A site that might prove useful for mathematical theory and programming theory is arxiv.org, which provides "Open access to 670,431 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics", as described on its main page.
The site also mentions it has an RSS feed (amongst other things) for robots that automatically parse the archives, so that could prove useful after filtering the information through Yahoo Pipes.
Slashdot.org might also prove interesting to look at from time to time for technology-related news and popular, cutting-edge information.
17.4.11
Computing applied in architecture
The reason for my lack of a post so far about the interaction of the disciplinary views of computing and architecture is that I have had trouble narrowing down exactly what might prove to be a useful (or at least promising) interaction to pursue.
After some thought, I've worked out some areas of research for this part of my research matrix that were selected for personal interest and their future utility:
After some thought, I've worked out some areas of research for this part of my research matrix that were selected for personal interest and their future utility:
- Researching the Theoretical Aspects of Computing: in particular, the mathematical concepts that form its base, or helped develop computing to what it is today. The ideas and concepts in this discipline could be abstracted and applied to architecture. Or perhaps not even require abstraction to apply to architecture, since maths itself is abstract.
- 3D Visualisation and Interaction: I would like to devote some time in this course to working on 3D visualisations (renders, point tracking videos, and augmented reality) and interaction in a 3D environment (Unity3D, Crysis; to simulate a building's structurally feasible, intelligent response to occupants)
- Research into and Use of Programming: Given my experience in the area, it would be a shame to not use it when it comes to the interaction of the disciplinary views of computing and architecture. In the past, concepts from programming have proven useful for me in generating good architecture, so I'm confident they will help once more. Furthermore, concepts from programming relate this point directly to the first point of researching the theoretical aspects of computing. If I broaden my knowledge in that area, I will have even more concepts to aid my design process.
14.4.11
Evolution applied in architecture
As one of the three disciplines I have chosen, I will now show some examples and attempt to eloquently express some thoughts about how I think the disciplinary views of architecture and evolution can interact.
To start with, my contention is that architectural design would benefit from a practical application of evolution. Plenty of building designs have been generated with a very conscious incorporation of automated evolution, but I have as of yet to find genuinely useful examples rather than something that's just coincidentally resulted in a pretty form. What is generally lacking in the explanations of such "evolved" buildings is what the criteria for survival were, what the varied genes were, and how many generations deep the evolution was carried out.
For a long time, I've been interested in the application of evolution in fields other than biology, used with a particular view to solve various complex problems in incredibly simple - though almost unintelligible - ways. For instance, one of the non-fiction chapters of the first "Science of the Discworld" novel (by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen) discusses an exploration of evolution through a genetic algorithm approach to making an electronic circuit able to distinguish between two tones. The circuit's logic gates were the genes that were randomly varied and inherited from generation to generation, and the survivors were selected on their capacity to give a different output - 1 or 0 - to each of the two different tones, not caring which tone was given which value as long as there was a difference.
Early on, the circuit's capacity to tell the difference was non-existent or negligible. However, after sufficiently many generations, reliable differences began to arise. After only 4000 generations, the circuit would get the tones wrong barely 1 in 1000 times. At 8000 generations, there were no errors in tone distinction that were encountered. The resulting circuit, however, was very complicated and hard to understand - for example, a portion of the circuit was found to not be connected to anything else, but if removed always caused the circuit to stop working.
In my opinion, the most important part of the experiment, however, was the efficiency and elegance of solution that results from the use of appropriately constrained and defined evolution. The evolved circuit was far smaller (ie, had far fewer logic gates) than other circuits previously made to tell the difference between two tones.
After doing some Googling, I've found a few interesting sources that I'll look into over the holidays. They are:
From the second source, I found an example of what I was talking about at the start of my post when I said "I have as of yet to find genuinely useful examples rather than something that's just coincidentally resulted in a pretty form".
What I would like to create using the process of evolution for this masters studio is something of utility. I want to produce an intelligible analysis that can be clearly and specifically used to inform an architectural design. Ideally, the evolution will be applied to an area that doesn't already have its own simple solutions. I think it would be more exciting if it were applied to, for example, the problem of space organisation and linkage, which I have observed is often a point of unfounded contention between designers - eg, arguments about one space not being suited to be connected to another, and so forth.
Furthermore, it seems that evolution of useful aspects to a building would best be used as a design informant rather than a means of producing the end design in itself, since there are philosophical aspects of design that haven't yet been accurately encapsulated in formal systems (such as those used to found computer science and information technology). To clarify: I trust that sufficiently many generations of rigorously managed evolution would produce an effectively failsafe product, but if and only if the appropriate conditions of selection and the appropriate genes were known and also formally encoded in the process of evolution. However, culture and many philosophies have as of yet to be formally encoded in such a comprehensive manner. Thus, I would use evolution to inform my design process for those conditions of selection and genes which are known, but I would want to refine the design personally to ensure it suits the formally undefined constituents of philosophy and culture.
Something that seems a little more promising than the above animation is the paper on Morphogenesis of Spatial Configurations. Referring to the below image of a 3D model generated from Lindenmayer Systems (aka L-Systems) and genetic programming, it certainly seems to produce what looks like a far more sensible form, though I am unsure of what the original L-System's configuration was.
I'm really liking how many freely available online resources are turning up for this topic. There'll be a lot of reading to do, but I suspect I'll learn a lot in the process, which will hopefully save time when it comes to producing my own evolved design informant.
To start with, my contention is that architectural design would benefit from a practical application of evolution. Plenty of building designs have been generated with a very conscious incorporation of automated evolution, but I have as of yet to find genuinely useful examples rather than something that's just coincidentally resulted in a pretty form. What is generally lacking in the explanations of such "evolved" buildings is what the criteria for survival were, what the varied genes were, and how many generations deep the evolution was carried out.
For a long time, I've been interested in the application of evolution in fields other than biology, used with a particular view to solve various complex problems in incredibly simple - though almost unintelligible - ways. For instance, one of the non-fiction chapters of the first "Science of the Discworld" novel (by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen) discusses an exploration of evolution through a genetic algorithm approach to making an electronic circuit able to distinguish between two tones. The circuit's logic gates were the genes that were randomly varied and inherited from generation to generation, and the survivors were selected on their capacity to give a different output - 1 or 0 - to each of the two different tones, not caring which tone was given which value as long as there was a difference.
Early on, the circuit's capacity to tell the difference was non-existent or negligible. However, after sufficiently many generations, reliable differences began to arise. After only 4000 generations, the circuit would get the tones wrong barely 1 in 1000 times. At 8000 generations, there were no errors in tone distinction that were encountered. The resulting circuit, however, was very complicated and hard to understand - for example, a portion of the circuit was found to not be connected to anything else, but if removed always caused the circuit to stop working.
In my opinion, the most important part of the experiment, however, was the efficiency and elegance of solution that results from the use of appropriately constrained and defined evolution. The evolved circuit was far smaller (ie, had far fewer logic gates) than other circuits previously made to tell the difference between two tones.
After doing some Googling, I've found a few interesting sources that I'll look into over the holidays. They are:
- An ecomorphic theatre as a case study for embodied design (paper located here): mentions some interesting historical precedent to generative design of architecture.
- An Evolutionary Architecture (version of book released online located here): Covers some interesting concepts to do with the kinds of forms that can be generated, and some ways of using the internet to expose a 3D model to genetic variation.
- Autotechtonica.org (link located here): Is currently under construction, but seems to offer a few simple existing neologisms and their definitions, which might be handy to glance over if you're trying to learn about the topic like I am.
- Morphogenesis of Spatial Configurations (link located here): Talks about evolution when selecting forms based on building performance criteria such as structure and accessibility.
From the second source, I found an example of what I was talking about at the start of my post when I said "I have as of yet to find genuinely useful examples rather than something that's just coincidentally resulted in a pretty form".
An animated example of co-operative evolution by a network of computers. Pretty, but lacks useful information to explain what it is. (from http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications/ea/intro.html)
What I would like to create using the process of evolution for this masters studio is something of utility. I want to produce an intelligible analysis that can be clearly and specifically used to inform an architectural design. Ideally, the evolution will be applied to an area that doesn't already have its own simple solutions. I think it would be more exciting if it were applied to, for example, the problem of space organisation and linkage, which I have observed is often a point of unfounded contention between designers - eg, arguments about one space not being suited to be connected to another, and so forth.
Furthermore, it seems that evolution of useful aspects to a building would best be used as a design informant rather than a means of producing the end design in itself, since there are philosophical aspects of design that haven't yet been accurately encapsulated in formal systems (such as those used to found computer science and information technology). To clarify: I trust that sufficiently many generations of rigorously managed evolution would produce an effectively failsafe product, but if and only if the appropriate conditions of selection and the appropriate genes were known and also formally encoded in the process of evolution. However, culture and many philosophies have as of yet to be formally encoded in such a comprehensive manner. Thus, I would use evolution to inform my design process for those conditions of selection and genes which are known, but I would want to refine the design personally to ensure it suits the formally undefined constituents of philosophy and culture.
Something that seems a little more promising than the above animation is the paper on Morphogenesis of Spatial Configurations. Referring to the below image of a 3D model generated from Lindenmayer Systems (aka L-Systems) and genetic programming, it certainly seems to produce what looks like a far more sensible form, though I am unsure of what the original L-System's configuration was.
IMAGE_DESCRIPTION (image from http://technozoic.blogspot.com/2009/11/gennaro-senatore-morphogenesis-of.html)
I'm really liking how many freely available online resources are turning up for this topic. There'll be a lot of reading to do, but I suspect I'll learn a lot in the process, which will hopefully save time when it comes to producing my own evolved design informant.
Building my learning machine, and the building as a learning machine
This idea spawned somewhat spontaneously while I was thinking back over a quote that's stuck with me for the better part of three years. It was delivered with such colloquial, intelligent profundity that I couldn't help but wholly absorb it, as well as the rest of the information delivered with the speech it came from (shown below).
There are two aspects of this quote that stand out to me with respect to this final year studio and architecture. Firstly, that an original idea that has value "more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things", and that this would be a useful way to build my learning machine (ie, the processes I will follow for research and development) for this studio. Secondly, that "intelligence is wonderfully interactive", and that a brain "isn't divided into compartments", and that these points can be used to conceptualise a building as a learning machine.
The Building of My Learning Machine
The first aspect is how I want to work through this master's year studio - the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things to generate original ideas that have value. I will select three disciplinary ways of seeing things which seem to have promising potential when interacting with the disciplinary way of seeing things that is architectural design. Currently, the three disciplinary ways of seeing things I have chosen are:
The Building as a Learning Machine
This train of thought fits best under the discipline of biology, but still has some strong relationships with evolution and computing.
The idea of an intelligent, interactive building is an exciting one, and seems to be cropping up more and more these days (specific examples to be searched up later and added retrospectively so I don't break my train of thought). Most of the time, no one part of the building's operation and usage is wholly distinct and unaffected by the other parts. Thus, according to the definition Ken Robinson uses, it could be said that a building is like a brain. Historically, humans have been creating braindead buildings. Sometimes beautiful buildings, but braindead nonetheless. They operate, they breathe, and everything like that - but they're vegetables. They cannot respond to us. Or if they do, it's only in obvious terms, through wholly controlled interactions. Recently, however, technologically-minded interventions have introduced the capacity for reactions in the built form. It's as though some buildings and building elements are now recovering from a coma, and are starting to be able to autonomously respond in complex ways to interaction.
Though Ken's speech was explicitly about human learning and education, it is my contention that interactive, responsive architecture - occasionally stylistically classified as "high technology" - would benefit from such a conceptualisation. The building as a learning machine is an interesting, exciting idea. Due specifically to technological advances, built forms are capable of being dynamic, and adapting to their purpose. Through analysis of occupational usage - which in the case of this studio would likely be emulated through data obtained via social website analysis - buildings can be programmatically designed to modify themselves to suit occupational use.
The conceptualisation of the building as a learning machine can extend beyond this specific example. More generally, the building as a learning machine is capable of responding to its environment and, moreover, learning the trends. Conceptualised as a finite state machine, the learning machine's state would change in response to the input from its environment, with subsequent states depending on the previous states as a form of trend-learning. In a way, having the building as a learning machine relates somewhat to forming a practical application of phenomenalism.
There are many directions this idea could go, so to keep the project feasible, I will need to restrict myself to researching and developing one or a few specific examples.
You can find other speeches and presentations from TEDtalks here, or through the TEDtalks YouTube channel.
"If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, creativity -- which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value -- more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things." (Ken Robinson)
There are two aspects of this quote that stand out to me with respect to this final year studio and architecture. Firstly, that an original idea that has value "more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things", and that this would be a useful way to build my learning machine (ie, the processes I will follow for research and development) for this studio. Secondly, that "intelligence is wonderfully interactive", and that a brain "isn't divided into compartments", and that these points can be used to conceptualise a building as a learning machine.
The Building of My Learning Machine
The first aspect is how I want to work through this master's year studio - the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things to generate original ideas that have value. I will select three disciplinary ways of seeing things which seem to have promising potential when interacting with the disciplinary way of seeing things that is architectural design. Currently, the three disciplinary ways of seeing things I have chosen are:
- Biology,
- Evolution, and
- Computing.
The Building as a Learning Machine
This train of thought fits best under the discipline of biology, but still has some strong relationships with evolution and computing.
The idea of an intelligent, interactive building is an exciting one, and seems to be cropping up more and more these days (specific examples to be searched up later and added retrospectively so I don't break my train of thought). Most of the time, no one part of the building's operation and usage is wholly distinct and unaffected by the other parts. Thus, according to the definition Ken Robinson uses, it could be said that a building is like a brain. Historically, humans have been creating braindead buildings. Sometimes beautiful buildings, but braindead nonetheless. They operate, they breathe, and everything like that - but they're vegetables. They cannot respond to us. Or if they do, it's only in obvious terms, through wholly controlled interactions. Recently, however, technologically-minded interventions have introduced the capacity for reactions in the built form. It's as though some buildings and building elements are now recovering from a coma, and are starting to be able to autonomously respond in complex ways to interaction.
Though Ken's speech was explicitly about human learning and education, it is my contention that interactive, responsive architecture - occasionally stylistically classified as "high technology" - would benefit from such a conceptualisation. The building as a learning machine is an interesting, exciting idea. Due specifically to technological advances, built forms are capable of being dynamic, and adapting to their purpose. Through analysis of occupational usage - which in the case of this studio would likely be emulated through data obtained via social website analysis - buildings can be programmatically designed to modify themselves to suit occupational use.
The conceptualisation of the building as a learning machine can extend beyond this specific example. More generally, the building as a learning machine is capable of responding to its environment and, moreover, learning the trends. Conceptualised as a finite state machine, the learning machine's state would change in response to the input from its environment, with subsequent states depending on the previous states as a form of trend-learning. In a way, having the building as a learning machine relates somewhat to forming a practical application of phenomenalism.
There are many directions this idea could go, so to keep the project feasible, I will need to restrict myself to researching and developing one or a few specific examples.
You can find other speeches and presentations from TEDtalks here, or through the TEDtalks YouTube channel.
Note about blog usage
This won't be my final year blog. I will create my final blog once I have finalised - with certainty - the title of my final year project. Once I've done that, I'll create a blog with the same title - or similar if the URL's already taken - and re-post everything relevant from this blog into that.
Part of the reason I've used this blog for now is that it helps to express a continuum of ideas, linking on from the last subject I recently used this blog for - Augmented Reality, during the late summer term this year. I have had a long-standing affinity for technology, and its multifarious utilities as a tool in design and in making human life more productive, comfortable, and / or stimulating.
Part of what makes technology so interesting is just that; that it's stimulating. It's that stimulation which engages the mind - or, rather, the senses - and from there, the mind and the technology (if it's good technology) are putty in each other's hands. And more recently, it can even be argued that each learns from the other, through the rise of "machine learning algorithms" as a branch of artificial intelligence.
I think it's a pretty exciting thing to look into. Objects which are self-modifying, and responsive to their environment seem to be picking up interest in areas other than specifically computing. Other forms of technology are catching up with this idea. A simple example of this is that of a responsive facade like the CH2 Building in Melbourne, opening and adjusting the angles of its louvres in response to local climate internal and external to the building. The integration of responsive technology into our daily lives is becoming more comprehensive, and is - as just mentioned - becoming integrated into architecture.
This is just one aspect of architectural design that I think is worthwhile investigating during this research studio - I'll be elaborating on other ideas I think are promising in later posts.
Also, I should mention that I'll be splitting the main points of my ideas into different posts to try and establish a thought continuum with useful landmarks, rather than a huge wall of text. On to the next post!
Part of the reason I've used this blog for now is that it helps to express a continuum of ideas, linking on from the last subject I recently used this blog for - Augmented Reality, during the late summer term this year. I have had a long-standing affinity for technology, and its multifarious utilities as a tool in design and in making human life more productive, comfortable, and / or stimulating.
Part of what makes technology so interesting is just that; that it's stimulating. It's that stimulation which engages the mind - or, rather, the senses - and from there, the mind and the technology (if it's good technology) are putty in each other's hands. And more recently, it can even be argued that each learns from the other, through the rise of "machine learning algorithms" as a branch of artificial intelligence.
I think it's a pretty exciting thing to look into. Objects which are self-modifying, and responsive to their environment seem to be picking up interest in areas other than specifically computing. Other forms of technology are catching up with this idea. A simple example of this is that of a responsive facade like the CH2 Building in Melbourne, opening and adjusting the angles of its louvres in response to local climate internal and external to the building. The integration of responsive technology into our daily lives is becoming more comprehensive, and is - as just mentioned - becoming integrated into architecture.
The CH2 building. (image from http://www.nullarbortimber.com.au/projects/ch2/ch2.html)
The CH2 building again, at a different time of day. (image from http://inhabitat.com/ch2-australias-greenest-building/)
This is just one aspect of architectural design that I think is worthwhile investigating during this research studio - I'll be elaborating on other ideas I think are promising in later posts.
Also, I should mention that I'll be splitting the main points of my ideas into different posts to try and establish a thought continuum with useful landmarks, rather than a huge wall of text. On to the next post!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)