FROM “EMERGENCE: THE CONNECTED LIVE OF ANTS, BRAINS, CITIES, AND SOFTWARE” BY STEVEN JOHNSON. 2001  Chapter Number 2 – Street Level

 Guy Debord (1956) Theory of the Dérive

Steven Johnson explained the idea of a city as a system that celebrates the power of a city in its locality and in the everyday local interactions that keep it alive and evolving. He talks about the insignificant contribution of a small unit derived by interaction at the local level that makes a significant impact on the entire system. In this way the evolution of the ant colonies is similar to the process in which cells organize themselves from organs to organisms. In these scenarios there is no bird’s eye view or a pre conceived master plan of the whole system but an ever evolving plan that thrives on the exchange of information via local communication.

These stability of these systems is fascinating as everyone and no one is working to keep the system alive. The forces that act to create this “swarm logic” lie in the interaction and balance between opposing forces. Krugman’s “Self organising economy” talks about these forces in economic terms wherein a city made up of businesses evolves by the decisions of their location depending on other businesses. The same could be said about the adjustment of the task allocation of ants according to the colony size or food supply which is determined by the ants local experience in a small or a big colony not by the calculation of the colony size. This bottom-up emergence process keeps the system alive even if some units become non-functional like old cells being replaced by new cells in a human body.

There are certain characteristics showcased in these macro systems whose intelligence is embedded in the micro units. The statistical nature of interaction demands that there be a critical mass of units to make intelligent assessments of its global state. The random encounters between these units is also essential to contribute to the overall intelligence. For example driving past a slum vs walking through a slum might lead someone to make a different assessment of the situation and as a result a different response. Paying attention to your neighbors is a most important attribute of a local system emerging to a global one. This attribute is best showcased in old villages around the world where people build one house next to the other house just organizing their open space in harmony with their neighbors.

In Jacob’s “Life and death”  the sidewalks of a city are described as conduits of information where local human interaction effects the city life. Its again a balance between the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. City life depends on the odd interaction between strangers that change one’s individual behavior.

The research objective is about interactions between entities to develop patterns and an overall system and also how dependent these patterns are on their initial conditions. Of how there is order in chaos and not only how these interactions have an effect on the system but also of how the emergence of these systems has an impact on the subsequent interactions and experiences of human beings.

Tarzans in the Media forest – Toyo Ito

Peter Cook, Sponge Building 1974

In the text, Toyo Ito questions the 20^th century principles of modern architecture and the role of an architect to create artificial environments for human beings. The relationship of buildings with the context in a capitalist economy is complex and the role of the architect is changing and getting redefined. Also this role has an impact of the relationship and events between humans, their habitable space and the city.

He talks about the idea of buildings behaving as trees which blurs boundaries between artificial and natural environments.  About the process of architecture being a continuous one which tries to attain equilibrium with its surroundings by relativistic relationships and processes that are constantly interacting and of creating a balance between survival and a shared sense of space.

I have always been intrigued by the differences that exist in architecture. The difference/contrast between two buildings adjacent to each other in a cityscape or between expectations and reality. Ito talks about the this gap in the example of the SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE under construction and the preconceptions of the design being a transparent abstract architecture which was transformed by the process into something more violent than the original idea. In the same example he also talks about the rigidity of archetypes and designated uses and differences they form when the events other than a designated use transpire in a space.

These differences and contradictions that exist in architecture give birth to utopias and fictional projects. The questions become important of what new architecture should take place of the old and how contextual  and economic differences should be dealt with design in the complex reality of our city.

“The difficulty of building architecture lies in the way one perceives its distance from reality” . Every society is aspiring and trying to realize dreams of different ideas of utopia. Ito talks about creating fictional urban spaces as an attempt to invest architecture with its spirit without obsessing with its form or body.

These ideas in a sense go back and connect to the tree concept as any intervention in society must address the dynamic change and continuous processes and relationships between elements. These discrepancies give us a window into the reality of our time and help us critically analyse what exists and question preconceived notions and solutions.