EMERGENT FORM: History, Tools and Practitioners

ABSTRACT:

Emergence: The way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity.

Currently there seems to be a trend in architecture leading towards the development of complex systems based upon biology, engineering and complex geometries. Within this style there are different methods used to generate form such as algorithms, proximity variables, angle analysis, and biomimicry. This method which we will investigate is described as Emergent Architecture.

This idea has evolved considerably since the original idea of L- systems and biometric form was discovered over 50 years ago. There have been a variety of methods used to investigate this topic. The most prevalent of these methods was created by a group called the Emergent Design Group based out of MIT. They have mixed people from different disciplines to develop a toolbox that creates form which responds to its environment and other influences of the world that it is part of.

For architects this field of study offers the possibility of form that is more a product of its environmnet and purpose than that which could be created with specific intention. Emergent shape relates to the nature and necessity of form, such as the way an ant colony will create a complex geometry simply by functioning. Or the phenomenon of water in which hydrogen and oxygen which are not especially interesting in themselves nor do they
possess any physical properties that are similar to water. But when combined they form an extremely interesting and essential compound.

"Key to the work is the phenomenon of emergence which offers insight into the way
apparently isolated bodies, particles, or systems exhibit group behavior in coherent, but unexpected, patterns. The animated beauty of emergent organizations, such as in swarms or hives, points to a range of real architectural potentials where components are always linked and always exchanging information, and above all, where architectural wholes exceed the sum of their parts." ⁽¹⁾

KEYWORDS:

Emergent Form, Generative Processes, Evolutionary Algorithms

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