"architecture as a form of artificial life, and proposing a genetic representation in a form of DNA-like code-script, which can then be subject to developmental and evolutionary processes in response to the user and the environment. The aim of an evolutionary architecture is to achieve in the built environment the symbiotic behaviour and metabolic balance found in the natural environment. To do so, it operates like an organism, in a direct analogy with the underlying design process of nature."
-An Evolutionary Architecture
john frazer
well,i still am not totally clear as to what this would mean.could any of you guys help me get this whole concept of 'evolutionary architecture' right?
mr frazer has said - in an unnecessarily complicated manner - that buildings change with people and people change with buildings and both change over time in a dynamic relationship to each other.
i fail to see the architectural implications of his statement because these things will happen to all people and all buildings whether the buildings' design takes it into account or not.
Its an interesting proposition, to make an architecture that responds and adapts over time to match new users and environmental concerns. Oh wait we already have that and its called renovation. Is he talking about architecture that evolves on its own, without human involvement?
my junior high school was infested with black mold. lowest rate of attendance in the whole district on account of kids getting sick. we all stank of rotting drywall.
that building was living inside me. when i went to high school it got all better. and five years later i was working on the renovation of the junior high school.
my father-in-law still has some of one of his past apartments living inside of him: he ended up with toxic mold syndrome.
the neurological difficulties have subsided over the past five years, but he's still got some respiratory difficulty and can no longer use oil paints. (he's an artist.)
he's been told that some of the mold that took up residence in his sinuses may stay forever. but it'll only be activated under certain circumstances.
so, yeah, if this is a building adaptation - which i guess it is - buildings COULD in fact naturally evolve in a way which can harm us considerably.
Sorry to hear that SW. I know someone that had a close family member go through that.
As for evolutionary design, I am working on an urban design studio project that deals with that specifically. If I ever wanted to come out of the archinect anonymity closet, I would post some more information. But alas I have no courage...
as one of the few people who probably have read john frazer's more extensive written work and followed this thread of architectural discussion. basically what he is proposing (and to fully understand his words you should look into cedric price's project for a "learning" building in florida) is that if architecture can be coded as an algorithmic set of programmatic objects, those can be run against a series of "tests" that will cause an evolution of the architecture. These permutations will be based on probable usage which will create new spatial consequences that the architect himself cannot anticipate. basically you could see this line of thought as the evolution of deconstructivist theories of architecture as a linguistic exercise into the digital age. his ideas were briefly influential to a series of academics in the US (marcos novak, michael benedikt, etc.) who ran with it as a neuromancer-esque information informed environment. a certain amount of it was consequently transformed and incorporated into the current underlying logic of a lot of the interest into digitally in-formed space (sans the disolution of the artist part, of course)....
you should really look into chaos theory and fractal geometry as a basis for his statements as well, it's very important for understanding those types of one-liners. the big thing to think about (and this is my personal take, of course) is to look at what reflexivity and thinking recursively through a process mean. you might also want to read articles by scott lash on "reflexive modernization" to see how these concepts have been important in new theories in sociology.
i've never read frazer, but there was a structures professor at michigan that was really into "breeding" bridges (i think this was the term he used). he wrote a program that could hypothetically create infinite variations on a bridge under certain loading conditions. by parametrically controlling the variables of the bridge, the engineer/architect could then go in and select a bridge from the selection set. i'm not exactly sure how it worked as an evolutionary process, if after you make a selection it kicked off another round of breeding based off of the previous selection. to be honest, i was never too impressed by the results, but i think there's a part of the whole digi-crowd that's still exploring these ideas.
"These permutations will be based on probable usage which will create new spatial consequences that the architect himself cannot anticipate."
Futureboy - I don't see why this would have to be based solely on probable usage.
jafidler - by "parametrically controlling" I'm assuming you mean automated through the the computer. This is something I'm exploring although I find that not all aspects have to be automated or controlled through parametrics. Personally, I take parametrics as a loose term, not necessarily in relation to the computer
philarch, not exactly sure what you are driving at, and i have relatively little experience with this, but what i had assumed was that by changing the various parameters of the algorithm, i.e. loading conditions (span, force, etc.) the computer derives various "random" configurations of the structural members to suit those parameters. what i am unsure of is after you select one of these derivations if that produces a "next generation" of bridges that incorporates information from the previous selection. is there any new information actually embedded within the selection that is changing the algorithm, i.e. evolution of the form?
philarch, probable usage is just giving a quantifiable means of testing the "architecture", i.e. use patterns evolve planning, etc. i am just replying to the original request for more information. this is also based on my readings of john frazer's work, and is implying that there are quanitifiable criteria to determine a correct or more efficient design, therefore enabling it to be versioned. this is the basis of the frazer's argument (and cedric prices...and most others). in other words, yes there could be many determinants as to what is an appropriate response, but probable usage is a good beginning point. i.e. the key is to input some quanitifiable means of testing the product (structural requirements, daylighting, programmatic needs, etc.)
futureboy - that makes more sense with the explanation. Although I don't see how this could be the only way to interpret evolutionary architecture in a general sense. I saw this as more from a perspective of parametric design, although the way I approached my problem does deal with the evolution over time and distance (space sounds too.... "spacey").
jafidler - the reason I asked about the use of computers is that generally bridge design has less components. Technically most bridge design consists of exposed structural members. Architecture on the other hand can have layers and layers of information that don't necessary derive from such quantifiable components. The danger of letting the computer do all the work (which is certainly possible with the current technology), it would be stepping "back" to modernism where everything was ideologically based on quantifiable function. It would just be a glorified version of one of those "Be your own architect - 3d home software" deals. And thats scary.
Sorry, am I in the progress of hijacking this thread?
I actually had very similar musings to this evolutionary architecture stuff back in my first year while walking through central park. The idea of a building, controlled by an AI that could modify itself without direct human invervention in order to respond to changes in climate, usage, and even in "style/aesthetics" (i know they can be bad words around here and i don't like them either). I see this more as an evolution of the idea as "home as a machine for living in" and less as some revolutionary idea trying to cross biological processes with cold, hard human engineering. I would imagine as a first step we already have an "evolutinary architecture" in form of buildings that adapt to environmental conditions actively, like the AI that controls the sustainable features and regulates the climate in Norman Foster's City Hall. In a way it also harks back to the old futurist concept of "continuous renewal" in which buildings are short lived and are constantly destroyed and rebuilt as technology advances.
Perhaps an interesting avenue to take this idea down is a way of combining virtual reality and reality. Video games and virtual constructs are very much like what this man describes in the fact that they are based off of mathematical algorithms, are infinitely malleable, and can evolve without human involvement. Perhaps finding a way to combine the two architectures, virtual and actual, which im sure has already begun, will lead to some form of "evolutionary architecture".
Publication excerpt
Terence Riley, ed., The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002, p. 156
The Generator, an early investigation into artificially intelligent architecture, was designed with no specific program, but only a desired end-effect, in mind.
The project was commissioned by Howard Gilman for a site at the Gilman Paper Corporation's White Oak Plantation in Florida to provide a facility to house dance, theater, and visiting artists. Cedric Price explored a type of architecture that, like medicine, would operate less as a remedy for the ills of society and more as a preventive system, creating flexible conditions previously thought impossible within a socially beneficial environment. This complicated project, for which many drawings and diagrams were made, was essentially a system of cubelike elements that could be moved and combined with others or with additional elements to create temporary structures for a rehearsal or performance space, housing, or just contemplation within a lush natural setting. It was intended to operate by means of a central computer with which a visitor would combine any of 150 of the Generator's four-by-four meter, fully serviced, air-conditioned cubes, or walls, screens, gangways, and communications channels into a structure. The computer would encourage the visitor to continually refine and improve his or her design. In fact, change and artistic freedom are the underlying ideas of the Generator; they were considered prerequisites, and the computer was to be programmed to make unsolicited alterations should the framework remain static. Price's intricate scheme to provide an environment dedicated to nurturing the arts was never built.
no, just having read his previous books. that's all. i know someone that had him as a professor sometime back. the previous post is from cedric price's generator project...which i think of as one of the main antecedents to john frazer's work...
or maybe i should state my response this way...i am speaking as someone who read john frazer's work about 10 years ago and has been thinking considerably about how his work fits into a historical context....as many of his findings might be found to be slightly trite considering the sophistication of computers currently. his work was based around formal "choice"...which 3d assembly looked interesting or looked like it could perform a function. firms like shop are now taking this type of conjecture much farther in that they actually can "test" variants to determine which outcomes perform "best".
please remember that frazer's seminal book was first published in 1996 and covers work sdone from 1989 till then...so it is dealing with explorations within the computer at a completely different level than currently available.
sorry, and another aside. as per the continued evolution...that is very much taken up in the work of people like marcos novak...but hasn't been extended much since the publication of the work and really has never evolved much past the type of concepts put forth within cedric price's generator project....
A slight departure from the topic - LeDeuzzy - since that deals mostly with the evolution of architectural "theory" or "style," though I'm not trying to say that topic is irrelevant. I take your use of "extinction" as meaning irrelevancy. In which case, the cynical side of me agrees. The optimistic side of me goes home after work hours.
Apr 9, 07 6:41 pm ·
·
No, extinction means extinction, as in evenually not there anymore.
And, one could well say that Stirling practiced architectural design as an ongoing development of architecture's very historical DNA code.
Perhaps the environment and users now-a-days evolve a lot quicker than building ever could.
It seems to me that the more specifically designed a building is (and even buildings specifically designed to change over time), the quicker those building become obsolete.
Ah, I see. I was thinking irrelevancy of Architecture, and you were thinking of buildings becoming obsolete...
Either way, I argue that architecture has always evolved at a slower pace than other arts, professions or which ever perspective you want to see it from. Probably mostly due to logistics of time and resources it takes to design and build (and demolish). Personally I think that is why evolution in architecture (with the small a, not the big A) always involves some sort of automated design and modular construction.
Your last paragraph reminds me of Venturi's argument of the flexible and simple loft idea behind a flat dynamic "sign" that can be easily changed. I still think that there are some great examples of "obsolete" buildings with initially specific programs that can be revived. I just read in the Architectural Record about how the tower of Christ Church by Christopher Wren (my second favorite English architect) has been renovated as an 11 story apartment.
Apr 9, 07 7:32 pm ·
·
The interior of the simple loft building can be just as easily changed.
I forget where, but I read how the Theater of Marcellus has been renovated into multi-story apartments like over a thousand years ago.
Obsolete-ness is gauged by time endurance. I'd say any building that lasts over several centuries has a low obsolete factor. And buildings that last less than a half century have a high obsolete factor. (Planned obsolescence is a whole other (artificial) story.)
Also, the obsolescence of a building's function does not necessarily make the building itself also obsolete (as a sheltering structure). That is, of course, unless the building is designed only for a highly specific function. Moreover, buildings with great space(s) and structure(s) to begin with usually last longer too.
I think Vanbrugh is my first favorite English architect (although I'm just now learning of Latrobe's English work).
evolutionary architecture?
"architecture as a form of artificial life, and proposing a genetic representation in a form of DNA-like code-script, which can then be subject to developmental and evolutionary processes in response to the user and the environment. The aim of an evolutionary architecture is to achieve in the built environment the symbiotic behaviour and metabolic balance found in the natural environment. To do so, it operates like an organism, in a direct analogy with the underlying design process of nature."
-An Evolutionary Architecture
john frazer
well,i still am not totally clear as to what this would mean.could any of you guys help me get this whole concept of 'evolutionary architecture' right?
mr frazer has said - in an unnecessarily complicated manner - that buildings change with people and people change with buildings and both change over time in a dynamic relationship to each other.
i fail to see the architectural implications of his statement because these things will happen to all people and all buildings whether the buildings' design takes it into account or not.
but SW what if the buildings have evolved to detach itself from that relationship with people?
then we're probably in trouble.
what if the buildings take over and live in us. thats a scary scenario.
scary indeed. Is it just me or are you growing more cynical vado?
wasn't there a movie about a building that started eating people?
Its an interesting proposition, to make an architecture that responds and adapts over time to match new users and environmental concerns. Oh wait we already have that and its called renovation. Is he talking about architecture that evolves on its own, without human involvement?
i have absolutely no idea!it sounds more like those whole morphing concepts.
or is it that the people eventually evolve into buildings?!!!!
people ARE becoming more building-scaled....hmm.
first time i see someone with a window, i'm ready for the asylum, folks.
my junior high school was infested with black mold. lowest rate of attendance in the whole district on account of kids getting sick. we all stank of rotting drywall.
that building was living inside me. when i went to high school it got all better. and five years later i was working on the renovation of the junior high school.
my father-in-law still has some of one of his past apartments living inside of him: he ended up with toxic mold syndrome.
the neurological difficulties have subsided over the past five years, but he's still got some respiratory difficulty and can no longer use oil paints. (he's an artist.)
he's been told that some of the mold that took up residence in his sinuses may stay forever. but it'll only be activated under certain circumstances.
so, yeah, if this is a building adaptation - which i guess it is - buildings COULD in fact naturally evolve in a way which can harm us considerably.
Sorry to hear that SW. I know someone that had a close family member go through that.
As for evolutionary design, I am working on an urban design studio project that deals with that specifically. If I ever wanted to come out of the archinect anonymity closet, I would post some more information. But alas I have no courage...
as one of the few people who probably have read john frazer's more extensive written work and followed this thread of architectural discussion. basically what he is proposing (and to fully understand his words you should look into cedric price's project for a "learning" building in florida) is that if architecture can be coded as an algorithmic set of programmatic objects, those can be run against a series of "tests" that will cause an evolution of the architecture. These permutations will be based on probable usage which will create new spatial consequences that the architect himself cannot anticipate. basically you could see this line of thought as the evolution of deconstructivist theories of architecture as a linguistic exercise into the digital age. his ideas were briefly influential to a series of academics in the US (marcos novak, michael benedikt, etc.) who ran with it as a neuromancer-esque information informed environment. a certain amount of it was consequently transformed and incorporated into the current underlying logic of a lot of the interest into digitally in-formed space (sans the disolution of the artist part, of course)....
you should really look into chaos theory and fractal geometry as a basis for his statements as well, it's very important for understanding those types of one-liners. the big thing to think about (and this is my personal take, of course) is to look at what reflexivity and thinking recursively through a process mean. you might also want to read articles by scott lash on "reflexive modernization" to see how these concepts have been important in new theories in sociology.
i've never read frazer, but there was a structures professor at michigan that was really into "breeding" bridges (i think this was the term he used). he wrote a program that could hypothetically create infinite variations on a bridge under certain loading conditions. by parametrically controlling the variables of the bridge, the engineer/architect could then go in and select a bridge from the selection set. i'm not exactly sure how it worked as an evolutionary process, if after you make a selection it kicked off another round of breeding based off of the previous selection. to be honest, i was never too impressed by the results, but i think there's a part of the whole digi-crowd that's still exploring these ideas.
"These permutations will be based on probable usage which will create new spatial consequences that the architect himself cannot anticipate."
Futureboy - I don't see why this would have to be based solely on probable usage.
jafidler - by "parametrically controlling" I'm assuming you mean automated through the the computer. This is something I'm exploring although I find that not all aspects have to be automated or controlled through parametrics. Personally, I take parametrics as a loose term, not necessarily in relation to the computer
philarch, not exactly sure what you are driving at, and i have relatively little experience with this, but what i had assumed was that by changing the various parameters of the algorithm, i.e. loading conditions (span, force, etc.) the computer derives various "random" configurations of the structural members to suit those parameters. what i am unsure of is after you select one of these derivations if that produces a "next generation" of bridges that incorporates information from the previous selection. is there any new information actually embedded within the selection that is changing the algorithm, i.e. evolution of the form?
philarch, probable usage is just giving a quantifiable means of testing the "architecture", i.e. use patterns evolve planning, etc. i am just replying to the original request for more information. this is also based on my readings of john frazer's work, and is implying that there are quanitifiable criteria to determine a correct or more efficient design, therefore enabling it to be versioned. this is the basis of the frazer's argument (and cedric prices...and most others). in other words, yes there could be many determinants as to what is an appropriate response, but probable usage is a good beginning point. i.e. the key is to input some quanitifiable means of testing the product (structural requirements, daylighting, programmatic needs, etc.)
futureboy - that makes more sense with the explanation. Although I don't see how this could be the only way to interpret evolutionary architecture in a general sense. I saw this as more from a perspective of parametric design, although the way I approached my problem does deal with the evolution over time and distance (space sounds too.... "spacey").
jafidler - the reason I asked about the use of computers is that generally bridge design has less components. Technically most bridge design consists of exposed structural members. Architecture on the other hand can have layers and layers of information that don't necessary derive from such quantifiable components. The danger of letting the computer do all the work (which is certainly possible with the current technology), it would be stepping "back" to modernism where everything was ideologically based on quantifiable function. It would just be a glorified version of one of those "Be your own architect - 3d home software" deals. And thats scary.
Sorry, am I in the progress of hijacking this thread?
I actually had very similar musings to this evolutionary architecture stuff back in my first year while walking through central park. The idea of a building, controlled by an AI that could modify itself without direct human invervention in order to respond to changes in climate, usage, and even in "style/aesthetics" (i know they can be bad words around here and i don't like them either). I see this more as an evolution of the idea as "home as a machine for living in" and less as some revolutionary idea trying to cross biological processes with cold, hard human engineering. I would imagine as a first step we already have an "evolutinary architecture" in form of buildings that adapt to environmental conditions actively, like the AI that controls the sustainable features and regulates the climate in Norman Foster's City Hall. In a way it also harks back to the old futurist concept of "continuous renewal" in which buildings are short lived and are constantly destroyed and rebuilt as technology advances.
Perhaps an interesting avenue to take this idea down is a way of combining virtual reality and reality. Video games and virtual constructs are very much like what this man describes in the fact that they are based off of mathematical algorithms, are infinitely malleable, and can evolve without human involvement. Perhaps finding a way to combine the two architectures, virtual and actual, which im sure has already begun, will lead to some form of "evolutionary architecture".
Publication excerpt
Terence Riley, ed., The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002, p. 156
The Generator, an early investigation into artificially intelligent architecture, was designed with no specific program, but only a desired end-effect, in mind.
The project was commissioned by Howard Gilman for a site at the Gilman Paper Corporation's White Oak Plantation in Florida to provide a facility to house dance, theater, and visiting artists. Cedric Price explored a type of architecture that, like medicine, would operate less as a remedy for the ills of society and more as a preventive system, creating flexible conditions previously thought impossible within a socially beneficial environment. This complicated project, for which many drawings and diagrams were made, was essentially a system of cubelike elements that could be moved and combined with others or with additional elements to create temporary structures for a rehearsal or performance space, housing, or just contemplation within a lush natural setting. It was intended to operate by means of a central computer with which a visitor would combine any of 150 of the Generator's four-by-four meter, fully serviced, air-conditioned cubes, or walls, screens, gangways, and communications channels into a structure. The computer would encourage the visitor to continually refine and improve his or her design. In fact, change and artistic freedom are the underlying ideas of the Generator; they were considered prerequisites, and the computer was to be programmed to make unsolicited alterations should the framework remain static. Price's intricate scheme to provide an environment dedicated to nurturing the arts was never built.
futureboy - where/how did you have access to John Frazer's more extensive written work? by this I assume something other than books in print?
no, just having read his previous books. that's all. i know someone that had him as a professor sometime back. the previous post is from cedric price's generator project...which i think of as one of the main antecedents to john frazer's work...
or maybe i should state my response this way...i am speaking as someone who read john frazer's work about 10 years ago and has been thinking considerably about how his work fits into a historical context....as many of his findings might be found to be slightly trite considering the sophistication of computers currently. his work was based around formal "choice"...which 3d assembly looked interesting or looked like it could perform a function. firms like shop are now taking this type of conjecture much farther in that they actually can "test" variants to determine which outcomes perform "best".
please remember that frazer's seminal book was first published in 1996 and covers work sdone from 1989 till then...so it is dealing with explorations within the computer at a completely different level than currently available.
sorry, and another aside. as per the continued evolution...that is very much taken up in the work of people like marcos novak...but hasn't been extended much since the publication of the work and really has never evolved much past the type of concepts put forth within cedric price's generator project....
.
Perhaps what today's architects are really good at is designing buildings that evolve right into extinction.
A slight departure from the topic - LeDeuzzy - since that deals mostly with the evolution of architectural "theory" or "style," though I'm not trying to say that topic is irrelevant. I take your use of "extinction" as meaning irrelevancy. In which case, the cynical side of me agrees. The optimistic side of me goes home after work hours.
No, extinction means extinction, as in evenually not there anymore.
And, one could well say that Stirling practiced architectural design as an ongoing development of architecture's very historical DNA code.
Perhaps the environment and users now-a-days evolve a lot quicker than building ever could.
It seems to me that the more specifically designed a building is (and even buildings specifically designed to change over time), the quicker those building become obsolete.
Ah, I see. I was thinking irrelevancy of Architecture, and you were thinking of buildings becoming obsolete...
Either way, I argue that architecture has always evolved at a slower pace than other arts, professions or which ever perspective you want to see it from. Probably mostly due to logistics of time and resources it takes to design and build (and demolish). Personally I think that is why evolution in architecture (with the small a, not the big A) always involves some sort of automated design and modular construction.
Your last paragraph reminds me of Venturi's argument of the flexible and simple loft idea behind a flat dynamic "sign" that can be easily changed. I still think that there are some great examples of "obsolete" buildings with initially specific programs that can be revived. I just read in the Architectural Record about how the tower of Christ Church by Christopher Wren (my second favorite English architect) has been renovated as an 11 story apartment.
The interior of the simple loft building can be just as easily changed.
I forget where, but I read how the Theater of Marcellus has been renovated into multi-story apartments like over a thousand years ago.
Obsolete-ness is gauged by time endurance. I'd say any building that lasts over several centuries has a low obsolete factor. And buildings that last less than a half century have a high obsolete factor. (Planned obsolescence is a whole other (artificial) story.)
Also, the obsolescence of a building's function does not necessarily make the building itself also obsolete (as a sheltering structure). That is, of course, unless the building is designed only for a highly specific function. Moreover, buildings with great space(s) and structure(s) to begin with usually last longer too.
I think Vanbrugh is my first favorite English architect (although I'm just now learning of Latrobe's English work).
aaah this sure helps me clear up th confusion.
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