Implementing Advanced Knowledge
bits
8.2.1 The Human Swarm Iacopo Neri
Self-sufficient Platform
The Research pursued in this project is an experimentation within the International Competition for architectural proposes held by Ac-Ca, concerning Berlin’s new Gourmet Street Food Festival. The aim of the contest was the design of a temporary culinary event in Berlin’s heart: Alexanderplatz, characterized by a strong connotation of Innovation and Research. Considering the focus to design a futuristic project in a light context, we decided to experiment with possible applications and developments in the architectural field of the mathematics theory of the Swarm Intelligence (S.I). Starting from an ideal project for Alexander Plats, we have created a tool to simulate pedestrian crossing in an urban area, useful to architectonic process. This tool is meant to be a Grasshopper 3D plug-in (still in a beta phase), extending the work of Jan Pernecky’s tool “the Boid Library”. Finally, the result achieved consists of a three-step form finding process at both the urbanistic and the architectural level.
1. Introduction
In order to fully understand the project, it is necessary to introduce some concepts, discussed in this research, such as Swarm Intelligence (S.I.). The S.I. is the collective behaviour of decentralized, natural or artificial, selforganized systems. In particular, the system, or the so-called Swarm, consists of a population of simple Agents or boids (a point and a vector), interacting in a loop locally with one another and with their environment. The agents follow few simple rules and this can generate a smart behaviour, without any central control, unknown to the individual but visible as a whole. In our work, the Swarm Intelligence is studied to simulate human behaviour and to generate morphologic studies in the parametric architecture’s field. 2
It starts from the definition of urban Piazza, characterized by accesses and constraints, in which the simulation of the human swarm will take place. Secondly, after a preliminary study, we introduce a system of reference that will define the shape and the structure of the future masterplan. The outcome of the project is a nine stands culinary fair. These stands differ in dimension and shape for the preparing and the sale of cooked food. In order to help the designing process, the research aims to implement the field of applications of Grasshopper’s Boid Library, based on the needs of study and elaboration of the conduct in question. In particular, new functions are introduced: Getaway, Emitter, Forbid and Seek.
2. Building the tools
2.1 Getaway Considering the aim to simulate pedestrian crossing and evaluating this crossing as a simple movement from point A (access) to a point B (exit), it was necessary to embody the agents with a necessity of walking out the system. Mathematically speaking this idea was pursued through a vector field. The vector field allows us to define different vectors for a determined space, thanks to the proximity to specified charges. Therefore, loading the accesses of the urban area with positive power, the result within the loop will be a vector as strong as closer the agent will be to the exits. It is worth mentioning that in a space unknown we are inclined to be distracted, as long as we are far from our aim, namely the exit. 2.2 Emitter The emitter is a tool to create agents starting from a single point according to a temporal pattern. Specifically, it is perfect to simulate controlled crossways, as doors, or other behaviours concerning the duplication of agents for architectonic intentions. It is important to notice the possibility to choose a maximum total number of new agents as well as the quantity of new agents for each iteration.
2.3 Seek
The stimulation of the agents to visit specified points of interest has been a fundamental issue. In reality this attitude should be considered simply as curiosity, namely a force that conducts the swarm to seek and reach targets, each time recalculated according to a proximity concept. In the second phase, this tool is essential for the process to trace the system of paths that will assist the agent to visit at least one time each target before walking out of the field. 2.4 Forbid In order to simulate the crossing of an urban area we introduced a component that embody a sense of spatial interdiction. If we try to image
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an urban piazza, it will be correct to suggest the presences of areas in which the crossing is not allowed. We are talking about green areas or pods, not real physical obstacles but spaces in which the walking is interdicted, nonetheless still possible. The Forbid component is a control element interposed between the elaboration of the transformations and the transformation of the system itself. This position allows us to interfere directly with the resultant vectors of the behavioral system, calculating a forecast movement that will guide the agent to change its route.
3. Defining the process
3.1 P1 uncontrolled crossing The Agents penetrate the urban space driven by the desire to exit. This is the first preparatory phase and serves as a model of study to establish with intelligence what the best location will be for the future pavilion. Trying to simulate human behavior and preserving its infinite facets is practically impossible and probably useless. This is why the whole process is discretized and reduced to the study of crowd behavior. To simulate crowd behaviors we embodied the agents with four different behavioral classes: - Basic Behaviors: true engine of the process, they contain the randomic decision as well; - Motor Mimicry: they reproduce the motion of another agent inside of a visual field; - Stigmergic Propensity: it modifies the behavior depending on the environment’s information; - Escape Desire: it represents the will to exit the area and without it the experiment would be useless. As already mentioned, we have introduced certain areas within the field of action in which the crossing is forbidden. The behaviour of the swarm (considered as human swarm) gets particularly interesting in proximity of these zones. As you can see in A – Fig. 5, the agents continue to cross the areas despite being discouraged. This phenomenon is the result of the randomization brought by the component Wander that generated several “incorrect” vectors stronger than the positive advice of the Forbid component. A chain reaction will take place after one single incorrect agent behaviour. The “rebel” behaviour becomes an example for the whole group making
Figure 1,2,3,4 - Process diagrams, Iacopo Neri
the crossed area less forbidden. Indeed, it may influence the group potential revolt with a stigmergic propensity that, if stronger than the Forbid component, will guide the group on the incorrect traced path. 3.2 P2 oriented flow Achieving a behavioral model from the first step, the second step takes place. We introduce inside of the system different points of interest for the swarm that will conduct the process to the design of the masterplan in a new structured system and consequently become the pavilions themselves. These points of interest (or Target) represent a Curiosity, which influences the normal crossing (P1), channeling the swarm with a force that otherwise it would not have. Therefore, the system departs from the previous results in order to get closer to the targets. The uncontrolled space becomes a structured map of path, first core of the Masterplan. As we can see in B – Fig. 6, the path is different for each agent due to the Seek component that recalculate each target every time with a proximity approach. It is possible to assume that neighbouring agents will take the same decision, even if it is not an absolute rule, because it depends on the order and number of already visited targets and their location. It is worth noting that depending on the right position of the targets, the resulting map of paths will tend to geometrically visible shapes, driving the agents of the swarm in single files. Indeed, this attitude of visiting the point of interests will extinguish once reached all the spots, as human curiosity. In that moment the exit desire will recur within the agent driving it to the closest exit. 3.3 P3 volumetric generation Now that we have established the spatial thoroughfares, we stop worrying about the swarm and we focus on the volumetric definitions of the pavilions starting from the previous targets. Everything concerning the free will is now extinct: the flows become simple points sliding along P2’s paths. In the final step, thanks to the Emitter component and the S.I. logics, the targets will clone in minimum spatial units (Tetrahedrons) giving birth to volumes the bigger the higher the number of visiting agents, in the examined period of time, will be. The volumes consist of a connection of tetrahedrons of whom we can control the dimensions, the specific length of the sides and the propensity that keeps them closer to each other.
Figure 5,6,7 - Paths, Iacopo Neri 6
Figure 3 - Chronotope City, IaaC Archive Figure 4 - Alexei Novikov, IaaC Archive
4. The process applied to Alexanderplatz
The area chosen for the culinary event it is right behind Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, specifically the square beneath the Fernsehturm, between the tower and Spandauer Street. In order to simulate the Piazza’s crowd crossing it has been necessary to establish the Appeal’s Chart concerning each single access based on a previous urbanistic study. This is required so that the flow and the city context stay connected. Indeed, the square is a focal point in the city welcoming a large amount of people. There a three main landmark in the square: St. Marienkirche, the Television Tower and the railway station. The amount of people arriving from the station has been distributed in four entrances: 1,7,6,5 (see Fig.8). Among them, entrance 5 represents the end of an important shopping street as well as the biggest entrance of the square. Moreover, being the touristic bus headline, entrance 4 is relatively important. In the end, the process gives birth to nine different geometries, which will hosts the food stands. These geometries are consequently divided depending on two different shape approaches: the permeate units and the connection elements.
5. Conclusions
Summarizing, this research brought us to the definition of a tool, which aims to help architect and urbanists in the study of urban areas characterized by a great passage of pedestrians. This could be useful to investigate preparatory analyses in the preliminary phases of a designing process as well as simulation of crowd flow in structured masterplan to examine the accuracy of designing forecasts. The application of the Swarm Intelligences is justified only in the field of crowd simulation for big project but it does not exclude future other applications.
Figure 8 - The process applied to Alexanderplatz, Iacopo Neri 8
Copyright © 2014 Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia All rights Reserved. IAAC BIT 8 January 2017
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