Case Study: Sendai Mediatheque l Toyo İto, Matsuro Sasaki

Reading Text: Emergence l Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson explains the ‘Emergence’ in a very good way in terms of understanding the relation between architecture and the city. He is defining the complex system in various scales(from micro scale to macro scale) with comparing the ants, body cells and cities and he takes our attention with the swarm logic of ants’ colony.

Swarm intelligence is the collective decentralized behavior. It is a system which is formed by simple individuals and it is transforming to complexity by interacting with each individuals and surroundings. For instance, ants manage to do their tasks for finding food and building shelter. But there is no reason, no logic about what they are doing. It is impossible to do it by itself; they are really successful when they work together. They get information from their surroundings and neighbors, in that way they do their tasks. This is the result of interaction which means it becomes ant colony and this example is also shows how ‘local information can develop global wisdom’. Also our body cells are precise example which proves the same swarm logic by creating the whole body with those simple cells.

According to the learning form ground level, there are 5 main topics to point out:

More is different: The more simple elements in numbers, can work more efficiently compared to 1 or 2 elements. For instance, only large amount of ants can create the colony.

Ignorance is useful: The simplicity is crucial for creating complexity. Learning from ants, each ant do only one task and they do not even know why they do.

Encourage random encounters: Different information and situations can create complexity in large scale. Ants behave individually and do their random unplanned tasks. They can adapt in any condition and they can change their tasks.

Look for patterns in the signs: As it is understandable, it is better to follow signs which priors leave. This is way to improve globally. To give an example from ants, they do not talk to each other. They work with their pheromones to find food and create path to build shelter.

Pay attention to your neighbors: Last but not least, this is how the complexity works; sharing information and interaction. Ants see the neighbors and change their tasks. Because they can not survive on their own.

Ultimately, this is where everything is getting clear. Cities bring minds together and the similar swarm logic of ants can be thought in human scale. Cities exist with their neighborhoods. If interaction needs a place, Steven Johnson points out the sidewalks of the city. It is a place that gives us a chance to get/share information and interaction with others (fluidity and continuity place for information). We are all individuals living randomly, but we are providing the exact amount of local interactions to achieve global wisdom. In other words, we are all a part of the whole complex system. By individually sharing information affects the whole complexity. As a result, Emergence is the ability to get and respond the information according to needs of global wisdom.

After analyzing Johnson’s examples and also Toyo Ito’s mediatheque, they changed my way of thinking about the complexity. Now I can say that also complexity can become from a simple element. I am very intrigued with the fact that there are so many patterns in our environment which has similar patterns in our lives. I would like to research about these patterns. It would great to learn how we can learn more from the micro systems in nature and implement them to our macro system. In that case learning more from nature, helps me more about understanding the advanced architecture.

It is rightly said that we are at the highest point of understanding our universe. Our knowledge about this sphere of activity that we are centered on and the totality of all the matter and energy that exists in the vastness is still limited yet we make fun of people who still believes that the earth is the center of the universe.  Even thou we don’t have a full understanding of how this system functions and we still cannot prove the hypothesis yet we are quite certain of this conclusion.

The principle of emergence suggest that we need to change our understanding of how the universe is arranged. We believe in complex mathematical and physical laws that guide the heavenly bodies in their paths but this fails to consider that the heavenly bodies are in fact large collections of independent particles that have joined together based on certain rules.

(In his study Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, media theorist Steven Johnson argues that emergence is the essential idea for our age. Emergence is an alternative way of understanding complex systems. A hierarchical, top-down system attempts to use a centralized decision-making process based on abstract rules to guide behavior. The emergent position looks at complex systems differently: a small number of rules that are processed by individual units are the best method of explaining the aggregate behavior. While a statistical analysis of an emergent system will lead to abstract mathematical laws, these laws do not explain why individual units behave the way they do.)

Emergence refers to the ability of low-level components of a system or community to self-organize into a higher-level system of sophistication and awareness.- Johnson

Steven Johnson says emergence is what happens when the whole is smarter than the sum of its parts. In the given text the author gives the great example of the ants. Ant colonies have this miraculous ability to pull off complex engineering feats, resource management without an actual leadership dictating what any ant should be doing at any time.

He states that the ants function in a decentralized manner without any specific guidelines directed from the top. Each individual ant knows its specific task which has to be carried out. Ants are social beings who live and work in a collective manner to build the foundation of the future generation of ants and the protection of the colonies.

Johnson gives examples of feedback, self-organization and adaptive learning. He presents five fundamental principles to support his hypothesis:

• More is different.

-        A single ant or few ants will react n behave in a different manner than 1000 ants in the same situation. The entire system has to be observed it order to know the global behavior.

• Ignorance is useful.

-        It is better to build a densely interconnected system with simple elements and let the more sophisticated behavior trickle up.

• Encourage random encounters.

-        It is important to have these encounters, ant colonies rely heavily on random interactions exploring a defined space without any predefined orders. Without these encounters they would not be able to identify new food source.

• Look for patterns

-        The knack of pattern detection allows ants to smell the pheromones of fifty forages imparts information about the global state.

• Pay attention to your neighbors.

-        This is something that humans need to learn from the ants, observing and solving problems locally will regulate the colony effectively.

Johnson tries to make this connection between the human societies which functions in a top down manner to ant’s colony which behaves the opposite. The potential of such smart systems fascinates Johnson. He states that how human cities are affected by emergence and that there is a strong need to look at things differently.

He looks into another example similar patterns is human body cells. The sums of all the cells create a whole body there is no us without them. This is similar to the thousands to tireless ants which makes up the colony. Our cities work very close to this pattern. Usually there is a master plan, developed by urban planners yet each neighborhood has its own pattern and are distinct from one another. Johnson further states that similar population groups attract each other. Artists move to the art quarter, bankers and stock brokers move to the financial district. Interactions happen on sidewalks and public spaces.

Like Johnson I am too fascinate with the ant colonies. It is interesting that how the behavior these humble creatures can be the answer to human problems. The effect on micro level neighborhood planning to a macro level urban planning has to be paid attention to.

Reference: http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/fall04/leslie.html

Reference: http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/network/2002/02/22/johnson.html

In this rapidly changing world, people more and more often notice that we are not so different from our planet’s species. After analyzing Sendai Mediatheque by architect Toyo Ito and studying the text of Steven Johnson “Emergence – the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software” I found a lot of similarities.

At first it doesn’t seem like this two projects: one being a building and the other a book, could have something in common. When we look at the Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito, we see that it has three main components: skin, plate and tube. Every one of these elements by itself does not create a structure or a building, but when they are put together, they create a revolutionary, transparent cultural media center with unique engineering systems and aesthetics. In the “Emergence…” by Steven Johnson we can find similar concepts, where one component/element/creature can still exist on its own, but multiple can create a solid structure/organism or life.

Here author relies on the life of ants, and how they create this ever changing organism where each “social citizen” knows what he or she is supposed to do in order for their colony to survive. He also mentions DNA and how every piece of it is essential to the organism. By removing something in it or simply changing it, will change the organism itself. Just like in Toyo Ito’s cultural media center where every floor is designed in the way that they have their purpose within the building. It acts as an organism – architectural organism, meaning if you ever to change the function of one floor, it will automatically change the whole purpose, flow or functionality of the building.

After reading text by Steven Johnson and analyzing Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito, I found it very helpful in order understand that we, architects create these organisms, but in different scales. Starting from the smallest – a building, then neighborhood and finally – city. So I guess my personal research/project that I would like to develop in the future will be creating and studying these organisms. I would also like to create them in the way where every element/component I use will have a purpose.

For my research interest I would want to research how to adapt the ant system to something as small as a building or as a big as urbanism. It would be interesting to create a certain pattern or algorithm that would help the design to make people be more aware of their surrounding and knowing the importance of all the small tasks we pursue every day to create a more interconnected comprehensive whole. Design should be influenced in my opinion by these 5 emergence principles because they help us understand some ground rules in creating a more complex and comprehensive final picture by small simple steps that will affect the whole. A big lesson learned from ants is that simplicity, interconnection and order can lead to very complex yet functional designs that could cater for a better life. If the ground rules of the ant colony system could be integrated in our design and considered in design concepts it could lead to a better standard of living and a more efficient system of design that will help create a better bigger picture and help people contribute more to a higher standard of living.