Computational Swarming: A Cultural Technique for Generative Architecture
After a first wave of digital architecture in the 1990s, the last decade saw some approaches where agent-based modelling and simulation (ABM) was used for generative strategies in architectural design. By taking advantage of the self-organisational capabilities of computational agent collectives who...
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| Language: | English |
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TU Delft OPEN Publishing
2014-11-01
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| Series: | Footprint |
| Online Access: | https://ojs-libaccp.tudelft.nl/index.php/footprint/article/view/808 |
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| author | Sebastian Vehlken |
| author_facet | Sebastian Vehlken |
| author_sort | Sebastian Vehlken |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | After a first wave of digital architecture in the 1990s, the last decade saw some approaches where agent-based modelling and simulation (ABM) was used for generative strategies in architectural design. By taking advantage of the self-organisational capabilities of computational agent collectives whose global behaviour emerges from the local interaction of a large number of relatively simple individuals (as it does, for instance, in animal swarms), architects are able to understand buildings and urbanscapes in a novel way as complex spaces that are constituted by the movement of multiple material and informational elements. As a major, zoo-technological branch of ABM, Computational Swarm Intelligence (SI) coalesces all kinds of architectural elements – materials, people, environmental forces, traffic dynamics, etc. – into a collective population. Thereby, SI and ABM initiate a shift from geometric or parametric planning to time-based and less prescriptive software tools.
Agent-based applications of this sort are used to model solution strategies in a number of areas where opaque and complex problems present themselves – from epidemiology to logistics, and from market simulations to crowd control. This article seeks to conceptualise SI and ABM as a fundamental and novel cultural technique for governing dynamic processes, taking their employment in generative architectural design as a concrete example. In order to avoid a rather conventional application of philosophical theories to this field, the paper explores how the procedures of such technologies can be understood in relation to the media-historical concept of Cultural Techniques. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-bea49bce8b104f45baa6a058328f54d7 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1875-1504 1875-1490 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2014-11-01 |
| publisher | TU Delft OPEN Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Footprint |
| spelling | doaj-art-bea49bce8b104f45baa6a058328f54d72025-02-03T05:58:04ZengTU Delft OPEN PublishingFootprint1875-15041875-14902014-11-018210.7480/footprint.8.2.808821Computational Swarming: A Cultural Technique for Generative ArchitectureSebastian VehlkenAfter a first wave of digital architecture in the 1990s, the last decade saw some approaches where agent-based modelling and simulation (ABM) was used for generative strategies in architectural design. By taking advantage of the self-organisational capabilities of computational agent collectives whose global behaviour emerges from the local interaction of a large number of relatively simple individuals (as it does, for instance, in animal swarms), architects are able to understand buildings and urbanscapes in a novel way as complex spaces that are constituted by the movement of multiple material and informational elements. As a major, zoo-technological branch of ABM, Computational Swarm Intelligence (SI) coalesces all kinds of architectural elements – materials, people, environmental forces, traffic dynamics, etc. – into a collective population. Thereby, SI and ABM initiate a shift from geometric or parametric planning to time-based and less prescriptive software tools. Agent-based applications of this sort are used to model solution strategies in a number of areas where opaque and complex problems present themselves – from epidemiology to logistics, and from market simulations to crowd control. This article seeks to conceptualise SI and ABM as a fundamental and novel cultural technique for governing dynamic processes, taking their employment in generative architectural design as a concrete example. In order to avoid a rather conventional application of philosophical theories to this field, the paper explores how the procedures of such technologies can be understood in relation to the media-historical concept of Cultural Techniques.https://ojs-libaccp.tudelft.nl/index.php/footprint/article/view/808 |
| spellingShingle | Sebastian Vehlken Computational Swarming: A Cultural Technique for Generative Architecture Footprint |
| title | Computational Swarming: A Cultural Technique for Generative Architecture |
| title_full | Computational Swarming: A Cultural Technique for Generative Architecture |
| title_fullStr | Computational Swarming: A Cultural Technique for Generative Architecture |
| title_full_unstemmed | Computational Swarming: A Cultural Technique for Generative Architecture |
| title_short | Computational Swarming: A Cultural Technique for Generative Architecture |
| title_sort | computational swarming a cultural technique for generative architecture |
| url | https://ojs-libaccp.tudelft.nl/index.php/footprint/article/view/808 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT sebastianvehlken computationalswarmingaculturaltechniqueforgenerativearchitecture |