Manuel de Landa
“Genetic algorithms” is related to this text with the focus on the application that these techniques may have as aids in artistic design.
Software allows breeding new forms rather than specifically designing them but deliberate design is still a crucial component.
Only if virtual evolution can be used to explore a space rich enough so that all the possibilities cannot be considered in advance by the designer, only if what results shocks or at least surprises, can genetic algorithms be considered useful visualization tools.
Computer code: genetic material :CAD: virtual DNA
The productive use of genetic algorithms implies the deployment of 3 forms of philosophical thinking ( cf. Deleuze):
-POPULATIONAL
-INTENSIVE
-TOPOLOGICAL
- POPULATIONAL THINKING
The population not the individual is the matrix for the production of form
The new form is slowly synthesized within the larger reproductive community
An entire population of such buildings needs to be unleashed within the computer, not just a couple of them.
The architect must add to the CAD sequence of operations points at which spontaneous mutations may occur. And let them propagate and interact over many generations.
B.INTENSIVE THINKING
Opposite: extensive quantity
Extensive: magnitudes spatially subdivided: volumes, length, areas
Intensive: quantities that cannot be subdivided: temperature, pressure, speeds.
+ Difference of intensity spontaneously tends to cancel itself out and in the processes; it drives fluxes of matter and energy.
Difference of intensity: productive differences (in the process the diversity of the actual form is produced, i.e: embryogenesis)
Like in natural selection, in architecture, with help of computer, a similar process should be simulated to make sure that products of virtual evolution are viable in terms of structural engineering prior to be selected by the designer in terms if their “aesthetic fitness”
The role of design has now been transform into some equivalent of a prize dog or a race horse breeder.
The original CAD model must be endowed with mutation points at just the right places (and this involves design decisions) and much creativity need to be exercised to link ornamental and structural elements in just the right way.
C.TOPOLOGICAL THINKING
New forms continue to emerge but they seem too close to the original ones, as if the space of possible designs which the process explores had been exhausted. This is in contrast with the incredible combinatorial productivity of natural forms.
“Body plan”: a kind of “abstract vertebrate” which, if folded and curled in particular sequences yields a giraffe, and in other sequences of intensive operations yields snakes, eagles, sharks and humans.( i.e: tetrapod limb)
“Abstract diagram” or “virtual multiplicity”: refer to entities like the vertebrate body plan (and also non organic entities like clouds or mountains)
Metric spaces: length, area, Euclidean geometry
Other geometries: operations that do not preserve lengths or areas. Ex: projective geometry (perspective projections).Topological invariants (dimensionality of space or connectivity) are the elements to think about body plans ( abstract diagrams)
The spatial structure define by body plan cannot be metric since embryological operations can produce a large variety of finished bodies, each with a different metric structure. Therefore body plans must be topological.
Architects using the new tools must not only become hackers ( create the code needed to bring extensive and intensive aspects together) but also be able “ to hack” biology, thermodynamics, mathematics and other areas of science.
Mere digital technology without populational, intensive and topological thinking will never be enough.
Architectural images
Taichung Metropolitan Opera House / Toyo Ito & Associates
“From control to design”, Verb monograph, p.54-59
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.