This video is reflecting the digital logics of parametric design in nowadays architecture. According to Steven Johnson’s emergence, architecture can learn a lot from the logics of swarm patterns like ant colonies or human body cells. Indian architect Doshi’s Aranya housing project implements a lot of those ideas, although the project was realized years before the publication of ‘Emergence’. Doshi set the master plan like the human DNA by building the very first row of bricks and setting the sanitary cells. This ensured a minimum standard. The rest was left up to the inhabitants. Therefore spontaneous appearance is the result. By following the individual needs of their inhabitants a certain shape was created.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXCFwZa118U&feature=youtu.be

Steven Johnson: Emergence

Steven Johnson’s Emergence refers to the possibilities of simple components to form a highly developed structure. The systems ability to organize is maintained by a bottom up structure instead of an all above control. He analyzes those topics with various examples, especially by the colonies of ants.

Although a single ant has a very rudimental brain the species is dominant on the planet in sheer numbers and occurrence. And even though a single ant is not able to survive, as a swarm they are very successful. Each ant colony has a queen, but nevertheless it is not literally ‘ruled’ by it. The colony is controlled by sheer swarm intelligence, which is directed from the bottom – not the top. Every single ants behavior refers to the behavior of the rest of the ants. If there is too many cleaner ants, some change their duty. If there is a place with food, ants leave pheromones on their track, attracting other ants to the food source. Learning from the ants, there are five main points that form swarm intelligence:

• More is different: there needs to be a ‘critical mass’ of ants to make intelligent assessments. One or two ants cannot represent any data. But a few thousands can and eventual mistakes or statistical odds are evened out.
• Ignorance is useful: The simplicity of the ant is important to the success. ‘It is easier to build a densely interconnected system with simple elements,  and let the more sophisticated behavior tickle up.’ (p78)
• Encourage random encounters: As the system is completely decentralized it relies on random interactions between exploring ants. This is important to find new recourses and adapt to changing conditions.
• Look for patterns in signs: The sum and combination of all information is important.
• Pay attention to your neighbors: There is no order from above. By local information and action, global effects are caused.

Another example of similar patterns is human body cells. The sums of all those simple cells create a whole body. And despite it is the sum of many things one feels like an individual. But in contrast to the ants, body cells do have a kind of master plan. The DNA does state some order, but still there is a lot of swarm intelligence as well. It is more a combination of both systems. Human cities work very close to that pattern. There is (usually) some master plan, developed by urban planners. Still neighborhoods can derive spontaneously, sometimes planned, sometimes random. Like a cell surrounded by muscle cells becomes another muscle cell, similar population groups attract each other. Artists move to the art quarter, bankers to the financial district etc. The sidewalk is the stage for points of contact. It is the public space where interactions happen. Without this constant flow of information there would be no city life. According to Johnson ‘sidewalks work because they permit local interactions to create global order.’ Single decisions are made because of the behavior of the people around. And just like the ant colony the human behavior works at two scales: the day-to-day survival of the individual and the millennial scale of cities and other economic ecosystems.

Having read this text as well as analyzing Toyo Ito’s Sendai Mediatheque, I think there is still a huge research field in learning from nature.  May it be very literal like Ito’s seaweed columns or more abstract in swarm systems. Nature has many systems worked out so perfectly that human science is unable to do better. Architecture has shifted away from nature during the past hundreds of years, but even though digital design seems to push it further away it can be the missing link ‘back to the roots’. Parametric design relates quite well to swarm intelligence discussed above, it may work in similar patterns. Considering such knowledge, which has been in front of our eyes combined with new abilities to use, it can change our architectural thinking and behavior.

The Moriyama House and ‚Cooking, Yo-ing, Thinking’

The Moriyama House by the Office of Ryue Nishizawa is located in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The site includes a whole bloc, although just a single man and his mother own it. The main idea of the architect was to rethink the traditional Japanese courtyard house and create an open cluster system, which can be used in various ways. Therefore the room elements are very flexible. They can be inhabited by the owners but as well easily rented. The conventional closed structure of the house is exploded. The elements are spread over the site. The house mingles with the outside. Nature is entangled with the cultural environment. The spaces amongst the living boxes are on the one hand open spaces, on the other hand closed and merged with the indoor rooms. They are an extension of the living rooms. However, the housing elements are quite isolated at the same time. Windows are never orientated towards each other. They either face a wall or the open sky to maintain privacy.

In ‘Cooking, Yo-ing, Thinking’ Stanford Kwinter is concerned about the perception of nature and how digitalization changes things. In his theory, human mankind is a part of nature and not something separated, acting within it. Furthermore he states that computers should not be seen as simple tools. They are something far more powerful. He compares them to the very first stone tools, which started the whole evolution of human civilization. Computer change the way we live, the way we perceive things, even the way we think. They create a completely new environment – the digital one. There are new social spaces for communication and interaction. Still this new system acts very similar to the natural environment. Kwinter states, that it should be used to connect us again closer to nature. The more relations are created between natural, cultural and digital environment, the better. Old traditions should be always rethought to create something new. If technical standards are developed enough but also the thinking of the society has changed and is ready for something new, things can change.

The Moriyama House realizes Kwinter’s ideas in ‘Cooking, Yo-ing, Thinking’. The traditional Japanese courtyard is altered to develop new spaces. It is an intangible relation. Garden and indoor rooms mix and create an interesting array of semi-open spaces. Nature blurs with social space. It is part of the house. The garden is entangled with the housing elements. Social space can emerge within the blocs. The boxes correlate with each other, the ‘outside’ space is woven with the inside. . Landscape, city, and house become indistinguishable. It is a building and a system at the same time. The site is both private and public at the same time. It is not closed anymore. Everyone from the street can walk in between the blocs. But it is a disturbed relation as well: the elements are isolated, the windows never interact with each other. While the site is open to the street, the housing blocs are secluded. One has to leave one box to get to another ‘room’. The system connects and divides at once.

Personally I find it very interesting, how the environments interact. I think those interconnections are the most remarkable focuses in nowadays architecture. The boarders within the environments fade, it gets harder to tell where one stops and the other starts. Architecture becomes a living organism, not an object.