Geo.
An obvious one perhaps, but in 2050, Google earth will seem like a quaint pioneering moment when access to the GIS became feasible. In 2050, the entire globe will be mapped in detail down to the mm. We will not require surveyors to do surveys, that information will be available to us in real time as overlays on any form of representation we choose to view. Surveyors will do different work, they will survey different landscapes, the physical earth will be a completed project by 2020. The impact of this is that in any photograph, video, analytical drawing etc, every level, every distance every dimension will be accessible to us. (http://www.ogleearth.com/2006/03/future_earth_ii.html) (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7083/full/440402a.html) This is the second flow.
Fin and Stat
The financial and statutory landscapes. The flow of money, loans, contracts, legal structures, bank balances, the economic health of streets, neighborhoods, shopping centers, voting districts, states, etc the color of the vote (blue, red or green) are all part of this third flow. (Cant think of a good name for this group yet). All this information again visualizable on top of a geo and bio feed make for a complex understanding of our environment. If we are browsing in our cars for a house to buy for example, it will be easy to use a color filter to overlay our view to show voting patters, and 5 yr histories of sale prices combined with current valuations of properties up and down a street, moving over your field of view as you look around. These are the next two flows.
Eco
State of the environment. Another obvious one. Linking all real time information through environmental monitoring to your desktop (windshield). This is the 5th flow.

Think of viewing these flows overlapping each other on top of your view of the world as you see it right now, (not through a screen or a window) and browsing these flows and the links the provide to the next levels of information, contacts, all that stuff. Context sensitive navigation systems linked to retinal movement (and brain activity?) will allow us to navigate through the complexity of all this. A particular way of navigating these flows and levels of access will be what defines what we think of today as a discipline.

Scale
The interesting thing about these flows is the issue of scale. Like Google earth now, you can zoom in to local high fidelity info, or link local to global flows easily. This means it will be possible to monitor for example global impact of local decisions, making our choices about say what species of timber substitute to use for the floor boards a globally conscious choice. It is questionable whether this information will give us more choice or create more opportunities for regulation. Imagine pop up warnings telling you about choices you want to make but aren't allowed to make like "sorry, your selection is illegal under the world environment court provision feg/reg/rerehh/2ddd.cet banning the use of any natural materials in new dwellings"

Another link that is great is the video artist Chris Oakley, and his work the catalogue. I have the download on my laptop but there are stills of the work at http://www.chrisoakley.com/gallery.html

This all started with the idea that we dont draw in 2050. We manipulate flows of this kind of information in order to shape simulations that run in real time. We wont be creating new simulations, we will be editing and extending (professionally hacking) existing ones, overlaying public information systems with personal, professional (as in the discipline of architecture) and business (as in my practices specific preferences and collections) databases.

So combine this with the idea of PlanSys Pty Ltd, the privatized planning company that runs the Sydney simulation and controls its connection to the GlobeSys simulation. There will be simulations of current information (ie what does a place look like right now) and then there will be a host of possible futures from these current situations that can be forecast. The intelligent planning agent will, like a global weather simulation, determine the most appropriate types of developments for any place and essentially design the default version. Morality will be embedded into the structure of the system. It will be architects jobs to manipulate and stretch the edges of this default (collectively projected) reality (common denominator reality) to make something unique. The planning AI runs on the assumption that collective intelligence will determine a publicly acceptable set of constraints, then the architect must be able to work past that type of default design position. To do this they must be able to work within the flows of information.
Our context will be networks of information. We will all be hackers.

Need to work more on this as it ties a role for architects (agency) in here to visualization and not what we will see but how we will see. The drawing will be the least helpful form of visual communication in this situation.

Walker Art center new Exhibition on Suburbia

2008-01-22T23:20:00.000+11:00

http://press.walkerart.org/release.wac?id=4159

just when you thought it was all Dubai... flavor of the month.

RISD and Maeda....

2008-01-22T23:14:00.000+11:00

Desley... common, where's the marketing team....?

http://www.risd.edu/president/index.html

finally put risd on your watch list.

the next magazine... ideas for representation #1

2008-01-22T22:47:00.000+11:00

http://www.marcuspiper.com/blank_1/

Energy Towers at the Beach and the Burbs

2008-01-22T13:56:00.000+11:00

Foreign investors (also interested in the booming tourism market) reposition Pudongesque hybrid towers in the Western Neural Energy Ring (WNER), capitalising on real estate panoramas and the privatised energy economy.

Bondi Beach morphs into the Ganges of the new Eastern Suburbs elite - the Neoindian Intelligista who emerged out of the early 00's geo-IT Revolution (Mumbai - Dehli).

planning and bold visions are back again

2008-01-21T22:47:00.000+11:00

“One of the interesting things across the board, certainly in the United States and also in the cities that the Urban Age has been travelling to, is that planning and bold visions are back again. Planning is emerging from the coma that it has been in since urban renewal. After those failures and the reactions to those failures, planning suffered a crisis of confidence in the profession and planners thought: do we really have something to say about the city? Are we trying to do too much? Can we accomplish all these things? Are we listening enough to what people want? But now, cities are again looking at physical planning as a way of re-imagining their futures, as way of mobilising actions and as way of empowerment.”

Andy Altman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, Washington D

belt sketch

2008-01-21T09:53:00.000+11:00

Monday

2008-01-21T09:50:00.001+11:00

Thanks all for the meeting on Friday.

There were a few clear things that came out of the meeting for me,

No more talk without images (sounds like advice we give to students). We need to visualize first and edit second.
We are/were being far too conservative
We agree to start on the presentation materials now, and work back to content to some degree.
The political/cultural/social framing at this point is a merry go round, we should look at one thing more deeply to focus these concerns/critiques later
We are there to promote ourselves and by extension UTS. To some degree the expectation is that we will do something overtly digital, whether we should or not was unclear.
Split on the position question. Storm the barricades (Adrian) or implicit positioning (Charles) seemed to be the two options.
No ownership. At the moment, no one is taking any ownership for a variety of reasons.

So with all this in mind, I want to put a few things to the group.

Logistics

I’m going to contact the Instiutute for Sustainable futures to have a meeting about the comp. If you are interested to join me for that conversation with them, please let me know.
I’m also going to contact Michael Hill of the Digital Animation and see if we cant get some involvement from some talented animators for the second part of the presentation (ie feb 20 to show time) If you have any ideas about who or concerns with this let me know today.
We essentially have three weeks to go till the design work is done. I’m going to put out a call for more hands to help with this.
Gerard has offered to do another review at the end of this week at his office. I think we should take him up and use it as a deadline for some imagery.

So with the clock ticking loudly, I’m going to start on this basis because it seems the most interesting to me at this point.

The distributed energy question. Buildings producing their own energy, creates re-balance of control over infrastructure, and requires that the suburbs articulate themselves into power co-op’s. This balkanizes the burbs into micro settlements of power production. Also give us a way to update the suburban image through a Neural net type of connection diagram rather than a belt (perhaps)

The reason I think this is the way to go with the design is that

it doesn’t discount any of the city as Asian safe tourist ideas that we spoke of
it has a direct architectural consequence at both a building and urban scale (we can design something now)
it does lead us into a scenario of power (control) re-distribution as a function of the green solution

I want to use the l-systems turtle script to get into the neural distribution patterns, and then develop the scenes for the A1’s. I hope to have them sketched out as a teaser by the end of the week.

A little sketch is attached for comment. Doesn’t really deal with what I’ve just written, but was the kind of belt idea. Too obviously a sci-fi we know, or is there some merit in chasing this down?

Also really recommend looking at the “we love to build” images (link on the blog) as a potential way to portray this. Also to that end, the “Terminus City” brochure that was part of the propaganda for the upcoming film “the signal” has potential as a form.

I’ll post this to the blog as well.

As always.. let me know your thoughts.

Ant

JESUS mets google

2008-01-20T15:07:00.001+11:00

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/religion-by-satellite.html

some blogs that look better than ours_ oh and they deal with arch furutres as well

2008-01-20T14:41:00.000+11:00

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/we-love-to-build.html
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/
http://io9.com/

Adrians post... ruminating the suburbs

2008-01-17T14:55:00.000+11:00

Sydney’s suburbs

(why it is not about the quality of the individual house):

Suburban is not in opposition to, but lies within a more general urban condition.
Suburban condition is conceived by the profession only as the locus of problems not of already existing value or potential
Suburbs is shorthand usually = western suburbs not the north shore for example
Profession seems to focus on the type of housing in the western suburbs, this is a false problem.

Critiques regarding ‘housing type’ serve to mask judgements on taste (and following Bourdieu therefore class) behind imperatives on ethics (energy and expenditure)
Interesting to note how language from popular interest into diet/health/weight control is appropriated by professional comentariat into discourse on McMansions/obesity/weight control eg Liz Farelly in the SMH.
Would be useful to compare life style costs versus embodied construction costs
Organisationally speaking domestic space in the inner city north shore and the west are indistinguishable with regards to their interior. Both seek to increasingly atomize their inhabitants and produce good consumers + individuals.

The actual problems that effect the suburbs are urban and infrastructure based.
Social mobility, mixing, conflict, tensions and negotiation are products of density. Low density dwelling diffuses interaction.
The suburbs are originally conceived as a withdrawal from the problems of overcrowding. Before the suburbs can be invented, an image of the city/density that is threatening must exist.

If it is not about discreet housing, then….

Globally-some optimism and confidence please

A larger problem in sydney is its failure to position itself as one of a set of regional primary cities - bankgkok, singapore, hong kong

this is an infrastructural problem: the infrastructure of public space, transport networks - road, rail and air for example and our ability to think of them at another scale - not that of sydney city (still too colonial) and not that of the olympics ( who can think at that scale).

we know there is an issue re affordable access into asia and the network strengthening this will bring.

Airports

(why it is about infrastructure)

What Sydney’s suburbs need is not architects telling them that their homes are bloated, that they lack taste/should exercise more self restraint etc….What Sydney’s suburbs need is MAJOR spending on capital works and public infrastructure

The system of secondary and tertiary European airports have revolutionised European tourism and the regional European economy. Without this system of subsidiary airports, there would be no low cost air travel and no tourism boom in Europe.

With additional airports come an entire range of benefits, an intensification in the flows of people, goods, information through a region. The mass transport and freight infrastructure that comes with new airports, additional programs, like freight distribution, management, hotels, duty free shopping, departure lounges, parking etc. (ok so this is the base line of programs that come with an airport)

Other Programs

The first question given the above is what other programs might be profitably attached to the above.

Shopping (beyond duty free)/Westfield, Health, Retirement/Golf courses/Spa (Australia could become to China what Spain is to Britain and Germany), Education (collaborative campuses, higher education one of our biggest exports, universities could share resources on one campus with individually branded degrees)

Design/Architecture

The design problem is to a large extent how we might take these different programs and collapse them into an urban condition that is complex, porous, flexible. These projects always resolve themselves into campus style business parks (see J.G Ballard Supercannes) or otherwise banal security enclaves with golf courses….the logic behind which is always suburban (diffuse/withdrawn/segregated)…how to generate an urban condition out of these aspects is an interesting design question.

This infrastructure has a multi-scalar consequence. It will address the metropolitan region, the quarter, the neighbourhood and the block

It will also have a site specificity - Bankstown (obviously) will be different than that other site to the north west the difference between the two what benefit can be leveraged through such infrastructure at multiple scales and according to the various logics of each site - and this is where the spatial argument comes in: this is where the architecture is - it's a spatial argument.

air pouultion link to DNA mutations in sperm

2008-01-15T18:41:00.000+11:00

Heres a link to a slashdot article linking mutations to DNA in sperm to air pollution.
http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/01/15/0339240.shtml

The class action could be closer than we thought.

Building life span?

2008-01-15T09:44:00.000+11:00

http://www.asiaisgreen.com/tag/green-building
has the life span of buildings in China currently at 30yrs. Has anyone got any better sources for this kind of estimate? I saw the average for teh UK is 132yrs somewhere. Also apparently there are 2 billion sqm of floor space being built every yhear in China, with a current inventory of around 40 billion.

Firday 18th Meeting and prelim presentation

2008-01-14T09:15:00.000+11:00

This Friday afternoon, (18th Jan) I would like to arrange a meeting with some friends and colleagues to go over the master narrative and get some feedback. By Friday, we'll have a reasonably tight idea of the scenario, where we are going to focus and how we are going to present in both the live veriosn and the exhibition version. I'll set something up for 3pm. let me know if you can/cant make it.
In the mean time, I'm still looking to collect all the fact fragments through this blog. Any posts welcome.

2008-01-11T10:43:00.000+11:00

"These are revolutionary times. Changes as profound as those resulting from the invention of agriculture or the domestication of wild animals are rushing us toward a new world. The human race is now poised on the brink of a new industrial revolution that will at least equal, if not far exceed, the first industrial revolution in its impact on mankind. The first industrial revolution was based on the substitution of mechanical energy for muscle power. The next industrial revolution will be based on the substitution of electronic computers for the human brain in the control of machines and industrial processes." 1976 James Albus, Peoples Capitalism, The Economics of the robot revolution, full text at
http://www.peoplescapitalism.org/

The creative Industries

2008-01-11T10:27:00.000+11:00

2015 The migrgation of the creative classes
Not long after the migration of businesses to the belt, the costs of inner city suburban living escalates equally driving the studios, production houses and design professions usually located fringe to the CBD, to the belt environs. The beltway business development coorporation, now in direct competition with the CBD creates a fringe zone 200m deep lining much of the beltway to accomodate the creative industries. In the developing turf war, the City of Villages responds with tax incentives to stay in the center. However as most paddington, darlinghurst and surry hills terraces have been developed into boutique temporary office space and short stay accommodation, creatives flee.
By 2020, 80% of the creative industries are situated within 1km of the hub in a specially created free zone, with rents and information subsidised by adjacent beltway situated businesses. While this at first creates a huge boom in the creative industries and their relationship to business which flourishes, the first case of infrastructural blackmail occurs in 2032 when the SSE sector 4 creative zone is denied access to data feeds for not providing enough market ready content to its host. Anoutgrowth of creative and research grant contracts such as CRC's common in the 2010's this requirement to provide creative content that is developable or marketable is finally challenged and linked to an environmental access. Considered an issue of law, the matter is taken up by the high court of Australia, now located in Geneva at the centralized international law institute, a united nations style location for all countries who prescirbe to international law practices formulated in 2015.

health and the environment 2050

2008-01-11T10:13:00.000+11:00

2020
Vital signs pty ltd, a company first formed to provide home medical attention for the elderly living alone, incoroprates 24/7 vital signs monitoring technology deveoped through the NASA space program to monitor astronauts health while in flight. The appication at first seems benign, however, Vital Signs soon realize there is a market for concerned parents who want to keep track of their childrens health 24/7 and so start marketing to kindergartens and preschools. The Vital Signs measures heart rate, galvanic response (stress indicator), blood pressure and blood chemistry, and lung capacity linked to air quality. Parents now able to monitor their kids all day, are able to log into the child care video feeds when any of their childrens vital signs are aroused or abnormal. This has the effect that any playground conflict can be dealt with almost before it happens.
Another consequence is that air quality linked to lung capacity and cardio vascular performance becomes an issue. parent start selecting kindergartens that provide air purification technology within the school precinct, and charge a premium for this environmental conditioning which extends to the playground.
2025
health insurance companies mandate the installation of teh vital signs technolgoy for all insured clients, and calculates their health insurance costs based on an minute by minute dynamic risk assessment calculation, and charged to the clients monthly or quarterly like a phone bill. It doesnt take long for the first class action law suit over environmental air quality and costs to take place in the work place. The suit between the people vs the ABC national broadcaster is for extra and continuing costs associated with purity of air in and adjacent to the work place provided by the employer. Claimants want insurance compensation for costs of premiums while the defendant claims they cannot provide a 100% pure environment. Case goes to SMS vote after the scheduled public media trial week and the people vote in favor of the claimants. This sets a new standard for all interior and adjacent spaces to buildings in the belt which now must provide certified clean feeds to offset insurance costs.
In a switch from the user pays environment, this is the first vitctory for the people. However environmental tolls increase dramaticvally as the costs of such technologies is implemented and passed on to the residents.

Ricky Burdett and Urban Age

2008-01-09T21:39:00.000+11:00

Ricky Burdett's work on cities might be worth looking at in terms of statistics and issues of growth. He curated the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale, which took this kind of approach (I have the catalogue in my office). I think what it means is that we need to become more au fait with the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

http://www.urban-age.net/

collecting factoids and fragments

2008-01-09T12:13:00.001+11:00

I'd like everyone to collect and post here references and links here on the blog that we can use in the construction of our hyper-narrative.

I'm thinking we'll be presenting the "story" while facts from pop press, science etc as well as our own graphs and animations etc are presented as support matieral in conjunction with some (absolutely stunning) visualizations. An ideal form for us to discuss for the exhibition and presentations might be a narrated series of micro-narrative outtakes from the main narrative line, supported by links to the actual articles. As a web based interactive page, this would be very convincing and open the science fiction of the narrative to the larger issues and trends that we are critiquing. The final blend of panels, projections and interactions we obviously need to discuss. I'm constructing a master narrative at the moment, which just organizes the main points within the cascading implications that drive the narrative. The master is just dates and a short sentence describing the fact/fiction, but it will be the organizing spine of this scenario building.

Interestingly (or perhaps not really) reading about intelligence, some of the best definitions of intelligence from Neurophysiologists and AI experts alike state intelligence is the capacity for prediction based on historical patterns and trends embedded in the neural net wiring of the neocortex, involving more system feedback than feedforward...

BT futurologist Ian Pearson

2008-01-09T12:09:00.000+11:00

For a range of trend spotting issues, Ian Pearson who works for BT has posted these little gems. Take a look at the Architect version... not very inspiring although we are to get a better professional lot in the future than now, but compared to the other ideas (three on Air I've not read yet) .....
http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.pearson/docindex.htm

Environmental Economy

2008-01-07T15:50:00.000+11:00

The consequence of Anthony's 2050 scenario is a shift in the concept, and economy, of the environment. Coroporations largely solve the provision of energy and basic services through privatisation. The result is that a clean and healthy 'environment' is no longer considered a basic human right, but something that is user-paid. Given that you cannot avoid using the environment (breathing literally costs money in 2050), you have to choose the level of access and quality you want (or can afford). Think of the American health care system. Naturally inside the silver rim you have access to the best air quality, etc., but along with that the best range of leisure activities and lifestyle experiences (or what are advertised as such). What we are seeing here is the breakdown of distinction between the environment as a supposedly natural condition (air, trees, sunshine, greenery), and leisure experiences that are enjoyed within the environment. It doesn't just 'happen' to be a nice day for a picnic, rather one decides to pay for that environmental experience. In 2050, picnics are retro chic, because trees above and grass below are considered 'decor' ('the natural' is in right now), just like marble bars and designer chairs. There is no escaping this economy. In the picnic scenario, you won't be charged by someone standing at a gate (as if the option would be to stay just outside the park and have a picnic where it is free, but still a nice day). Rather, you will be charged anyway according to your physical location (a nod to Adrian's concept of retinal charging in his 2030 vision scenario). The whole of Sydney is a chargeable zone, with a pricing gradient calculated per square metre. Simply being somewhere on a nice day will cost you money (discounts are automatically given for overcast conditions. When it rains, be sure the working classes are on their way in for a bit of cheap, slightly damp city fun - though if Blade Runner is correct, that could be all of the time). As a consequence, being indoors (potentially even in your own home - a quaint concept if ever there was one) suddenly goes up in price.

By becoming a part of a user-pays system, the environment now covers 'natural' and 'artificial', indoors and outdoors. GPS-based devices will calculate where it is most economical to be at any point in time, and for how long, as well as what the perceived qualities of particlar place/experience packages are. (A 'weather futures' market quickly springs up in this economy. The Weather Channel becomes a more important source of financial information than Bloombergs).

We need to think about what the design scenarios are for this condition. They would cover very small-scale environments (i.e. how do you design for different sorts of 'chargeable' atmospheres within a very contained environment where the euros and the californians meet and have to work together, but can't afford [or don't want to descend] to paying for the same environmental condition), as well as large-scale ones, i.e. the whole of the city is a chargeable environment, but how do you tweak the environmental qualities of particular places from an architectural point of view?

We should also be aware of issues such as design's complicity and resistance in such scenarios.

Euro's vs Californians

2008-01-07T10:19:00.000+11:00

See below first, then...
Maybe the inner and outer become the "Euros" and the "Californians" respectively... Sydney a true blend of two competing world views in a city, meeting in the belt.
Architects work almost exclusively in the inner belt for the Euro's, predominacne fo mannered white and beige modernism on established blocks. When architects do work in the outer belt, its "masterplanning" or "urban planning", or habitat for humanity community style to save (educate) the (not the poor) popularists from themselves.

Question, does the belt suffer from a Dubai type style war? or is it predictably sydney and restrained and commercially affrodable design only... Glamour houses are for the inner only. (could we do a survey of the last 6 editions of AR, AA and Inside to see where the projects are all located relative to inner and outer. Might be good enough to make the case for the elite production of architecture in Australia... at least enough for this...)

Whites and Bllues dont read style magazines except for womans day which doesnt include architecture, so they dont care about it. Rather they are too busy working to pay off mobile phone plans (or the next thing) slaves to their technologies. (i recall there is a figure about the amount a household used to pay for communcations technology which has exploded in the last decade with the costs of DLS, Cable and fox etc... could we find this and use it as the technology dependance that keep the outer belt under control?)

2050 scenario 1

2008-01-07T08:59:00.001+11:00

Scenario 1
The Sydney City, after taking Jahn Glhs advice seriously proceeds to build a city of villages, a plan implemented over the course of 10 years of infrastructure upgrades, rennovations and beautification. The ostensibly greener, friendlier, less traffic congested city is now a wonderful tourist destination and raises its place on the globes most beautiful cities to visit register 1 place, now ranking third behind Singapore (who's authoritarian government have cracked down on residents found walking around and not smiling with a Jail term of 3 months under the slogan "people make a city beautiful") and blah blah, a completely new town created 100km away from the mega hub of Dubai on the arabian coast as an answer to the forest of "me too" towers that now have grown to be 5 times as big as manhattan and nearly completing Frank Lloyd Wrights vision, in as much faithful detail as possible, mile high tower. A combination of Nostalgia, technology and power.
Back to Sydney. While the architects wet dream of a completely designed city is realized and controlled to the nth detail (Sydney's interior decoration) is realized to the applause of the masses, locals find they cant afford the entry price and head to the central and southern coasts for their leisure. More importantly as a consequence of the city of villages, all offices not directly serving tourists or traveling clients move to the outter ring of sydney's office park belt en-mass leaving behind office "front doors" or "shop fronts". Remarkably, in a follow on effect, while the working life of the city emigrates, the traffic is so relieved many believe this was the reason for the up in scale on the beautiful city competition. Modern offices requiring acres of floor space, ground transport accessibility not available in the city, and massive and continual infrastructure upgrades, especially data and power, find it impossible to live survive in the greener pastures of the beautiful CBD.
The trend started in the early millenium, and reached a fever pitch for land grabs in 2010 after the Gehls plan was written into law, and corporations (those evil monely making machines that support most peoples superannuation packages) saw the writting on the wall, and started to buy up all available land around the 15km zone (15km from the city center) taking in Ryde, Parramatta to the west, Brighton le Sands, Kingsgrove to the south and Brookvale, Chatswood and Belrose in the North. This was largely predicated in the 2030 plan for Sydney, however the scale of the exodus and the amount of required floor space in those areas was so drastically under estaimated that noone was prepared, and the coorporations and developers ran riot for more than a decade between 2005 and 2015.
This has several consequences, the first was that a series of Ryde Tunnel type moves were made to link the airport and the city to the belt. This meant the residential areas within the belt were bypassed for development, and became the extension of the beautiful city, encapsulated within the vision and entombed in a beige brick render vision, the largerst gated community in the world, so expensive to live there only coorporations or the super rich could affird to buy here. Thus the executive dormitories were created. Second, the birth of the new super hubs were not connected by rail, so road infrastructure was doubled on the belt ring through a system of double decker expressways, that served to keep the traffic flowing and to inscibe the barrier between inner and outer belt. The third was the demand for commercial space was so rapid, the height restrictions based on yr 2000 residential standards was rasied through a popular vote hosted by channel 9 and voted on by cell phone under the first of many popular referedums which happened after cell phone security company (owned by Murdoch) guarenteeed democartic processes (one number one vote) for an insurance sum pegged to the gross domestic export for Sydney.
The height limits while agreed on in principal, took much longer to implement and draft into working plans, such that all planning, building permits etc was privatized to Landvision Systems Pty Ltd who claimed to be able to make popular voting a part of the approvals process and instantaneous with lodgment of any scheme. As a result, the height restrictions were quickly removed, to be reimplemented on a case by case basis, with companies now taking to public prime time and SMS commercials to win approval votes. Hence large players like NAB after having only moved to Ryde in 2000, were able to secure the first 100 storey tower in Ryde to replace their old premises, completed in 2036.
And so it goes on, towers began to populated the belt, known officially as the employment belt, but colloquially as the "silver rim". In 2016, when energy producing facae systems became commercially available, utilizing the Hairy Building or Micro-energy harvesting facades technolgoes developed by UTS architecture future industries, green became the old black. Energy emmisions and carbon footprints evaporated as an issue and all buildings were capable of producing and recycling all power and waste. This was partly also because drawing from the large power companies had become so costly, a fully distributed power production and recycling local market had spontaneously emerged only much later being managed by the local power distribution collectives council (lpdcc), which by 2050 had become the most powerful collection of individuals in the country, determining who, when and where power would be distributed and in wha amounts relative to excess output from contributing cooproate headquarters (more facade, more power production).
All the while, the people of Sydney had unofficially created their own caste system. The executive living in the inner belt, the blues and the whites, who worked in the rim, but lived on the outer, venturing in for special occassions (birthdays, anniversaries etc) and sending back realtime flickr vids for the family.

This is Sydney 2050....

2008-01-06T20:35:00.000+11:00

No one goes to the suburbs for a holiday...

Ni hao Vector Guerillas+++

2008-01-06T17:28:00.000+11:00

all this in from JO J...

Ni hao Vector Guerillas+++

The first meeting was a great start - Esan, Ant, Charles, Jo J contributing

1. The Attack
Some group decisions made:
- aggressive productivity - we are designing from the beginning
- the outcome willbe 'a design' - even if this is the design of a typology etc. - we are not working only with statistics etc.
- we are having fun - making something out of this opportunity that fulfills our design interests
- we are following the vector projection - that is, taking a computational approach that builds on the canberra project, enabling us to build an 'ourve' of such urban propositions.
- (Others - can you add to this list and re-send to all? - sorry I have come away without those notes)

2. The Schedule
We are all away for a week here and there, but can keep the intensity transferring. There are 2 main phases of work:
Part 1 - Design + Production of boards - 6 Jan to 20 Feb (6 weeks as below)
Week 6: 6/1- 12 /1 - Jo J away - meeting to be announced by Ant.
Week 5: 13/1 - 19/1
Week 4: 20/1 - 26/1 - Charles away
Week 3: 27/1 - 2/2
Week 2: 3/2 - 9/2 - Ant away
Week 1: 10/2 - 16/2 --> Boards are posted to National RAIA Part 2 - Post-analysis + Presentation production - 24 Feb to 14 April (approx 6 weeks).
During the second phase we can also work on publishing this and the Canberra project together.

Sandra - thanks for your support and good luck with that exhibition!

Ant - can you continue from here with some instructions on how we are proceeding in the coming week.

Best to all (from taiwan!)
Shie shie
Jo

2008-01-05T10:34:00.000+11:00

Chris Hight article

2008-01-05T10:32:00.001+11:00

http://www.offshorestudio.net/Hight_interiority.pdf

First meeting

2008-01-05T10:01:00.000+11:00

The first meeting for the City Visions happened yesterday with Esan, Jo, Charles and I in attendance. A broad ranging discussion, Jo J will post the minutes soon. In the mean time some references that came up (see below).

We decided a few things, like, we arent interested in extensive data mining and geographers work, we want to design something.
We are all so spread thin, that maybe a research team (Jo J) and a design team (AB) would be a good way to start on two tracks and get things moving.
We thought, given our geographic dispersion, the blog should be our point of reference for all info like last comp.
We all thought we should continue the thinking of the last comp, and were all most excited by scripting and forms of algorithmic processes which we should work with again. This time with more focus.
We all mentioned the idea of accepting a few "future positions" from other sources, and just working to them as an option.
Also, the idea of working on a few of these simultaneously (4 panels/4 ideas)

In the meantime, here are a few references that came up;

-Michael Batty, Cities and Complexity; Understanding Cities with Cellular Automata, Agent based Models, and Fractals (MIT Press, Cam, Mass) 2007
(Charles mentioned Adrian has this, I got a copy yesterday as well)
-Ray Kurweil, The singularity is near, ?? (future predictions, man and thinking machines... bit of a fruit loop but could be good)
-BT futurology department (ha!) Cant find the white paper I read, must have been in 2004, but found this link http://www.btplc.com/Innovation/News/timeline/
-Chris Hight's article from JAE, (thanks Charles), I'll post it at offshore and send the link around
-Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia; Greenfields and Urban Growth,1820-2000 (Pub?) 2003

Also, an Article in metropolis points to the recent arguments between Developer types defending the suburbs, and the anti-suburbs movement (ie the densify or die) sustainability mob called Sprawl Brawl, http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=2937

If anyone is having trouble posting to the blog, let me know.

2008-01-02T16:08:00.000+11:00

You've read the brief so...

q1. What's wrong with Suburbia anyway?

notice the blog redecorating? New project, new space. Like changing the office furniture and giving the place a coat of paint, but much cheaper. The height of blogger fashion.

2008-01-02T16:05:00.000+11:00

CITY VISION - start

One of the defining features of fascism is the notion of a normalized hierarchy which deviant members of society threaten.

2007-05-17T15:10:00.000+10:00

“[I]t may be that it is then no longer “nature” (stability, continuity, identity) that is universal but deviance (contingency, catastrophe, mutation), with normality arising as a special case of deviance, a doubly-deviant deviance if you like.”

Everything is Natural: Nature and Fascism II

January 27th, 2007

According to Neocleous “the concept ‘nature’ is, of course, deeply problematical” and “an empty vessel to be filled with whatever meaning is politically expedient”. The context for this is not nature “within fascism” but necessarily in itself. That is to say, Neocleous doesn’t see nature as a concept that can be negotiated, but that holds within it an already reactionary character. It seems the main mistake that fascism makes in regard to nature is to think of it as a subject in itself. For Neocleous nature is culturally constructed and thus a kind of artifice attached to human subjectivity. This goes so far as to cause Neocleous to take a negative view towards political ecology and one can almost say he sees being anti-ecological as being on par with an anti-fascist position. He claims that green groups and philosophies, like Deep Ecology (with which I too have issues, though in a different register), make the same mistake concerning nature (that it is a subject in itself) and even aside from that totalitarian political structures would be necessary to carry out the environmental changes necessary.

It is strange, even uncanny, to note how agreeable Nazi and Italian fascist rhetoric is with current ‘green politics’. The projects undertaken within the individual nations, while certainly not being able to stand up to current environmental demands, were far more attentive to creating cultural artifice (i.e. roads) that worked ascetically with the natural environment than even current standards. Of course it would be pure farce for neo-fascist groups, like the American Nazi Green party, to claim a true historical backing for green politics as the war machine fostered within historical fascism and rapid industrialization were environmentally destructive on a massive scale. Yet, Neocleous takes this rhetoric and, oddly, believes it. He seems to believe that fascism has some kind of material concern for nature other than the way it can be used to give weight to the myth of the nation. This trust in the rhetoric completely contradicts his emphasis on ‘positive analysis’ and ‘history’. (Full disclosure - the Latin nasci - to be born - is the root of both nation and nature. Still, I don’t see Neocleous claiming that birth is a necessarily fascist concept. This plays an important role in Lawlor’s book as well, though in a very different direction.)

A new philosophy of nature, especially a vitalist one, must begin by acknowledging that everything is natural. Everything that exists, be it organic and inorganic, is by definition natural. This implies a political and ecological ontology arising out of Spinoza’s metaphysics. Deleuze tells us that Spinoza begins with God to be done with God as quickly as possible. Since the Spinozist equivocation is ‘God or Nature’ one may also say that Spinoza begins with nature to move past it. Not that Deleuze’s reading is completely correct here, as if Spinoza’s Ethics was not pious to God or Nature, rather what Spinoza does is avoid theological quibbling. He gives God or Nature the simplest definition and moves from that truth inward. One of the most obvious implications of this thesis is that, if whatever happens is God’s will (or an outworking from some law of nature), then there is no good or evil from that higher perspective. Since God is perfect we are left in the position of Job crying violence but being made to answer who we are in the face of that impersonal power. A political ecology beginning with this insight may move past the fascist determination of nature. Rather than naming oppressive structures as natural, which fascism did with regard to women and childbirth, a Spinozist pan-naturalism names all the so called deviant behaviours natural as well. Artifice and nature are not mutually exclusive and indeed we have neither without the other, naming a kind of cultural dialectic imposed upon a univocal substance.

Of course, this answers very little, only begins to move toward a non-fascist ontology of nature. From there we must modify St. Paul and say that “Everything is natural, but not everything is beneficial.” In Spinozist terms this ontology is only the beginning of a non-fascist ethics. From here it seems helpful to look again at Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus as both a handbook for non-fascist living and a lengthy prolegomena to any new philosophy of nature or philosophy of life – both together: a new vitalist philosophy.

http://itself.wordpress.com/tag/ecology/

2007-05-17T14:46:00.000+10:00

monstrous landscapes

2007-05-17T14:02:00.000+10:00

"The vast majority of theoretical trajectories through animal space give rise to impossible monsters"
Richard Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker pp90

2007-05-17T13:01:00.000+10:00

aero plane

2007-05-17T12:47:00.000+10:00

ground plane

2007-05-16T23:35:00.000+10:00

its a bird, its a plane

2007-05-16T21:36:00.000+10:00

2007-05-15T17:10:00.000+10:00

turtles + program + adrian's shit hot model = ???

programmatic evolution 01

2007-05-15T14:45:00.000+10:00

these are the earliest look at how to evolve program simultaneously with the landscape evolution, so that both the form and the programming of the site will be in a perpetual state of symbiotic evolution.

1 Zones are established on the site relating to the program as it has evolved until now, with our new program added appropriately - excluding the museum.

2 The new nodes as established from Ash's early diagramming are then introduced, as nodes for the next generation in the evolution. These will inform the types of hybrid programs that emerge.

3 The third step is to overlay Adrian's model on these new nodes, and from here we hope to find how the museum of economic succession informs this program...
more to come...

giant lilypads

2007-05-15T10:04:00.000+10:00

parametric model of speciation barriers

2007-05-15T09:39:00.000+10:00

MORE LOFTING IMAGES

2007-05-14T15:28:00.000+10:00

These three images show the lofted area from the axis to the eastern side

SEM Images

2007-05-10T18:16:00.000+10:00

MES CANBERRA

2007-05-08T23:03:00.000+10:00

tests for the combo.

Mitochondrion

2007-05-08T12:55:00.000+10:00

Skeleton phylogeny of human mtDNA [above]

s:http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/~vincent/

cellular accretion by Nuno

2007-05-07T15:33:00.000+10:00

The following are models made by Nuno in an investigation of developing a cell, and subsequent cellular accretion to generate form. The cell was not derived from the Canberra site, but gives an idea of how we might use such a system.

Cell 1

Cell 2

Accretion of Cells

tracing the turtle

2007-05-07T15:10:00.000+10:00

These are simple models from the turtle script, following the paths of each turtle with planes to generate connections, overlaps & traces across the site.

The latest script doesn't overlap itself as much as former iterations, so the traces have less interaction and overlay with each other, although there are moments of this nearer to the nodes.

Few Quick renders

2007-05-03T14:13:00.000+10:00

These are some early images of the formal development of the line work.

Departmental Kings of Nature

2007-05-03T10:18:00.000+10:00

Epigenesis

2007-04-30T16:58:00.000+10:00

As I am tring to pin down my research topic for design I am coming across some things relevant to the comp.

http://www.verostko.com/st/r5-det.html

this looks like some of the turtle studies.

finch

2007-04-27T17:48:00.000+10:00

new tech see below
http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/plasma/index.htm

Deforming a Surface

2007-04-24T22:31:00.000+10:00

source:
http://www.christianhubert.com/hypertext/Epigenesis_Preformation.html

Just wondering [when i should be in class] whether this image describes our project as the construction lines deforming and eroding the surface as it moves above it, ie deleting and holding on to certain triangles as they touch so that there is overlapping and openings...which we are trying to get manually at the moment. The lines remain as lines the surface [jo's] stays a surface.

images sent

2007-04-24T16:21:00.000+10:00

Just to be as up front about it as possible, I sent the image below to the RAIA as some possible promotional material for a talk I am giving on the 22nd May, "From animation to fabrication". I am thinking I'd like to talk about the work from the comp in one section of the talk. The credit I requested was the UTS comp team, which I will ammend to include the "Vector Guerillas". I think we should all have free use of the material, just make sure to credit the whole team for all images and let everyone know when an image is being used. If anyone is uncomfortable with this just let me know and we should all revisit the issue of intellectual property and use rights if we need to, or I can simply pull the image now.

Speciation

2007-04-24T10:52:00.000+10:00

Mechanisms for speciation suggest ways of differentiating a territory
(definitions from Wikipedia)

Program...

2007-04-23T17:44:00.000+10:00

Net of life

2007-04-23T13:10:00.002+10:00

The net of life: Reconstructing the microbial
phylogenetic network
Victor Kunin,1 Leon Goldovsky, Nikos Darzentas, and Christos A. Ouzounis2
Computational Genomics Group, The European Bioinformatics Institute, EMBL Cambridge Outstation,
Cambridge CB10 1SD, United Kingdom

Figure 3. Three-dimensional representation of the net of life. The tree backbone was generated by using the average gene similarity approach (see
Methods). The root is represented as a yellow sphere. Bacteria are shown as nodes on cyan branches; Archaea, as nodes on green branches. Red lines
correspond to the vines representing HGT. The radius of the nodes is proportional to the estimated gene content size (in terms of number of gene
families). Also, the widths of both the vertical inheritance branches and the horizontal inheritance vines correspond to the numbers of gene families
transferred by either mechanism. For visualization purposes, only values for HGT vine width >30 are shown. Certain key species and taxa are labeled;
for full names, please refer to Supplemental material.

Contour Patterning

2007-04-16T14:29:00.000+10:00

Beach Erosion Pattern

2007-04-16T14:27:00.000+10:00

Soil Diagram

2007-04-16T14:18:00.000+10:00

modified brancing angles in MEL

2007-04-13T12:28:00.000+10:00

triangulated L-systems

2007-04-11T09:59:00.000+10:00

This is perhaps a solution for integrate an l-systems network with a site breakdown

Asian Scripts & Graphic Diagrams?

2007-04-11T09:53:00.000+10:00

Gradients 'n Graphics

//---change $pos/$neg to get the different angles etc.
//---change $branches for the lengths of the individual
//brances.
$branch = 15;

$i = 0;
// LOOP

while ($i <$branch){

$j = 15;

$k = $j;

// ANGLE is between $pos / $neg,

$pos = 85;

$neg = -85;

$turn = rand($neg,$pos);

$mlength = rand(8,25);

// Length is RANDOM every time in the LOOP

$move = $mlength;

$line= aa_turtle_newturtle("LINE");

while ($j > 1){

$position = aa_turtle_getPosition($line);

aa_turtle_setPosition($line,<<$position[0],$position[1],$position[2]>>);

aa_turtle_turn($line, $turn,0);

aa_turtle_move($line,$move);

//test if the position is NOT inside of any of the cubes in the test group

if(aa_isInsideGroup("pCube",$position[0],$position[1],$position[2]) == 0){

aa_turtle_getPosition($line);

polyCube;

// scale 3 3 3;

move $position[0] $position[1] $position[2];

}

$j--;

}

$i++;

}

$branch = 1; // NUM of individual branches
$k = 0;
// LOOP
while ($k <$branch){ $l = 15; // parts to a branch $m = $l; // Draw a spline $line2= aa_turtle_newturtle("LINE"); // LOOP [x] times while ($l > 1){
// ANGLE is between $pos / $neg,
$pos = 45;
$neg = -45;
$turn = rand($neg,$pos);
// Length is RANDOM every time in the LOOP
$mlength = rand(8,25);
$move = $mlength;

$position = aa_turtle_getPosition($line2);
aa_turtle_setPosition($line2,<<$position[0],$position[1],$position[2]>>);
aa_turtle_turn($line2, $turn,0);
aa_turtle_move($line2,$move);

// Test if the position is NOT inside of any of the cubes in the test group
if(aa_isInsideGroup("pCube",$position[0],$position[1],$position[2]) == 0){
aa_turtle_getPosition($line2);

// Draw a cube every time in the loop - not required
polyCube;
// scale 3 3 3;
move $position[0] $position[1] $position[2];

$l--;
}
$k++;
}
}

//Post comments if these scripts do not work I have tried them
//on Maya 7 and 8 and it worked.

extrudeinary

2007-04-11T09:44:00.001+10:00

I was extruding some different profiles along Esans networks. These can be interpreted as structural systems, pathways, floorplates etc. depending on the type off profiles used and the scales of application.

Snowflake Nodes

2007-04-11T09:14:00.000+10:00

image source: http://www.wikipov.org/ow.asp?Snowflakes

The node points that we are looking at as 'points' could have unique geometries of their own - based on their function or what they represent. This would mean a greater level of complexity in the overall triangulated geometries. This might not be incorporated in the script but might be worth exploring [or not].

Everyone must try this once...go this web-page and draw some snowflakes,
http://neil.fraser.name/news/2004/12/18/

Everyone must try this once...go this web-page and draw some snowflakes,
http://neil.fraser.name/news/2004/12/18/

2007-04-10T10:02:00.000+10:00

Site as river delta

2007-04-09T13:31:00.000+10:00

'Formless.- A dictionary would begin as of the moment when it no longer provided the meanings of the words but their tasks. In this way formless is not only an adjective having such and such a meaning, but a term serving to declassify, requiring in general that every thing should have a form. What it designates does not, in any sense whatever, possess rights, and everywhere gets crushed like a spider or an earthworm. For academics to be satisfied, it would be necessary, in effect, for the universe to take on a form. The whole of philosophy has no other aim; it is a question of fitting what exists into a frock coat, a mathematical frock-coat. To affirm on the contrary that the universe resembles nothing at all and is only formless, amounts to saying that the universe is something akin to a spider or a gob of spittle."- Georges Bataille

In response to the general question of starting geometries; I am wondering what it would mean to start with a non-geometric geometry, something improper and unstable...a blur not a solid, a stain and not a mandala- the figure of christ on burnt toast contra the crucifix!
to this end, some early experiments with using a mixed 2d proceedural map as a displacement modeifier on the site.

The Emergent Paradigm Shift

2007-04-03T21:00:00.000+10:00

Jo J suggested that we should contribute as much original material as possible to this blog, and while the ideas are fresh - before they mature too much. So, I am attaching a manifesto I did a couple of weeks ago, which looks at why I think this is an important direction to be taking in architecture. I'm continuing to research this topic, to flesh it out, and will put more stuff up on this blog if you are interested - apologies to those who have already read this!

Jo K

The Emergent Paradigm Shift

Architecture has moved on from the iconic object. Theoretical and technological progress with networks and computational complexity theory[1], have enabled a new trajectory for architects: the organisational. Information and research become the currency of this new practice, where the architect organises the networks of interactions to generate an endogenous, or emergent, response.

“We are within the horizon of a systemic change, from the decision and production of individual ‘signature’ buildings to an ecology in which evolutionary designs have sufficient intelligence to adapt and to communicate, and from which intelligent cities will emerge.”[2]

If the architectural context is conceived of as a tapestry or a field of interconnectivity,[3] then architecture exists and emerges from complex networks of interactions and effects, from which it must be derived, comprised and evolved.

Intelligent and rigorous research methods must be employed to extract the interactive characteristics which constitute the system, and which allow the project to evolve as an intrinsic element within the network. In this milieu, research is requisite. The focus has shifted from the built outcome, to the trajectories of research which are “marked by built moments.”[4]

The compelling field of emergent architecture provides one of the most dynamic and exciting directions for design research, dealing with the concepts of evolution, adaptation and natural selection in natural organisms. Emergence interrogates the response of the organism to the multi-parametric frameworks of environmental forces, to reveal something about the systems by which they develop a single solution to multiple problems, within the limitations of genetic potential (or material). Evolution tends to favour solutions with maximal advantage and minimum contribution of energy, making this the study of efficient system development.[5] This is the importance of emergence: Architecture becomes an evolutionary process which produces a better-adapted, more resourceful system, with the potential for continual dynamic adaptation post-occupancy.

Interrogating the efficient, adaptable systems of nature has merit for architecture, although there are limitations to their application. We can not grow buildings in the same way that organisms grow in nature, and nature’s apparatus are often beyond the scope of the architect. We operate within the realm of technology, and need to develop organisational procedures that unite the technological with the natural.

“Structures of networks are based on mathematical laws, but biological and social systems exemplify these structures and formally describe the complex processes that capitalise on the evolutionary properties of a networked and collaborative intelligence.”[6]

The success of emergence requires that we ‘get it right’ at each of the research, the operational procedures, and the data partnership levels. It is critical that the research is conducted rigorously and that the data-harvesting yields meaningful information, or the premise upon which the entire subsequent system is founded loses its credibility. Likewise, it is imperative that the organisational procedures developed to then process the informational relationships within the data, are powerful and relevant. Data also operates as a partner in the entire process, so the way in which we frame and execute that partnership, the software we develop and the priorities we establish have manifest implications for the trajectory taken, and the built result. Herein lies the potential, the exhilaration, and the danger!

“The breadth of this scope is not meant to create a universally applicable material system or production strategy. Rather, it is to develop a way of working, a methodology, that can adapt to other situations (with their own inherent logics) while still incorporating an underlying philosophy of a multi-parametric, biomimetically inspired design process” [7]

Emergent design is therefore endogenous to the system, and requires the architect to be the negotiator, teasing out the priorities, the hierarchies and the goals of the system by implementation of organisational protocols, mediation and collaboration with the data, and it requires participation of the architect and the data within the network itself. This manifesto establishes a commitment to engage fully with this emergent exploration, to forming new unforeseen relationships with data, and to take my research on an unforeseen trajectory… there may even be a built moment to mark it.

Notes:
[1] As a branch of the theory of computation in computer science, computational complexity theory describes the scalability of algorithms, and the inherent difficulty in providing scalable algorithms for specific computational problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_theory
[2] Weinstock, Michael. Morphogenesis and the Mathematics of Emergence. In Hensel, M; Menges, A and Weinstock, M (Eds). Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies, Architectural Design, Vol 74, Issue 3, p17.
[3] Allen, Stan. Field Conditions. In Points and Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.
[4] Burke, Anthony. After BitTorrent: Darknets to Native Data, In Hight, Christopher and Perry, Chris. Collective Intelligence. Architectural Design, 2006, Vol 76, Issue 5, p95.
[5] http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/et/
[6] Burke, Anthony. After BitTorrent: Darknets to Native Data, p94.
[7] Andrew Kudless, MA Dissertation Abstract, EmTech Website (Architectural Association Emergent Technologies Masters Programme), http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/et/

biological vectors

2007-04-03T13:25:00.000+10:00

Image: (c) Jonathan Schull

Jonathan Schull is a biological psychologist with a longstanding interest in adaptive systems, evolutionary psychology and the spread of information through intelligent networks. See his Blog here: http://jonschull.blogspot.com

Image: (c) Jonathan Schull
The picture is a computer network rendered using the “Walrus” visualization software from CAIDA.ORG see http://www.caida.org/tools/visualization/walrus/gallery1/

Quoting from Schull's Macroscope Manifesto:
"Genes spread through gene pools as biological agents spread through populations, as messages propagate over the internet, as ideas spread through communities, as tunes spread through popular consciousness, as ideologies spread through societies. Patterns of propagation, ramification, and repetition are the warp and woof of life, mind, and culture. These patterns are usually invisible. A “macroscope” could make them visible."
Source: http://radio.weblogs.com/0104369/stories/2002/04/09/macroscope022702.htm#_edn1

Images: (c) http://imagebeat.com/dotplot/
This source: http://radio.weblogs.com/0104369/stories/2002/04/09/macroscope022702.htm#_edn1

From Dotplot: "By plotting matches and relying on the human visual system to identify patterns of squares and diagonals, dotplots reveal similarity structures in data regardless of format and in text and software regardless of language."

Source: Visual IDs
http://www.idiom.com/%7Ezilla/Work/VisualIDs/visualids.html

These 'IDs' are interesting, and could begin to be transferred into 'signatures' for the biological vectors of the Canberra site.

Image: http://ispots.mit.edu/

This is a visualisation of the pervasiveness of wireless networks on the MIT campus.

landscape partitioning scales

2007-04-03T13:10:00.000+10:00

SU 11's dune house

2007-04-03T11:09:00.000+10:00

Link to images from Craig Scotts flickr (from Iwamoto Scott Architecture)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/isar/sets/72157594289058717/

particularly interested in the Dune house from SU11, here is their website
http://www.su11.com/