INTERNET
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Internet_map_1024_-_transparent.png

Blur Bluilding by Diller, Scofidio and Renfro for Swiss Expo 2002

This pavillion is an analogy to a cloud, with its uncertain and unpredictable boundaries. Solely made of its light tensegrity structure hidden by the fine water particles that floats in the air to create a fog mass through thousands of nozzles that project the water pumped from the lake on which the buildings sits on, or rather seems to be floating on. The water nozzles control its intensity through pressure and amount of water, regulated on a base of micro local weather state using digital sensors, either it is the wind strength or direction, temperature, air pressure, etc. to ensure the permanent yet ephemeral presence of the building as described.

Concept of rhizome by Deleuze and Guattari in the text “A Thousand Plateaus”
First, the concept of rhizome is the part of philosophical turning point, a shift in discourse of contemporary philosophy, with Deleuze considered as most important according to Foucault. Ontologically speaking, the choices are beyond binary and dualist; it is multiplicity. The openness to possibilites, attractions, influences and connection between these characterize the rhizome, as a complex map. Like a botanical rhizomatic system of roots with nodes, the concept of rhizome supports that there is no hierarchy, nor linearity, nor beginning nor end, it is always in a part of complex interrelated processes, often opposed to the tree system, where choices are linearly branched through linear ascension with clear cause as entry and consequence as exit.

The experience through this pavillion as a case study can be interestingly related to this concept of rhizome. The blurred limits of the building which statistic states are ephemeral, or rather constantly dynamically evolving based on its environmental influences. Once in this sensorial space, a visitor cannot visually and auditorily locate itself due to the dense myst and innumerable nozzles’ noise. Only the central system, as a third-eye can track the position of each individual. The smart raincoats, which respond in LED a color that corresponds to an affinity of one visitor to another based on a pre-input data from a questionnaire prior to the visit, can be related as a part of sensorial experience, as a social relationship. It is hence digitally mapped as a network of people, but also as one approaches another, there is social and psychological responses through attraction and repulsion between unpredictably approahing people meandering in a 3D space, resulting in a proliferation of senses, new encounters and further experiences. This evolving network of links and chains of reactive responses is clearly an analogy to the Internet, which reminds us of how the concept of rhizome is part of our life.

These ideas are right within our field of study. How does affinity between buildings and inhabitants, social context and existing environment within a micro context can impact its neighbourhood and building design? Mapping this relationship in a micro scale and macro scale to finally obtain a global tendency or evolution of city as a whole network can foster us architect in approaching better tools and assets to design a better builiding implementation within its context and multiple factors defining its area and the area within an urban area. It would be interesting to take advatage and full potential of digital tools to relate a new building design and its context, a node with its possible networks.

Towards a Theory of Architecture Machine:

Author: Nicholas Negroponte (March 1969)

The author describes machine in which he calls the “Architecture Machine” that can learn about architecture and possibly learn about learning about architecture. A machine that can associate courses with goals, to be self-improving evolutionary specie and to be ethical. Nicholas also outlines the rational in the partnership “dialogue” of an architect in which he calls the “teacher” with the machine.

Nicholas describes the computer-aided design studies in the 1960’s as irrelevant in as much as they only present more fashionable and faster (though rarely cheaper) ways of doing what designers already do. His description of the machine and his writing apparently came after analyzing how computer aided design did not reflect effectively on the construction sector, thus a better system or a machine should be present, to aid designers and architects to bring their ideas to life with less hassle, hence boosting the productivity of the designer, without compromising his creativity. Devices that can intelligently respond to the tiny, individual, constantly changing bits of information that reflect the identity of each urbanite as well as the coherence of the city.

The learning machine:

A robot constructed with regenerative loops of a certain formal character is capable of deducting any legitimate conclusion from a finite set of premises. One approach to such a faculty is to increase the probability of meaningfulness of the design, generated from random or disorderly criteria.

Five subassemblies form the architectural machine:

1) A Heuristic Mechanism
A heuristic is a method or strategies based on rule of thumb which basically limit the search for a solution for upcoming architecture problems. The benefit is in time and in the reduction of search for alternatives. Heuristic learning is particularly relevant to evolutionary machines, since it lends itself to personalization and change via talking to one specific designer or overviewing many designers. In architecture machine, this heuristic element would probably be void of specific commitment when the package arrived at your office. Through architect- sponsored maturation, a resident mechanism would acquire broad rules to handle the exceptional information. The first time a problem is encountered, the machine would attempt to apply procedures relevant to apparently similar problems (or contexts). heuristics gained from analogous situations would be the machines first source of contribution to the solution of a new problem.

2) A Rote Apparatus
After repeated encounters, a rote apparatus would take charge. Rote learning is the elementary storing of an event or a basic part of an event and associating it with a response. When a sitatuin is repeatedly encountered, a rote mechanism can retain the circumstance for usage when similar situations are next encountered. In architecture, such repition of subproblems is extremely frequent: parking, elevators, plymbing, etc. Again, a rote mechanism lends itself to personalization. But, unlike the heuristic mechanism, this device would probably arrive originally with a small repertoire of situations it can readily handle.

3) A Conditioning Device
A conditioning mechanism is a device that handles all the non-exceptional information. Habits assist humans to surpass daily obstacles. In machine, beyond rote learning, design habits can respond to the standard events generated by the problem, by the heuristic mechanism or by the rote apparatus. Each robot would developed its own conditioned reflexes. The presence of habitual events will trigger predefined responses with little effort until the prediction fails; whereupon the response is faded out by evolution and is handles elsewhere in the system.

4) A Reward Selector
A reward selector initiates no activites. The reward mechanism selects from any action that which the “teacher” likes. The teacher (the designer, and overviewing apparatus, the inhabitants) must exhibit happiness or disappointment for the reward mechanism to operate. or to furnish this mechanism with direction, simulation techniques must evolve that implicitly (without the knowledge of the designer) test any environment. The design of this device is crucial; bad architecture could escalate as wasily as good design. A reward selector must not make a machine the minion or boot licker of bad design. It probably must evaluate, or at least observe, goals as well as results.

5) A Forgetting Convenience
“Unlearning is as important as learning”. Information can assume less significance over time and eventually disappear (exponential forgetting). Obsolescence occurs over time or through irrelevance . A technological innovation in the construction industry, for example, can make entire bodies of knowledge obsolete. Or past procedures might not satisfy environmental conditions that have changed over time, thus invalidating a heuristic, rote response, or conditioned reflex.

The Seeing Machine:

The seeing machine can respond to stimuli. Such a machine can “see, hear and sense” its surroundings by repetition and recognition.

Conclusion:

Whats interesting about this paper is that its way ahead of its time. I find it intriguing that the author can describe todays “architecture machines” in the clear way that he did. I can strongly relate the learning machine to Building Information Modeling software and hardware present currently in the construction industry. A machine that can adapt to fit the designers need. A self- improving machine that can be programmed to recognize errors, recall styles, respond to environmental factors, gather data from other designers etc. And can be moulded or custom made to act as the designer’s “partner”.

In Thomson’s book “On Growth and Form”, he looks at the way natural living things, such as vegetation and animals, and why they take the form they do by growing and changing. While at first the forms are described with words, they later are represented with mathematical and graphical drawings. Thomson admits that the mathematical analysis has its limitations since one cannot simply draw anything. However, it does have an advantage in a way we can manipulate shapes and discover new things; he places a grid and then deforms it consistently in one particular pattern, the result is a new species. Nevertheless not everything can be transformed to anything; a vertebral animal cannot be transformed to a mammal. His study of form is called “morphology”. The form goes from a static to dynamic state with the influence of forces on them. While looking at the shape we can recognize the force that transformed it, which can be for example Gravity. By understanding the form transformation vs. the forces, we can see a similarity with DeLanda in the evolution process from young to older. Thomson discuses the concept of average since the process of transformation allows you to get only an approximate result; one can get mathematical forms for shapes in general, but not for a specific case – “Keep the type in mind & leave the single cases, with all its accidents, alone”. In “On Growth and Form”, there is also the idea of Newton which says that “Nature delights in transformation”. The book is mostly about questioning and comparing the form, growth and Cartesian coordinates. According to Thomson, comparison of related forms allows us to understand better the transformation and deformation that if we saw the form alone. His method was to use Cartesian coordinates, and it can be used to study missing parts of an animal or the missing steps of the evolution process. Thomson describes Listing’s point of view of seeing a topological similarity in mammals where in the science of typology any form can be changed to any form. This concept comes behind the fact that if you breakdown different forms, we will end up with similar basic geometric shapes. However Thomson did not study this perspective. All of his experiments are limited since they are in 2D, where everything in the grid changes but keeps the same relation. His study can be applied on a 3D grid but there will be difficulty in correlating one plane into different one. Moreover, even in his 2D process, we can notice that his transformation from the initial drawing to the obtained result is not always very accurate and sometimes raises doubts about certain coordinate’s displacement; Nevertheless we should keep in mind the book was written in a time where computer analysis and parametric still did not exist, making his work an impressing read. We can notice that Thomson applied the same method as Albert Durer did on human face, but for animals.

In my personal research, I would like to experiment and apply Thomson’s theories since he was descriptive rather than experimental in his book. It is clear that he was aware of that when he said: “This book of mine has little need of preface, for indeed it is ‘all preface’ from beginning to end”. It would be to apply the study to all shapes in our daily life to follow their process and see what forces and changes they have been affected by to become transformed to what they are.