In general I am not a fan of ‘theorists’ or anything else from the 80s. The exception is Neil Leach. I can still remember the first time I read The Anaesthics of Architecture, cover to cover under the afternoon sun, the whole text resonating. In the domain of digital architecture, even though it does not explicitly discuss the computer, it is significant because it establishes context for the emergence of digital architecture. This context of architecture at the end of the millennium is described by Leach as “Architectural design reduced to the superficial play of empty, seductive forms and philosophy is appropriated as an intellectual veneer to justify forms.”
It is against this Xeroxed backdrop of image based architecture that our current focus on performance emerges. I think Leach has articulated this shift better than anyone else, best summarised in his article Digital Morphogenesis, in Architectural Design, 79 (see full article here). The only critique I have is that Leach tends to downplay the role of the architect in digital morphogenesis, claiming the process is objective when in reality the architect exerts absolute control over the process – either through limiting the application of digital morphogenesis, or acting as an editor. In some cases this has lead to performance replacing philosophy as ‘an intellectual veneer to justify forms.’ Browsing the Grasshopper forum this becomes apparent, where project after project is rendered in the image of performance rather than being performative. In many ways the shift towards performance has been a fulfillment of John Frazer’s warning (issued in 1995) that computers “induce a false sense of having optimised a design which may be fundamentally ill conceived.” Whether or not the performance we are now seeing in architecture is ill conceived or intelligent, Neil Leach has been essential in exposing the trend.
A full list of all Leach’s publications can be found at http://neilleach.wordpress.com/ along with the picture used in this post.
On the 12th of December, 2009, Niel Leach gathered some of the most prominent digital intellectuals to talk parametric urbanism at Intensive Fields. It sounded amazing but was a bit too far for a day trip. Fortunately for those who could not make it, the University of Southern California has put all the discussions on their youtube page.
The following is the first lecture given and my dream setup: Neil Leach introducing DeLanda. DeLanda’s lecture focuses on simulation of urban emergence using Cellular Automa. He defines emergence as “the result of collective unintended consequences from intentional actions.” This definition encompasses emergent behavior from intelligent agents, or at least ones that have intentional actions.
Like in his book A Thousand Years of Non-linar History, DeLanda is arguing that emergence happens on many scales. This translates to a multi-layered understanding of urban development, necessitating that simulation occurs across scales. I remain unconvinced that Cellular Automata is the vehicle to explore non-linear history. It certainly has emergent qualities, but each simulation is so explicitly tied to a layer of understanding that multi-layered simulation is difficult to achieve. DeLanda somewhat addresses this critique in the panel discussion following, arguing that Cellular Automata should be seen as a form finding processes.
And the panel discussion afterwards: (left to right) Manual DeLanda, Niel Leach, Benjamin Bratton, Anne Balsamo, Lev Manovich and Eui-Sung Yi.
I have recently been playing around with creating plugins in Rhino and have been amazed at how accommodating it is to developers. Much like Apple, Facebook and Twitter, by making it easy for developers to access their system, developers have contributed a number of apps that extend the functionality Rhino. Grasshopper recently allowed developers to write plugins and the first round of new plugins/animals all look pretty exciting:
Rabbit generates cellular automata systems, L-systems and LOGO. I found the components a bit hard to understand, but there are some really impressive demo definitions included in the download.
Kangaroo
Tectonics has long been touted as a way to recover from our post-modern hangover. However tectonics requires cumbersome and complex equations, which makes it difficult to use in the early generative stage of a project (see Digital Tectonics). Kangaroo appears to remove these barriers and makes it easy to integrate tectonics as a design driver. Kangaroo is currently still in development, but to me this looks like the realisation of the long discussed digital tectonics.
Firefly links into Arduino allowing you to use sensors to drive parametric models. And as we saw in Smart Geometry 2010 this opens up a range of interesting developments…
Smart Geometry 2010 / ubiMash:
This is one of the workshops from the Smart Geometry 2010 in Barcelona. All the work is based on an open source framework called Ubimash, which was released just prior to Smart Geometry 2010. Ubimash links Generative Components with Arduino, Wii and other physical inputs. A few years ago this making project like this would have been a thesis, but with libraries like Ubimash these projects were all done in just four days.
Generative Components is now free:
Also coming out of Smart Geometry, Bentley lowered the price on Generative Components to free and released a version that runs without Microstation. I hope this is not an indication that Bentley has given up on GC, which has been floundering since Robert Aish’s departure. Competing on price doesn’t seem innovative enough to stay in the market; I wish they were competing on features. Anyway I am sure no one is complaining about picking up a free copy of Generative Components here
Edit 8th July, 2010: The earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Generative Components runs without Microstation. Thank you to Mark at parametricconcepts.com for catching this error. Edit 25th August, 2010: Turns out Generative Components does run without Microstation, just Bentley Technical support were not aware of it back in July. Thanks again to Mark for keeping upto date on this one.
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