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Aesthetic values through generative processes in architecture AIKATERINI PAPADIMITRIOU DIPLOMA ARCHITECT ENGINEER .AUTH MARCH GAD .THE BARTLETT_UCL 2013-2014
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A multi-fibrous thank you to my family and friends for making my stay in London real, sprinkled with incredible and unforgettable moments.
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Index • 05-09
INTRODUCTION & HYPOTHESIS Intro Hypothesis Elements of process Project
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AESTHETIC VALUES & OBJECTIVES Reasoning the choice Definition How to evaluate - measure -use
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MEANS OF IMPLEMENTATION & JUSTIFICATION via thesis project Computation Genetic algorithms Artificial intelligence • 41-45
CONCLUSION & ACHIEVEMENTS Results Judgmental values
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Books & Articles Pictures Webssites
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CHAPTER | INTRODUCTION & HYPOTHESIS Introduction Hypothesis Elements of process Project
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1. Natural Fibrous formations | collectivity
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2. 3D printed formations | fibrous representations
Introduction Aesthetic values, generative processes, architectural implementations, performance, resolution, fabrication briefly illustrate the keywords of this research. The architectural world is evolving rapidly, and the technological achievements are pushing this evolution to its limits, and this has to be considered as a complete challenge. Architects by having the responsibility of the design of the scenography of everyday life must get engaged with this ever changing attitude and take the most out of it. By considering the evolution of the design in situ and in real time makes those characteristics get a concrete, mysterious, unexpected and at the same time promising outlook. Having in mind the book of J. Holland, “Hidden order: How adaptation builds complexity� by mentioning collectionmultiplicity-parallelism/ iteration-recursion-feedback / adaptation-learning-evolution feels that an intense adventure is about to begin. And those are the norms that consist the overall shell of the ingredients to be used additional to the means of application. The specific objective of this research is to focus on the aesthetic qualities architecture-wise, using computational power and representing the result with fibrous formations. George Jeronymidis has mentioned that everything in natural world consist of fibers. Sequentially, this seams enough on fibers to be the stepping stone on supporting the method of representation and implementation of the theoretical approach on the project. This projection -project to paper and vice versabecomes the way to explicate, explore tangibly, illustrate and test arguments.
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Hypothesis We want to achieve the knowledge through the process of managing the computational, fabricational and aesthetic approach in global means, broadening the context of the architecture world. An aesthetic approach more sophisticated and up-to-dated, using contemporary clues and the nip of the technology. The problematic that arises questions how to combine those aspects, if this is going to serve the design world and broaden the design and architectural variables or if it will just increase the computational intricacy and research. Elements of process The structure of this paper is going to get you from the deconstruction of the topic to the construction of the solution over the evaluation of the process. Aesthetics Simulations, genetic algorithms, artificial intelligence, human-machine interaction, architectural heredity and looks. Project It is important to enter at the world of the project. It engages with the performance of fibers as a design principle in architecture. The fibers are the main issue in means of the theoretical and practical basis, since they provide the chance to investigate multiple resolutions by introducing a new language of design in the architectural world, following the aesthetic issue. The research will deal with the simulation results and the fabrication methods at the same time, developing a technique that can cope with internal changes of the same system, for creating a specific architectural language. Designing and fabricating at the nip of technology, with behavioral means, in order to obtain an accurate and cutting edge outcome, out of the box, but fully applicable. Using physical simulations, digital testing and investigating fabrication methods, the goal is to explore new architectural possibilities that head to the development of efficient structures following an upgraded aesthetic result. On this productive process genetic algorithms help at the development of the evolutionary idea on a promising way that is dealing in this report generating ‘n’ population of ‘solutions’ and their relative evaluations concerning their behaviors where the artificial intelligence attaches and pushes the outcome to fabrication.
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3. Dome formation. Drawing produced for big scale through manual iterative methods
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“Normally, the sensuous qualities of design produce the “extra” element of the design that is often regarded as “aesthetic.” Mads Nygaard Folkmann
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CHAPTER ||
AESTHETIC VALUES & OBJECTIVES Why aesthetics Definition Generating Aesthetic Catalogues Designers Role Evaluation Elements
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Why Aesthetics In architecture and the design world the aesthetics is always a subject of conversations and long discussions. An issue up-to-date, and ever changing. Working with the latest means of technology and design would take advantage of this aspect and we tempt to try to approach it to a deep and sophisticated way. The questions that have to be answered in order to lead us - or not - to a complete research are multiple: a. What do we define aesthetically correct? b. What is aesthetics? How do we conceive them? c. Aesthetics is a subjective and human oriented matter, could & should we overcome the designer decisions? d. How to evaluate an aesthetic result computationally? e. Is it determinable? Definition Aesthetics, appeal to the fact on how they make one feel. Epistemologically, aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as “critical reflection on art, culture and nature. There are so many aesthetic aspects in the world, possibly same as the population of earth. Will we be able to set rules in order to produce a mechanism that appeal to all those aesthetics. This is the challenge on this paper in means of architecture. Creating not only a new language of architecture, but a new approach on the evaluation of the aesthetic results that are produced, and a way of production of unlimited “solutions” based, respecting always functional criteria, on the beauty of the outcome. Terry Lee Stone mentions: “Aesthetics in design has to do with the deliberate arrangement of elements in a way that appeals to the senses and/or emotions. It is an expression of taste, which is essentially a preference. Taste is personal, but also subject to social pressures. A particular group declares something to be in “good” or “bad” taste, and if a person is part of that group, they tend to agree with the group opinion. Why this all matters is that at the heart of a designer’s work is encoding and decoding messages to move a particular group of people or target audience to do something.”1 So, what we need to have under the research spectrum, is if something or somebody else can take the role that a designer plays in means of translating ideas and information from one format into the other from the client, to the designer. If the evaluated result and the route to the regeneration of the multiple solutions using new means and taking into consideration the necessary data, can have the expected intricacy, quality and detail.
1.‘Evaluate Aesthetic Strategies’ ,Terry Lee Stone, http://www.howdesign.com/parse/evaluating-aesthetic-strategies
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5. Study of behavioral models. Agent and flocking conditions
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5. Study of behavioral models. Agent, flocking conditions, and application of physics
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Generating Aesthetic Catalogues Trying to figure out ways on how to realize the generation of aesthetic qualities, we come up with two possibilities. A. A designer who creates iteratively different approaches of the same element, afterwards, physically, to evaluate and criticise the result B. Generate a simulated system of six steps that will substitute the designer partially. At case ‘A’ the unexpected results and the complexity details and intricacy with which the human brain takes decisions come against the severely long time consuming process. At case ‘B’, the simulated system might have less chance to act spontaneously, but the time frequency of the production will be within the limits. The process for complexity of the future possible results, their evaluations and the inspiration for the next one, will be programed at the system, and will depend form the ancestors. To make this (second) aspect more clear, the simulating system process needs six steps: a. to get programmed by the designer- with open possibilities for reprogramming b. to store the different solutions d. to evaluate the outcome e. to regenerate alternate result f. to read the data & combine them with previous The complexity and the possibilities for the possible solutions that can be generated depend on the programming decisions of the programmer. All the possible actions of the algorithms in general are well designed and completely under the control of the designer. What he is not able to predict are the internal connections during the process, and as a consequence the exact result.
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Designers Role At this point we need to define what exactly the designer should or should not do. 1. The definition of the possible actions must be carefully planned and controllable. 2. The evaluation process has to be programmed in detail, with real time feedback at the algorithm, and under total control. The designer himself needs to get exposed on the maximum, revealing the evaluation key aspects that determine each project, and (s)he has to be ready for that. Creating a set of rules that include evaluation of aesthetics using algorithms we meet computational aesthetics. Computational aesthetics was first approached by Birkhoff. “Birkhoff was the first to publish on the subject of aesthetic measures, and his work has been influential in the field. Birkhoff’s notion of aesthetics was based on the relation between Order and Complexity, expressed as M = O/C, where O stands for order and C for complexity.”2 Our understanding on this, is that we need to create a formula that expresses the evaluation norms we decide in mathematical equations in order to translate them to a computable form. The judgmental scale to be assigned and the factors that influence the result have to be predetermined, as well as the complexity scale. Those elements are the ones that will create the final possibilities, and the ones that will select the most appropriate ones. At the point of final selection, the designer & client will have the last word, since we do not wish to create a finite element, without human interaction at all. The decision has to be out of the conceptual understanding, personal will and choice of the human being. Evaluation elements The list with factors which we will use for estimation does not have to be finite since new needs might arise and norms change. In the case of this research though the factors to be evaluated through the project will deal with resolution, permeability, concentration, structural ability, and lightness. Everything will be checked in two ways. From one hand our approach has to do with the scaffolding material, in our case sticks, and on the other aspect with the weaving pattern and quantity of material. Since everything is connected and interlocked, the algorithmic approach that we choose, seems to be the exact solution to lead us to a variety of diverse results, along, always with their evaluation marks. The designer and client, by reading the datasheet of the possibilities and seeing the visual results, may come to the final decision for fabrication and final production of the finite element. The product has to be – with the means of fabrications and interaction in situ – fixed after the construction, which means that the interactive mode, at least for now, from this point ceases. During the simulation process and design the interaction among, the designer, the client, the environment and the product itself can be never ending. And this is the charm and challenge of this process: getting alive products that might never come in actual life, and you are the one who decides who will get real. 2. “Aesthetic Measure”, George D. Birkhoff. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1933. Xvi +226 pp.
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6. Studies in spacial arrangements | application of external data with different rules
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CHAPTER ||| MEANS OF IMPLEMENTATION & JUSTIFICATION via thesis project Computation Genetic algorithms Elements of Alteration Fibrous environments Resolution Biotic and symbiotic systems Artificial intelligence
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Intro A successful operation, at a very high percentage, has to do with the tools to be used and the know-how. Each action has to be planned carefully, to lead to the evolution of the project and has to be justified. At chapter two, we mentioned as our tool the algorithmic programming, now we need to specify our selection, the actual strategies that we will implement it and how. We enter the computational world, coming closer to what is called genetic algorithms and to a further extent artificial intelligence. Those ingredients will consist the toolset that will transform the architectural selection and production to an upgraded version, diverse and intricate. Computation “Computation is any type of calculation or use of computing technology in information processing. Computation is a process following a well-defined model, understood and expressed. The study of computation is paramount to the discipline of computer science. Computation can be classified by mainly three criteria: digital Vs analogue, sequential Vs parallel Vs concurrent, batch Vs interactive. Digital computation aids simulation of natural processes. It is a wider reaching term for information processing in general. An even more radical point of view is the postulate of digital physics that the evolution of the universe itself is a computation – pancomputationalism3. Computational tools are being used to test simulations and design the behaviors of the elements that participate at the process. They give the opportunity to obtain accurate results at the minimum timeline possible. In our case we deliver too stages of computational design. At the first step of coding, we simulate possible aesthetic results, aiming a visually expressing and detailed result. Secondly we simulate fabrication techniques: weaving rate patterns and behaviors related to the realization of a project. Here we aim to the rationalization of the previous concept, trying the rules of fabrication to follow the design itself with the minimum alteration of the initial stage. The results where unexpected, different in qualities, producing interesting approaches despite the same input. The next step, primarily physically, consists of the evaluation of the results, and the further development of the creation of an – at the worst case – optimized generation.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computation
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Genetic algorithms Genetic algorithms have entered our lives since the very beginning, maybe not in the way we will see them here, but as the natural selection process. What exactly is a genetic algorithm, and how can it be used it in the project and paper? What is the connection, how everything is going to be combined? Under this problematic in this paper will be developed the narrative and support of the process of the development of “the aesthetic values through generative processes in architecture”. “In the computer science field, genetic algorithm is a search heuristic that mimics the process of natural selection. This heuristic is routinely used to generate useful solutions to optimization and search problems. Genetic Algorithms belong to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms, which generate solutions to optimization problems using techniques inspired by natural evolution, such us inheritance, mutation, selection and crossover.”4 Speaking about heuristic we refer to a technique designed for solving a problem more quickly when classic methods are too slow, or for finding an approximate solution when classic methods fail to find any exact solution. This is achieved by trading optimality, completeness, accuracy, or precision. In this kind of evolutionary computation, and moreover in the case of such a subjective function as ours, aesthetic qualities, the need of the human interaction to the solution or evaluation is essential. So, it is obvious that the designer is still “in the game”. To this point we pass to human-based genetic algorithm. The (HBGA) is a genetic algorithm that allows contributing solution suggestions to the evolutionary process by having human interfaces for initialization, mutation, recombinant crossover and selective evaluation. In short, a HBGA outsources the operations of a typical genetic algorithm to humans. In our case, the solution suggestions target to the designed product, in means of architectural visual result and design.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithms
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7. Algorithmic research on the Genetic algorithmic Approach
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Genetic alterations show the evolution of the species through differentiations in factors, genes. The advantage of this process is that we use time wisely, and that the behavioral design methods we use allow us to implement genetic algorithm alterations in a natural manner. Moreover, in life, as we know, all systems are getting evaluated, a process that determines the elimination of the system, or its enforcement which means its continuity. Equally, as at the physical world, the most able gene will pass on, but this does not exclude less able ones to have their chances to reproduce and affect the result. Exactly the same rules we use for the generative selection in design. Those artifacts are possible to be seen during the project simulations and fabrication methods, which will shortly define extensively. Genetic algorithms, in our case, might hide as well some disadvantages, which mainly affect the role of the designer and the design itself. One, the designer leaves the generation of the solution to the algorithm, without interfering after programming the code. Secondly, the genetic algorithm results depend on the final condition, in order the result to be closer to the fitting condition. This leads to a predetermined design. What we want to achieve thinking out of the box of computational means, is the unexpected results of the system. What has to be predetermined are only the evaluation numbers of each new condition. Rates, that collectively might be the same to each other, but with different visual proposals. The challenge here now is, how to obtain the ability to evaluate the behavior itself without expecting a specific result. We need to teach the same system to produce the descendants in an iterative way, which guaranties a variety of results that can be unexpected and aesthetically valuable, thus informed of the norms of the environmental conditions and personal preferences.
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Elements of alteration The definition of the problematic of the aesthetic approach has to be defined in a mathematical in order to make it a really computational problem and programmable one. We set scores for the percentages of the resolution, structural ability, and lightness per proposal. Although one by one will give us graduate result, we are investigating what could be the alternatives through their combinations. Structural ability and lightness of the system are the two clues that are really easily definable. The resolution aspect, though, has to become more a specific attribute of this clear system. How throughout the project implementations we translate resolution? Fibrous Environments A fiber is a string used as a component for composite materials as we know it. It can be natural (animals, plants, geological processes) or synthetic (petrochemicals). It is found widely in nature, either in a continuous way, or fragments of fibers that collectively create a system. Its durability and aggregation is subjected to its neighbors (synthesis) and the material itself. This fact consist the first main rule, of relations between neighboring particles. Always they have to act collectively and influencing each other. Fibers are not conceived just as a representational way of the design, but are the core, that will determine the results of the project itself. Considering the constructability aspect that we expect from this project we got intrigued by the performance of the raw material and the final result, since we are not interested in creating one more art piece. As performance we call the effectiveness of the product in reality and that is obvious when thinking in architectural means. The combination of high performance and fibers lead to carbon products, and carbon fiber in detail. They are lightweight, very high in resolution and strong. They are getting combined with other materials and have malleable (initial) features. Nowadays it is used mainly in fields of electronics and auto-motives, with only timid steps to the building industry and architecture. What we aim for is to get the architectural design introduced to the latest technologies and state of the art materials using behavioral programming for designing in an innovative way, for high aesthetic results and functionality. The factors that define the system are sticks and fibers. Sticks work as the anchoring points and fibers as the network fabric.
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10. Top view. Model of fibrous formations triggering resolution
Resolution The key element of the process is resolution and has a bidirectional fitting. Resolution delivers the character of the project. Throughout diverse qualities can declare different needs and functions of the system. The complexity of the project is produced using concentrations of the material itself, translated to resolution of the elements. The use of it, the proportions and the qualities have to appeal to certain rules. Low resolution debates with high resolution areas leading to resilient aesthetic qualities, with respect to functional and construction abilities and vice versa. How do we conceive resolution, how do we implement it, does it deliver the qualities that we imagined, or not: the problematic of this issue is inextricably tied to the overall process of the project formation, the feedback of the simulation and fabrication techniques. The simulation techniques are getting a primary formation which is getting evaluated within the process. Firstly we determine the structural abilities of the system that is getting developed. This is essential since what we need is a complete and sophisticated structure which is functional. The data of this element could and are being used in two different ways: the first named as postproduction, and the second so called morphogenesis.
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11. Resolution Studies
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The postproduction phase produces elements that include a rate of deformation. The simulation has been programmed to evaluate the deformation by connecting them with applied physics and set as the rate. This data is being read from the “weaving agent�, representative of the robotic head, and adapts its actions to the information. When the deformation rate is low, the weaving is less, and when it is low the weaving is more. Simple physics create the design decisions by taking consideration the real world through computational means, a challenge that is triggering to the architectural world. The morphogenesis is a process much more complicated since it multiplies or deletes elements in order to get the system to the equilibrium that it is searching for. In the case of the project we multiply the scaffold as so featured as the sticks, and check the distribution of forces. The intricacy and detail of the system augments and the generative process of the form finding feature of architecture holds an important position. The resolution rate can be enhanced with additional features such as permeability issues and aesthetic values. Permeability is a number which derives from the fraction: C/ A, where C is the covered area (projected in two dimensions) and A is the total area possible to cover (projected in two dimensions). It depends on external data as well which represent information a. from the environment that the project is meant to be placed, b. from the desire of the designer/client. The project treats the resolution element as the main factor of fluctuation for the aesthetic values. The aim is to obtain catalogues of diverse aesthetic results which include structural abilities and permeability issues and throughout that mainly introduce high aesthetic qualities that could more than satisfy the observers.
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Equations – mathematical combination For that we will use a range of simple equations which include proportions. We will identify rates of contrast Vs homogeneity, rates of variance for the extreme values and rates of gradualism in transformation of the resolution on the same system. The diversity of the visual elements will be accompanied with the rating data, which come out of the programmed algorithms. There is the chance that there will be same rates for different visual results, but this is something that is desirable and projects the intricacy of the algorithms, and the likelihood of same rules following alternate combinations to end up with similar results. The overall treatment of the fibrous formations, in simulations and in fabrication, and their behavior aims to enhance the new language of architecture that we are creating and determine a new way of approaching the aesthetic values of the project. The digital world turning to a reality era starts through the combination of forms and behavioral research towards a ‘solid’ and achievable design in the near future. As Luciana Parisi underlines “The speculative qualities of digital architecture have exposed spatial design to the qualities of growing or breeding, rather than planning. However, such qualities still deploy the tension between discrete spaces and continual curving. In this context, we suggest the computational coexistence of discrete coding with continual morphing, defying any easy resolution for an aesthetic of continuity or discontinuity, the superiority of the analog or the meta-logic of the digital.” 5
5. Luciana Parisi , “Symbiotic Architecture: Prehending Digitality”, Theory Culture Society 2009, digital version
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12. Sketch for symbiotic understanding
Biotic and symbiotic systems as communicational devices The way that the alteration of the resolution on a system will evoke on a smooth way, is by using a biological way. Getting together the architecture and the living systems, as for an example our bodies, we are trying to figure out the relationships that should be set as means of the project itself. Our bodies become visible, more proliferating, more polymorphic, more saturated, more contracted in ‘masses’ and zones’ as in ‘Biotic and symbiotic systems as communicational devices’ is being mentioned. Gibson’s cyber novel was evoking a non-material space of representation whose immediate data where those of digital simulation, enabling the reader to explore
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the hiatus between physical presence and a consciousness – a spirit- able to navigate in cyber space. In the case of interest now is to turn this theoretical approach to material space, giving an architectural context that goes beyond what we already know. The emergence of living organisms has to get involved with the environment we live in, that what is translated into architecture. In the natural world when a system is getting affected of another element relationships come along. We will take the advantage of making ourselves clear on that, and name those specific relationships symbiotic: The coexistence of two separate ingredients. As the systems in an ecosystem will interact in different ways, so we will use it on our local “ecosystem”. What symbiosis is? It delivers out of the Greek word symbionw, syn + bios, which is translated in living together. “The species in an ecosystem will interact in different ways. There interaction may have positive, neutral or negative impacts on the species involved. The term symbiosis can be used to broadly refer to different types of relationships. Symbiosis is the ecological relationship between two or more organisms living closely together with some form of feeding relationship involved. The three main symbiotic relationships are: a. mutualism, where both organisms benefit, b. commensalism, where one organism benefits while the other organism is not harmed, c. parasitism where one organism benefits and causes harm to the other organism.”6 The relation that fits better to our system is the mutualistic since the systems cooperate and are related to each other. The incremental or the decreasing behavior of the resolution is our key factor that adapts to the rates that have been calculated through one of the two ways we mentioned before (postproduction, morphogenesis). We could even consider though to apply in the code (to program) the choice of the parasitic or the symbiotic approach to another cluster of the algorithm, and make it a variable for the code, that affects the results. In one case (mutualism) the system would work collectively, and at the other by coming in contradiction. We assume, here, that the parasitism system would be more expensive computationally rather the mutualism one. Though the range of the results and their diversity should worth it, and that is visible at the project implementations.
6. http://wizznotes.com/biology/symbiosis/symbiosis-mutualism-commensalism-and-parasitism
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Environmental impact and information data Until now the system is working at the sterile environment of the simulation part perfectly, and the results that we obtain have a great variety of differentiations. What we need now to link to the system itself is the environment that the project is going to get attached. The need for reading external information. This factor is getting enhanced when there will arise the need not only for understanding and acting along with a static territory, but as well as with a dynamic one. The research has branched to investigate the possibility of a structure that uses its pre-existing elements, even if this is a part of the same process. Here, the system seam to start to develop its own brain which will lead to a complete and individual entity. An entity that targets to be self-supporting at the functions, but under the complete control of the designer at the process of the scripting, and deciding the individual actions. Rates that increase or decrease resolution in a framework of prosthesis and apheresis. A frame that extents and projects instrumentality and hospitality with concepts of hostility, unusualness, discomfort, alienation and uncanny. “Parasites� that with cooperation could create a complete system, a development that leads forward, complexity out of simplicity. The upgraded ability of the system is leading to the practice of the artificial intelligence. A computational norm which will enhance the operation of the algorithmic system that we introduce.
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Final Result, Voxel displayed frame 250
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13. Information reading for spacial arrangements
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Artificial Intelligence This innovation in design and fabrication can become a reality with the use of the artificial intelligence in the system itself. We have to define how we conceive this special tool and exactly how we will use it, under which aspects we could make a profit from that, up to which point the human involvement is a necessity or a prohibition. “The basic intuition of genetic and evolutionary algorithms follows the dominant intuition of natural evolution: by accumulating small random variations that incrementally improve fitness, best-adapted solutions progressively grow in the design of spatiality. Here the axiomatic order of the line establishes a set of simple rules out of which all complexity can reproduce.”7 John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1955,[3] defines it as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines”. 8 We will use the approach of the AI as called intelligent agents, that we train and apply specific rules as their behavior. During the process of the training of the system, the agents go through learning, sensing and acting, they develop a perception and are being characterized by memory, proceeding or episodic. They work as generative systems which incorporate models of intelligence, interaction with and respond to the user and designer and last but not least adaptation and evolution over time. The artificial intelligence outlook is inspired and is functioning similarly to the biological forms, as it is mentioned at the paper of Salingaros and Masden, “They underline aspects of the two sectors which are similar: organized complexity, metabolism, replication, adaptation, intervention, situatedness, connectivity, where all of them appeal respectively and are translated respectively to information storage, energy use, reproduction, environmental profit, changing the environment, embedment through sensors, information processing. The adaptation to the environment is crucial, since
7. Luciana Parisi , “Symbiotic Architecture: Prehending Digitality”, Theory Culture Society 2009, digital version 8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
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14. Collection of different intricate arrangements delivered from same inputs.
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if happens for survival, so proportionately, the software we are developing has to be an actual communicative system and the designer concentrated on the steps of development. As Brooks in “Flesh and Machines” describes: “it is hard to draw the line at what is intelligence and what is environmental interaction. […] Intelligence is determined by the dynamics of interaction with the world.” 9 The emergence of the outcome is not a specifically programmed element, but comes out of the interactions of simpler behaviors. How to teach though our system the proper combinations? Everything is a matter of knowledge and expertise at the artificial intelligence algorithms. We need to program them to learn how to adapt to the new data and evolution. According to Mr El- Quessny at his thesis for the Master of Science in Architecture at the MIT “Building an expert system is a form of intellectual cloning. Expert system builders or knowledge engineers find out from experts what they know and how they use their knowledge to solve problems. Once this debriefing is done, the expert system builders incorporate knowledge and expertise in a computer program, making the knowledge easily replicable, readily distributed and essentially immortal.”10 There have been developed learning methods for the computational system, by rote, by analogy, by induction, by explanation and generalization, by observation and by knowledge observation. The system is getting programmed to use the best for each time learning method, in order to be able to use and produce the necessary elements. In the case of our project formation we will use a combination of the two first. Learning by rote, since from the beginning the system will have a systemic knowledge, which in each iteration will increase. There is where the learning by the analogy might appear, so later on the process of the simulation, the system is meant to have already created combinations and tries to explain the intrigued situations. In order to apply the artificial intelligence implementations to the architectural scale through the computer aided design programs the project has to have a clear conceptual design, a synthesis, analogy, a semantic mapping of graphical objects and the electronic sketch book. The artificial intelligence algorithms are just to make the machines that we will be using smarter and the very idea of the artificial intelligence research can be also viewed as a very large design project, performed with extensive computer aid. Therefore simulation models are built in order to gain additional insight into the use of particular methods or alternative methods for handling a certain problem. The algorithms that are getting developed for choosing either optimal alternatives, or satisfactory alternatives. The quality and diversity of those alternatives will come out of the comparison that the system will be programmed to do among the results that is has already obtained during the ‘n’ iterations. 9.Rodney A. Brooks, “ Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us”, Pantheon Books,2002 10. Yasser M. El-Quessny, “The impact of introducing artificial intelligence technology to architecture and its leverage on the concept of design automation”, MIT, 1987
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15. Weaving Patterns with same formations from different combinations/rules
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Our intelligent system will be divined by some rules and specifications which will allow the maximum performance. This artificial design system must be provided within the scripting with databases as well as with intelligent interfaces. In order to have a general applicability of the proposed iterative, hierarchical, recursive, associative models and protocols. Thus allowing application at any level within the design process and expansion to other sub- systems concentrically, to encompass total integrity. The systematic evaluation of conflicting objectives, modular acquisition and utilization of knowledge from different domains, invoking different reasoning strategies, the effective use of qualitative and quantitative knowledge that we obtain during the process will play its specific part at the process itself. The process needs to be cut down into pieces, so to get it to its simplest form and extract the data that we need. From the description of the problem, to the background (the already weaved and the surrounding environment), to the variables, to constrains, to the objective functions, the analysis and the synthesis itself. Along come the storage for the evaluation of the result and the control of the system. Controlling the system deals with the judging acceptability, when it is done only with computational means or not, and what should happen, on which percentage would the designers/ clients should interfere in this type of design process? At this point we should start creating our mini statement of these innovative process of generative design with iterative methods. As has been already mentioned the active factors�, at this procedure are the human (designer, programmer, client), the computational part (algorithms) and the fabrication part, are the leading actors on our ‘play’. Each of them holds a discrete and specific position. The designer decides the separate functions, and as a programmer (s)he can interfere if necessary. Product production is untouchable so, and this is positive, it can deliver a great variety of products, unexpected and diverse, and create catalogues. The space quality that is getting produced can go under the evaluation process, either at the moment of the simulations (by the script) or during the final selection(by the client or designer). Every factor owns a very specific position, without actual interfering. The way the algorithm is created make any possible overlapping minimum, so that the situation in the process we produce to be a win-win situation. We are using the effectiveness of the computational part with the imagination of the human, through the latest technological achievements for fabrication.
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16. Robotic Fabrication - Artificial intelligence attributes
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17. Element of weaving. Linearity and detail with behavioral processes
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CHAPTER |V MEANS OF IMPLEMENTATION & JUSTIFICATION via thesis project Computation Genetic algorithms Artificial intelligence
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Conclusion Hypothesis sum up This research deals with the challenge to combine the aesthetics to the genetic algorithm in a resilient way that will increase the production of proposals, under certain circumstances, along with evaluations that will follow and consist the feedback for the next generation. This approach is going to introduce a new aspect to the computational aesthetics in an expanded way. Simulation is the imitation of a system and it’s testing under a variety of simulated, or limited environments, to gain a better understanding of the system. The architecture world is about to establish a close cooperation with the computational world since the design spirit and the algorithmic expression can open a brand new and exciting world, with respect to constructability, by creating a mechanism that can produce, evaluate, and reconfigure the aesthetics of the design. The everyday life is not static, the science world is not static, the technology is running even fastest • how could the design world, and the scenography of our lives be static. What we develop, we want to be applicable in the architecture and design world. The artificial environments created, either way, should be dynamic systems of material and immaterial artifacts as E.Manzini has mentioned. The new set of language created should be able to determine the future of the architecture itself while performing its best self. We are talking about a bidirectional research: designing the product and designing the behavior prior to the final result. Via the observation of nature in all its scales (from macro to micro), we try to figure out the main set of rules that will lead our projects behavior in an optimizing way to the best , objectively or subjectively result. This does not aim at the reproduction of nature - since it is perfect as it is, but at the understanding of its intentions, its mechanisms and some of the magic hidden in this endless world.
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18. Detail of the quality of the overall element. Stick formation and weaving pattern
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An approach that provides the triptych observer/ client/ designer the chance to select the generation with those preferable characteristics concerning the visual result and knowing the internal data. Results that come out of iterative processes and produce varieties, qualities and quantities. The variable that is meant to change is the resolution factor which is highlighted by the material selection. The system itself is taking advantage of the human imagination, the computational speed, the algorithmic intricacy, the hosting conditions and the fabricational precision. The goal is to create an architecture that can speak different languages and has the ability to adopt to the situation and the evolution in situ, and from generation to generation. On 2006 during the IADE L. Feast mentioned “ecosystems as complex temporal structures involving processes operating simultaneously at varying temporal scales which develop resilience through using scale and time strategically.” This appeals at our project since it demonstrates the main idea which Thorp in ‘’Time in design of E. van Hinte, completes, saying that “varying rates of change within the ecosystem help sustain it.” Emergence and adaption inspired by real life happening in the architecture and design world in order to achieve a global architecture language, able to conform to circumstances arisen, through computed behaviors for an upgraded aesthetic result. A process going back and forth from fabrication to simulation and vice versa. The systems emerges itself and creates a relation among the system itself and the environment and is able to set priorities.
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Project abstract Fibro.City is a project based on fibrous formation on the architectural scale, and on the use of carbon fibers. This material guarantees high performance through discreteness, and we strongly believe that it could apply to the construction industry need using the most extravagant and up-to-date technologies. We are curating the design, and the fabrication methods, creating a new language of expressing architecture, by having in mind structural elements. Reconfiguring these parameters, we achieve high resolution results, unique and aesthetically advanced. We have the opportunity to explore and define the architectural future, and we enhance this chance by reconfiguring the potentials of the materiality of the structure. We program the behavior of our structure, and up to a point we are touching the chance to create optimizing algorithms on the design itself and the structural ability of the project. Algorithms that read the environment and read themselves, anchoring point configurations and weaving agents cooperate for the connection of the simulation to the fabrication process in situ, consisting the components of our synthesis. The fabrication is a robotic matter, since no human intervention is needed after the design process, through the algorithms that we develop and ABB robotic arms. The material uses its discrete parts each time in order that together create the whole. Each of them, indicates a memory or serves a role. One can recognize the gradient increment of automation and technological evolution, from the manual process, to high tech robotics and high tech performing materials. We challenge ourselves for the forthcoming era of architecture.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY MEANS OF IMPLEMENTATION & JUSTIFICATION via thesis project Bookd & Articles Pictures Websites
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References Books & Articles - Andrasek Alisa, “Open Synthesis // Toward a Resilient Synthesis of Architecture”, in LOG 25, summer 2012. - Bentley J. Peter “Climbing Through Complexity Ceilings”, in Network Practices: New Strategies in Architecture and Design, Princeton Architectural Press, 2007 - Brooks Rodney A., “Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us”, Pantheon Books, 2002 - Carpo Mario, “The alphabet and the algorithm” London, MIT press 2009 - Carpo Mario, Frederique Lemerle, “Perspective, projections & design: Technologies of Architectural representation”, chapter 14, p. 175-188, Architectural embodiment / prosthetics and parasites, 2008, chapter 14 - DeLanda Manuel, “Assemblages against Totalities”, in “A New Philosophy of Society, Continuum”, 2006 - Eelco den Heijer, A.E. Eiben, “Using Aesthetic Measures to Evolve Art”, Evolutionary Computation (CEC), 2010 IEEE Congress, 1-8 - Eelco den Heijer, A.E. Eiben, “Investigating aesthetic measures for unsupervised evolutionary art”, Swarm and Evolutionary Computation 16 (2014) - Feast Luke, “The Discrete and the Continuous in Architecture and Design”, Design Research Society, International Conference in Lisbon, IADE, 2006 - Flake Gary William, “The Computational Beauty of Nature”, 1998 - Folkmann Mads Nygaard, “Evaluating Aesthetics in Design: A Phenomenological Approach”, Design Issues: Volume 26, Number 1, winter 2010, MIT press - Holland John, “Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity”, 1996 - Kwinter Sanford, “Soft Systems”, Culture Lab 1, Brian Boigon ed., (Princeton, 1993) - Manzini Ezio, “Towards a New Ecology of the Artificial Environment”, Design within the limits of possibilities and the possibilities of limits, MIT press - Parket H. Dewitt, ”The Principles Of Aesthetics”, Chapter XIII - Beauty in the Industrial Arts: Architecture - Parisi Luciana, “Symbiotic Architecture: Prehending Digitality”, Theory Culture Society 2009, digital version - Rabin Steven, “Introduction to Game Development, Second Edition”, Course Technology PTR, 2009 - Rawes Peg,” Space, Geometry and Aesthetics, Through Kant and towards Deleuze”,2008 - Salingaros Nikos A., Masden Kenneth G., “Architecture: Biological Form and Artificial Intelligence”, University of Texas at San Antonio, Department of Mathematic, College of Architecture, “The Structurist” No. 45/46, 2006 - Stan Franklin, “A Foundational Architecture for Artificial General Intelligence”, Computer Science Department & Institute for Intelligent Systems, The University of Memphis, year unknown - Terzidis Kostas, “Algorithmic Complexity: Out of Nowhere”, in Complexity: Design Strategy and World View, Birkhauser, 2008 - Yasser El-Quessny M., “The impact of introducing artificial intelligence technology to architecture and its leverage on the concept of design automation”, MIT, 1987 50
Pictures 1. Natural fibres . Combination source www. google.com 2. Fibrous formations-3D print (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 3. Dome Structure ( produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 4. http://www.authorama.com/ (The principles of Aesthetics) 5. Behavioral models (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 6. Behavioral models 2 (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 7. Genetic Algorithm Studies (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 8. Physical model from Carbon Fibre by ABB Robotic Arm ((produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 9. Robotic Prototyping (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 10. Resolution studies 1 (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 11. Resolution studies 1 (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 12. Symbiosis Sketch (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 13. External Data (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 14. Selection of patterns (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 15. Weaving patterns (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 16. Element of fabrication (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 17. Element of weaving (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 2013-2014) 18. Detail of simulated Fabrication (produced by Fibro.city Team, MArch GAD, 20132014) Websites http://www.rnrassociates.com/wordpress http://www.achimmenges.net/?p=5561 http://www.performancefibers.com/7 http://www.pinterest.com/ http://www.youtube.com (Dr. Gunter Weiss - Categories of algorithmic aesthetics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBGA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_evolutionary_computation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence http://wizznotes.com http://www.authorama.com
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