algorithmic architecture

[iampeeay01]

would appreciate if there's a voice over so we could understand much better... anyways, nice video... Blessings to you.. :)

[insomniacgrace]

Thanks for having this video posted. Informative and amazing. Indeed, algorithmic.

[larryfredlund1969]

This video was making me very angry until the review and conclusions portion. Thanks for honest sharing after obvious love and time spent pursuing a theory!

[Houshalter]

The video is very confusing, but I get most of it. Whats with the random words at the beginning though?

[dmmd123]

@Houshalter This video comes from a design class taught with a post-modern pedagogy. The random words are a critique of the professors insistence we use a concept to design. I was trying to point out the arbitrariness of the process - looking back it is a bit of a straw-man, and I could see how it is confusing.

[crazyoosachou]

totalu usless movie :s

don't waste ur time to wach guys.

[Incrue]

teach the algorithm how to identify bad use of space and delete those results when they appear

[dmmd123]

@Incrue Use of space could definitely be a factor (although this example is very simple and to my memory does not use it). It uses a genetic algorithm, which does not delete bad designs, only lowers their chance of continuing to exist. You do not want to throw out all bad designs because, with a few tweaks, they might become a good design.

[zeffii]

great

(it looks like you could do some code refactoring)

[dmmd123]

@zeffii It could most definitely use a bit of refactoring (and breaking it down into classes would help too)

[bloboboy]

this is no more radical (or absurd) that the modernist aproach, only with more compute potential, and we all know the modern consequences of that "tomorrow that never came" (matter acumulation, energy waste, modern ruins, overcrowding...). the computer power i think is on the capacity to understand the material world, to make more with less, zero impact, reversibility, lightness, to left some room for the people for the future. i hope this messege get to you. cheers from Chile -n.ortiz

[endeavourthelimits]

ok so let's take the facts:

1 - more than half of the architects and urban planners are located in the Europe and North America which count only for 15-20% of the global population;

2 - considering the growth prediction, as compared to the rate of training of new designers is it realistic that we can always have the necessary human resources to plan new cities?

For this reasons I think that having a program can design a city might be useful in the near future.

[gspahr]

I was about to trash this video, but then I read the conclusion, and I couldn't agree more.

Stupid people would use this kind of programming just because it looks cool and does everything by itself, without even thinking about the best solution. It's like the infite monkey theory.

I also think that this kind of architecture should not be of mainstream knowledge for the very reason I just said.

Machines are meant to be used by a brain, and not the other way. Anybody else agrees?

[hoteltech]

have you heard of lars spuijbroek? he's a professor and leads studios related to this field.

[dmmd123]

Yea I really like his book, Machining Architecture, particularly when he talks of these methods as being the architecture of the provisional rather than optimal.

Some other references I always come back to:

Manuel De Landa, Deleuze and the Use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture

Neil Leach, Digital Morphogenesis (In AD 79, 1, 2009)

Kostas Terzidis, Algorithmic Architecture

John Frazer, An evolutionary Architecture

Feel free to add comment with your own favorites.

[WhiteyLowe]

what's up with everyone using this song in their animations

[gugapereira00]

Great job dude! Congrats!

[ARCHfloyd]

that's intelligent. nice drawings at the end!

[jami0jam]

nicely done!!

[b3nger]

Great presentation, I never thought computers could perhaps be used like this in architecture. Great choice of music too.

[Curitibacity2009]

Congratulations on video .. beautifull pictures, I would very much like to know this place ... a look at my video I made of Curitiba - Brazil

just copy the address

myvA2md1Q0k

and put the link on YouTube after the sign =

Thanks ...

[rastamon1188]

Wow. Awesome presentation. It went over my head, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it and intend to make sense of it in the future. Please post more of your work.

[hammerdat]

highly rated

[louismcleod]

nicely done.

[Dreampanos]

Is there anyone who knows the name of the song (and album if it's no problem)?

[dmmd123]

I know you are but what am I?

Happy Songs For Happy People

Mogwai

[Pikafu]

I don't get this but I like it.

[joakimpaz2]

i find amazing your patience...

I couldn't read no more than a few lines of those scripts...

imagine how many line syou have to read and write just to creat a box....

well done

[SBJen52]

Excellent concept! Good presentation!

[tdeff]

Evolutionary Algorithms mainly pioneered in shipbuilding, has immense potential in architecture if we can isolate the real neccessities required for a successful built environment.

[Neophlegm]

That's astonishing....

Can anyone explain this in more detail? I don't know it as a concept?

[dmmd123]

This project was discussed on page 50-63 of Bart Sueters thesis, which features many similar projects and ideas:

I can't post a link in the comments so find the link in the more info part of the video, near date added.

[popabczhang]

hello, i'm studying algorithmic architecture, too. Are you a student of AA in London?

i'm from China,shanghai, Tongji. I've responsed my Video of An algorithmic architecture.

[slippythekid2002]

Scientists use numbers and short code every day, for much more important reasons. You wouldn't think this was neat if you did too.

[dmmd123]

Scientists and architects want the same thing. Science should take pride that once again architects are finding delight in their discoveries.

[hellalpha]

Half the worlds energy goes towards buildings - trying to connect architecture to a system that helps make intelligent design decisions isn't without merit.

[IttyBittyLit]

Fascinating to watch this. Cheers.

The image at about 1:00 reminds me of the surging rings of the "Vertigo" video U2 shot in Spain.

[hellalpha]

Wow, Dan your work has come a long way since I last saw you. Am trying to rework some FEM algorithms so we can use structural fitness as the selection criteria. Stop by in the 5th year studio sometime

[proadmin1]

Quite an accomplishment, however, have you considered a fitness goal upon your GA, which maximizes total interior space or possibly a predation constraint along the same lines?

[lifesart1]

amazing ... architecture is beautiful in each of its forms cause through architecture numbers get shapes not the other way around

[RoyGropius]

Is this a joke, or what?

You guys are really discussing this theme. It makes me so upset that today architecture is developing in this direction (computer design, iconography, strange shapes...).

dmmd123 tells us that 'architecture is art' and i totally disagree! Architecture should just stand for one thing and that's the human being and nothing else...

[dmmd123]

I think you are missing the point.

This is not some random shape being generated on a computer, for the sake of. (although I agree is some fairly naive and superficial applications of the computer.) In this project a genetic algorithm was used to incrementally improve on a design (one criteria for improve would be 'fit for human inhabitation'). While this example fails, there is evidence to suggest that computers will be able to augment the design process, improving the results.

[damianpoirier]

Having worked extensivly with GA's I'm suprised that anyone would think to take on such an extensive project as this. What fitness function did you apply?

[codester1111]

Look at the trends even in my short life time. Many many jobs have and ar becoming more and more automated. We live in the trasition phase between a human controlled and ran society and a completely machine controlled society. The future is an A.I. controlled world, get used to it.

[damianpoirier]

Architecture should just stand for one thing and that's the human being and nothing else...

says the guy who's never designed a dog house. hehe

[RoyGropius]

Well, I am sorry for the guy who has time to design a dog house.

[cmielack]

I love the discussion here!

I totally agree to the opinion, that algorithms and math _can_ result in great architecture. This even applies to alot more than just architecture.

The art is properly defining the problem mathematically so that you can derive the answer mathematically.

Math is just reformulated thinking. If your thoughts cannot be formulated through existing mathematical terms, define your own!

[85080840905]

The design and art always will be thousands of kilomentros of what a computer can achieve .. The architecture is so human and personal that it is impossible to arrive at a formula for magic solutions that will always be a hoax.

[dmmd123]

I disagree.

Could a human design a tree?

Imagine the crit, 'I like the form, but the detailing in this cell wall...'. There is no way. In order to design a tree you would have to be approaching the complexity of a god; a complexity necessary to become aware of the implications of your design decisions (currently we be aware of about 10 separate ideas at once). ...

[dmmd123]

... We could say that a great man could design a tree through intuition - architecture is an art. But I am uncomfortable with the odds of a guess and check method.

I propose that architecture can not be solved through a formula like a quadratic equation, deriving the single solution. I propose that architecture can be optimized (extremely crudely in this example) by the same process that generated the tree, natural selection....

[dmmd123]

.... Here the computer represents buildings through strings of data that can be 'breed' into children, and grown into buildings. The success of these solutions can be evaluated by humans, by equations and by neural networks. The design is derived through a symbiotic relationship between the understanding of the architect and the processing power of the computer.

[DavidMTRutten]

If you think for one minute that writing a program that makes the shape you want is less creative (or less "human") than just drawing the shape, you're woefully mistaken. The trick is to find out what humans do best and what computers do best and then to combine these worlds to maximum effect. Algorithmic architecture is almost like meta-architecture, which has intimate rewards that are unknown within traditional design.

[Shadapaga]

@DavidMTRutten I think meta-architecture is a huge word to use behind the word almost. From a deleuzian materialist sense meta means expressing space through psychic automatism which is very different from Algorithmic architecture which is almost repacing the subconscious with a computers logic based consious. I think that so far it is as much creative as anything in architecture but when people actually learn psychic automatism in expressing space as in jazz or art it wont touch that.

[sabriath]

...then again, maybe the designs the program came up with had a reason, possibly cross-wind capture to create an external buffer from severe temperature changes (like in desert), even the lightwell can be explained based on high temperatures (shading the "living" areas).

[sabriath]

From what I gather, you say that because a computer could not register a viable solution of a floor plan that yields efficiency, protection from various weather (hurricane, earthquake, etc.), as well as a good "feel" of architecture that the computer is not capable? Programs are only as good as the programmers can make them...

[jadedoel]

interesting aproach to architecture. I didn't quite grasp the whole idea of what it was but I'll do my research.