Design Challenge 9

Growing Architecture :
posted by Sana Murrani

Summary

This work is part of a publication (ISBN 1-84102-147-4) that was presented in Altered States conference - July 2005.

This challenge is concerned with the creation of living architectural forms using principles of growth and development derived from biological systems. It introduces a new kind of digital artificial life based on emergent systems and living processes overlapping and interacting in a complex context to exhibit the creation of new life forms, and presents a new way of thinking about the ontogeny of architectural forms.

The challenge is supported by a digital model animated in 3D. It illustrates most of the aspects and principles of development as well as the cutting edge technology of nanotechnology and cellular automata by stressing on the genetic rules as guidance to formulate a certain form.  The current model displays pre-programmed behaviour and is not yet a true simulation.

If we imagine that growing forms from seeds that contain a genetic code will provide an amazing boost to the creation of unpredictable and interesting designs that are able to adapt to their context - a possibility - then we have to solve some really important questions like:

How to design a code that will produce a certain shape?

Will the same code produce the same form every time or will it change reflecting on the re-arrangement of the components?

Which method is better to approach for growing forms, is it the developmental metaphor and cell division or/and a parallel distributed process governing interactions between a fixed number of mass produced elements (PDP)? They are both self-organized systems.