Initial phases for a project which houses educational facilities, analytical labs, and a watershed council office. The buildings membrane, in on form or another, will focus on the collection and filtration of non-point runoff and river water, which will be collected to cultivate algal blooms –producing biomass energy. More on the project will be released soon. The autonomous swarm project will be shifted for use in an upcoming competition.-JB
We have been interested in ANTS for some time, and were looking at this technology in development by NASA at the start of the IaaC2 competition in 2007. This time around ANTS is being looked at again for the Huron Rivershed project: autonomous swarms. This technology offers a multitude of opportunities for building technology in architecture and the built environment. This technology is currently also being developed for use by soldiers in the ARMY, and if technology stays true to Moore’s law, the rather bulky construction, will undoubtedly become more lean and flexible. As the project unfolds more information will come available as to our take on the building system and it’s use in our project. -jon bailey
‘ANTS is an acronym for Autonomous Nano-Technology Swarm. ANTS technology builds on and advances recent trends in robotics, artificial intelligence, and materials processing to minimize costs and maximize effectiveness of space operations. A tetrahedron is a pyramid with three sides and a base. The tetrahedral pyramid shape is a fundamentally stable structure and the simplest space-filling solid. The short answer is by moving the center of mass in a direction just off to the side of a target in the direction of a tetrahedral side until the tetrahedron tips over in that direction, and then moving the center of mass in the direction of an adjacent tetrahedral side just off to the other side of the target until the tetrahedron tips over in the other direction. The center of mass is moved off-center by lengthening and tilting above ground struts in the direction of alternating adjacent sides, creating a flip/flop motion.’ -NASA
ARTIFICIAL PARADISE, Inc from Jp Frenay on Vimeo.
an interesting video by Jean-Paul Frenay
“Every hyperlink is a point of departure and a destination.”
In the Hyperlink school of the future rooms will visually transform into any subject or topic necessary or desired. Students will teach the building how to be the appropriate school for them. The transmission of knowledge does not end at the student. It is rapidly remixed and retransmitted back into the network. As Lev Manovich writes, “If a traditional twentieth century model of cultural communication described movement of information in one direction from a source to a receiver, now the reception point is just a temporary station on information’s path.” (Remix and Remixability 2005). This school will act as a Hyperlink for information between students, instructors, and other schools around the world. The Hyperlink is integrated into the swarm of collected networks. Students communicate with each other. Students communicate with teachers. Students and teachers communicate with the building. The building communicated with other buildings.
As the archetype of “school” evolves, we must re-examine the way we define a school. Historically the word “school” referred to an entire entity; the physical building with its position in space, along with the transmission of knowledge that takes place inside its boundaries. For the purpose of this essay the word “school” will instead refer to the networked virtual conglomeration of data overlaid upon the physical setting. The “building” and the “school” together create the augmented reality. They become the Hyperlink.
Today computers are widely used in the class room. They exist however as single interfaces which connect individuals to the global network of information. Each individual is connected to the web but disconnected visually from their peers and instructors. Imagine if that window to the network were wholly integrated into the environment as an augmented reality where everyone experiences the flow of information simultaneously in real time. The virtual becomes part of the haptic and special realm. Everyone in a class now can contribute to the immersive classroom environment which is no longer an individual entity that operates in limited contact with the global network, but a dividual part of the network of hyperlinked schools worldwide.
NERVOUSystem
The network culture we inhabit is marked by the individual entrenched in reading, conversing electronically, surfing the internet, and watching television, all deeply embedded in the virtual. Individuals now use space as a common meeting place, mainly to share information, often initiated through the various electronic mediums. Within these social gatherings information is being shared, processed, and packaged, with a true educational process taking place, with no instructor necessary; rapid on-the-fly, unfiltered, informational input. In this, it can be said that our subjective nervous systems are perpetually under the influence of the virtual, which leads one to the question, what is the substance of reality? Without our minds we are non-existent, not real; if our cerebrums are plugged into the virtual, does this not become the real? Our bodies remain within the architectonic space of the physical as our minds engage a virtual space existing nowhere and everywhere simultaneously.
Much of this virtual information enters our nervous system as prefiltered content. The mediums that maintain the broadest market share and thereby exert the most substantive impact are increasingly conglomerated into the control of the select few, with companies holding stock in a diverse array of information distribution systems including; publishing companies, newsprint, websites, television, mobile phones, advertising companies, theme parks, and film. These data systems accompany us throughout our lives, exerting influence over generations of a family tree, continually interweaving our thoughts and opinions with information and input. Our nervous systems have potentially become externally managed through the flowing stream of information which has been carefully tailored for us from childhood to adulthood. With major media conglomerates controlling the information that one is persistently exposed to, has data been reduced to cut and filtered shades of information chosen by a board of directors?
Our collective trepidation of a wired future wherein the modes of information collection and dispersal have been aggregated into the totalitarian grasp of some nefarious corporation or government has been reflected in the literature and film of the past century. This trend has grown in recent decades, along with the accelerated pace of digitization and network distribution, exampled in the growing popularity of movies such as Blade Runner, Renaissance, and Minority Report. In these films of a dystopian future, the individual submits to constant surveillance in exchange for safety and personal longevity.
This dissociative negotiation between self and technology however, is not historically unique. The end of the nineteenth century has been viewed as “modernity as an achieved reality, where science and technology, including networks of mass communication and transportation, reshape human perceptions. There is no clear distinction, then, between the natural and the artificial in experience.” It can be said that the cyberspace phenomenon of an environment located neither in the physical nor in the digital, arose alongside the advent of rapid long-distance telecommunication, and mechanized transportation. As existential reality becomes further enhanced and augmented through virtual technology the individual and their relationship to the sensorial environment gets distributed over an artificial network of information. A result of this process “is what postmodernists might refer to as de-realization. De-realization affects both the subject and the objects of experience, such that their sense of identity, constancy, and substance is upset or dissolved. “
The crisis inherent in this evolution of perception becomes compounded with the addition of a fear that these networks have become systems of outside control. But this fear presupposes that the individual has acted as a free agent prior to an engagement with these virtual systems. Heidegger suggests that the substance of our being is not grounded in a fabric of our own development. “As this being, delivered over to which it can exist uniquely as the being which it is, it is, existing, the ground of its potentiality-of-being. Because it has not laid the ground itself, it rests in the weight of it, which mood reveals to it as a burden.” Concepts of masculinity and femininity, western and eastern, rural and urban, begin to shape our being prior to our ability to choose, they form the ground for our potential to be. Our concern over the inability to choose the fundamental characteristics of our own subjectivity is reflected in the fear of outside influence. We easily identify with Neo trapped in a matrix of external origin.
But what if we had the ability to reshape and exert influence over the matrix, over these systems of information distribution and collection? The conglomerate news and entertainment organizations which have made a phantom of the public are now being supplanted by the decentralized broadcast of information from individually controlled blogs which provide unfiltered news, deliver music from the artist directly to the public, and provide forums for the free exchange of art and ideas. Proprietary information is rapidly becoming an antiquated mode of product delivery that not only encompasses entertainment but also the tools that shape our environment. Software developers such as GNU/Linux have developed manifestos that ensure the users right to access to source code. In this sense “information is less the product of [externally controlled] discrete processing units than the outcome of the networked relations between them, links between people, between machines, and between machines and people”. The individual is reasserted as an individual in a network of individuals, no longer merely the receiver of a one-way flow of information.
With the advent of network culture we can now receive raw unfiltered information directly, replacing the directed flow of information from conglomerate to end user with the power of serendipitous information and intuitive knowledge. As network technology continues to advance, information will become virtually overlaid on top of reality. Immersive environments will intertwine with real objects, further blurring the line between the physical and the digital. The perception of tangible objects is simply the visually stimulation of nervous system. What we perceive to be space is an excitement to our sensory nervous system of sight, sound, and smell, all of which is intangible information. The architectonic spaces of formed masses can be augmented and mimicked through advanced technology and research in the areas of holographic visualization, where visual layers are superimposed on top of the physical world. Combined with sound overlay, environments can become fully explorative, interactive, and totally immersive. Virtual objects may be interacted with, become capable of “sensing” touch and respond according to your requested action. These objects may become so well enmeshed as to be undistinguishable from the real, driving augmented reality into an integrated reality
In this sense, classrooms could now be held at home, inviting holographic virtual classmates from across the globe, to sit down with you each night as you study the latest topics in real-time. Like information, the environmental source code may be adapted and customized, reconfigured, deleted, refreshed, and repackaged to fit the user’s preference. An entire group may get to interact in real time with events of information occurring all around them in a fully immersive environment as image is overlaid with sound and smell, generating new learning experiences. It is through this network culture that the methodologies of education will adapt and change along with society, and transform the spaces in which learning takes place as the traditional hierarchies of a central authority are displaced by a networked group of peers.
Today, network culture succeeds postmodernism. It does so in a more subtle way. It does not figure itself as an “ism” that would lay claim to the familiar territory of manifestos, symposia, definitive museum exhibits and so on, but rather servers as a more emergent phenomenon. ; Kazys Varnelis, The Rise of Network Culture, http://varnelis.net/the_rise_of_network_culture
Refer to NERVOUSystem Poster
“Claritas PRIZM, the first segmentation system of its kind, provides a standard way of sorting the population into similar groups by demographics, lifestyle preferences and behaviors to provide you with actionable target marketing information”. ; http://www.claritas.com/claritas/Default.jsp?ci=3&si=4&pn=prizmne
Viet D. Dinh member of the News Corporation (Fox Broadcasting Company) board of directors “is a lawyer who served as the Assistant Attorney General of the United States from 2001 to 2003, under the presidency of George W. Bush. Born in Saigon, in the former South Vietnam, he was the chief architect of the USA PATRIOT Act.” : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Dinh
See George Orwell’s 1984.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/ ; Kirsta Anderson (Editor) ; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Cyberspace, of course, as the now-classic adage goes, “is where we are when we are talking on the telephone.” It is, in other words, neither in a here nor a there, but is a continual articulation process, relentlessly boring through us. ; p7, Sanford Kwinter, Virtual City, or the Wiring and Waning of the World
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/ ; Kirsta Anderson (Editor) ; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
p285, Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
Only when the sense of association in society is no longer strong enough to give life to concrete realities is the Press able to create that abstraction, “the public”, consisting of unreal individuals who never are and never can be united in an actual situation or organization – and yet are held together as a whole. ;p265, Søren Kierkegaard, A Kierkegaard Anthology
Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
http://varnelis.net/the_rise_of_network_culture
Competition layout for the Life Cycle Building Challenge 2. This is Archimorphs second year entering in the competition.
OPEN is a project based off the idea that solving the problems of the many, by the many, through open source, peer-to-peer cooperation will solve our problems. Sustainable housing solutions will come from the help and cooperation of the many, rather the select few. Not only does this project look at showing an open source system of building, but also at recycling and reuse of wastes put back into the chain of usable materials. Since the time of the industrial revolution we have been focused on mass production of uniform parts, now in the information age we search for architecture and building systems that also allows for mass customization. Through the use of cheap computers, available to anyone in the world, and peer-to-peer online freeware, users can collaborate on solving housing issues. Where rectilinear and uniform building models were part of the Industrial Age, this concept seeks to find the architecture of the Information Age, where not only mass production is important, but coupled together with mass customization. Where economy once determined the modular, now data and information from the context and user can directly become architecture via new digital manufacturing technologies.
The project uses self-replicating 3d printers to machine modular parts from a liquid polymer. The materials come from recycled plastics, and the input comes from an online peer-to-peer networking system aimed at the open source sharing of data and building modular data. The premise of the system is to create an entirely independent and open source building system while simultaneously recycling human trash. By collecting plastics, inhabitants can build their home through recycling, which will turn a waste into a sought after commodity for the built environment. Using 3d Printed modules, from recycled plastics, this house embodies open source system. From the building processes to the building systems, the design for the home attempts to create a dwelling for everyone in the world, free of cost.
The process begins by the inhabitant recycling and collecting necessary plastics. They are able to go to the recycling center and receive a 3d printer that will self-replicate and print modules based off of input code from the software. By taking collected plastics to the recycler, they will in exchange be given an equal amount of liquid polymer, for use in their printer. A user can take their 3d printer and print more 3d printers. After this they log onto a free peer-to-peer network, that shares files and home designs for use with the 3d printer software, which is also a freeware program. After the user downloads the data for the house that they wish, the 3d printers will begin to print modules, from the recycled plastic, on queue. After a module is printed the user can then put them into place to begin to building their new structure. After a structure is seen as inadequate, the owner needs only to return the plastic modules to the factory, to be refunded with new liquid polymers to create new pieces. Existing pieces can also be traded and swapped by others in the communities.
Users can create or share forms that they find on the internet, and form of structure is only limited to their design. This is only our interpretation of the project, and the point of the project is to further this process by the collective knowledge of the whole. For our project we decided to look at forms of minimal surfaces to attempt to create a structure with the least amount of material as possible. A system of “caltrops” that support a base of printed triangular modules. The caltrops use a system of nesting that creates a solid base out of minimal materials. The main structure of the house is composed of a system of struts and nodes.
Presentation boards have been electronically submitted to the Life Cycle Building Challenege 2, and are awaiting judging. For more information on the project you can visit the updated Archimorph website, under the Projects category. After the judging is complete, an in-depth analysis, of both text and images will be posted on the blog. In the coming future, check back at the website for a posted video of the IaaC project: Cultivating Spaces. This 30-minute movie will further explain the project and where it is headed.
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We are currently continuing to work on our L-System and Evolutionary Algorithm. Getting ready for ACADIA we are putting together a proposal for an exhibition, rendering new images of our L-Systems growths, as well as creating new diagrams explaining the process of the overall design.
Filed under: Architecture, Biomimetics, Code Dev, Competitions, Publications, Technology
Climatic data has been employed in the architectural discipline since its onset as can be seen in the placement of xxxx buildings to maximize xxxx. The advancement of digital and building technologies has continued to generate a field of dynamic responses to the environment through the implementation of responsive apertures and fins as well as smart glass technology and adaptive HVAC systems. While these “ecogadgets” in themselves remain flexible, the overall building form remains static and irresponsive. Data manipulation tools, and generative parametric digital tools suggest complete flexibility and climatic adaptability of a built form that can contextually evolve. These digital representations begin to merge with physical reality as human control at the nanoscale becomes possible.
Nanoscale robotics opens the path from digital to physical reality through allowing control of the built form at the molecular level. At this level, a group of pre-assembled and prepackaged nanobots begin a process of self-replication using carbon dioxide as raw building material. Oxygen is off-gassed as a byproduct as the nanobots use carbon to form an interlocking series of nanotube arms. The chemical bond which joins the arm of one bot to its neighbor is controlled by an increasingly complex array of nano-processors which are generated during this process of self-replication. The release and reconfiguration of nanoscale carbontubes determines the color, scale, and texture of the adaptable built form which never becomes static.
Before the process of self-replication begins, the end-user is given the opportunity to manipulate the basic formal grammar the will lead to the built aesthetic. This grammar becomes an algortithim in which data pulled from the climate and geodetic location become variables that optimize the systems use of water, light, and air, and inevitably effect the aesthetic as well. The lindenmeyer system becomes one such grammar that can be use to determine nanobot placement in the structure. The capacity of the dwelling to organize and design is itself the product of design. The l-system, which simulates nature’s growth patterns, is created and run through a genetic evolution code. Fitness criteria, based on climatic conditions and inhabitable space, will be used to filter out the millions of possible evolutions that this code would produce. The inhabitants then decide what kinds of spaces are needed inside their dwelling. And if, over time, their needs change, the house can adapt accordingly.
The system of interconnected nano-processors connects with others locally, regionally, and globally through a peer-to-peer network to share and obtain information needed to optimize its configuration. This could happen automatically, and may need no attention from the inhabitant. Houses become aware of themselves in relation to the world and to other structures via GPS, which can also aid in urban planning analysis. Buildings collaborate to form whole neighborhoods, or even cities that create effective vehicle/pedestrian circulation, quality outdoor space, and community environments. And structures will alert others in different areas of the world of major environmental changes, thereby allowing enough time to optimize before extreme conditions reach those dwellings.
