Ila Berman speaks at the 2009 University of Michigan Future of Design Conference. She is the Director of the Architecture Program at CCA and pincipal of studioMatrixx, and is an architect and architectural theorist who hols a doctorate in architectural history, theory, and criticism from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Berman is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Medal for Design, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada fellowship, and the J.P. Herndon Traveling Fellowship where she conducted research on contemporary urban and architectural landscapes in Paris and Barcelona. She was the 2005 recipient of the President’s Award at Tulane University, where she was associate dean of the Tulane School of Architecture until December 2007. She also was the founding director and principal investigator of URBANbuild–and outreach architectural and urban design program for which she received a $300,000 HUD/URAP grant, as well as the author of URBANbuild Local/Global, a publication about the work of this program. In addition to her design installations at the Contemporary Art Center, the Ogden Museum, and the Perloff Gallery, among others, Berman also created New Orleans: Urban Mappings for a Future City, an exhibition in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2006 International Architectural Biennale in Venice.
…however this system is not intended for today[the present/past], or tomorrow[near-future], but looking further into the future (say 20 years) when the phosphorus pollution is foreseen to be at its highest rates, and by this time there will be even newer unimagined technologies, some of which are already proposed and in testing. Already today there are “apps” for i-Phones and other mobile devices; it is not a stretch to say that an application could not be downloaded to a mobile device to have a real-time view of where these autonomous units are located and where they are aggregating.
This project is aimed at the investigation of a new structural system which questions what it means to be architecture, the roles of the architect/designer, and who should be the recipient of such designed spaces. It is only intended at this time to create a discussion with a focus on the exploration of how an architectonic form and/or space can adapt to information within its environment, whether they be human or environmental. The archetype thus tries and explores the parametric capabilities of a building to receive and adapt to this influx of information. To truly understand function of this system you must understand its structure, both in its material systems and structure of grammar, to which this project will take closer look at structure, and how it can become smart to its surroundings following a self-assembling entity. This project aims at opening up a discussion on the future of building technologies and the role they will play in the evolution of architecture due to the mass implementation of digital parametric modeling as a toolset in light of an ongoing paradigm shift in the field.
As young students of design and architecture have increased interest in parametric modeling and become increasingly digitally trained, they [the designers] now will aim at bringing their architecture to life as it is within in the realm of the digital. Architecture is simply a derivative of the tools available to the designer; t-squares, rulers, units of rectilinear proportioning and other rigid tools of visualization for past generations created the building block architecture we now live in and are a direct result of the tools used in their creation. Presently with new digital modeling tools our architecture becomes a result of these tools, however hidden within the virtual we lack the building techniques and systems to make a truly dynamic building system in the real world.
We are stuck with only capturing a moment frozen in time of this architectural product. Dynamic adaptable forms have many examples which can be found in nature, from its geometry to its systems that can help us to achieve this new architype.
As for the grammar of spatial and structural investigations, swarm intelligence has already been investigated by multiple researchers, most famously for the use of the traveling sales ant, whereby the digital ants find the fastest routes to the food source. This has been used to create more efficient shipping routes, traffic light networks, and telecommunication systems. Other practices have already seen this natural bottom-up approach beneficial to their problems; however most within the architectural practice have not come to grips with these realities. How can this system be beneficial to architecture? With today’s standard building methods and materials this cannot be imagined to fruition, however with materiality and systems research into the biological processes we can conceive this new archetype. Form follows function, and likewise forms follow the sum of its components, which the current arrays of modules, such as the CMU and 2×4, are unsuccessful at achieving to become a dynamic system—they remain static and unchanging, a product of the Industrial Revolution trying to break down a larger object into the sum of its parts which are more manageable and mass reproducible–we now seek dynamic adaptation and customizability.
Research has been ongoing by NASA to create autonomous robotics for Mars. Dynamic systems such as these are no longer a simulation stuck within the virtual; they are actually being created and funded. As with most commercially available products, their initial phase started within the research by heavily funded agencies such as NASA and the ARMY. Adding to the fact of this research Moore’s Law, we can imagine that within the next 10-20 years this technology will become less bulky and optimize to a formal product. Like the 2×4 and the steel-tee before it, this too can become a building component. Modular in its mass production, but adaptive and responsive to its environment with the capability of customization on a massive scale based on the simplest change at its base level. A building system such as this can begin to create a responsive architecture to its environment, and adapt to the changes surrounding it. To achieve architecture from this building unit the system would need to also be self-assembling, aggregating into a habitable structure. Most modular units lead to redundancies which occur in structure and form, ultimately leading to a sterilization and homogenization within the built environment, where architecture should actually be diverse and adaptive to its environment. This system of actuators and sensors, give the ability for large-scale change to happen to the system based on a simple change in the rule-set or stimuli being fed to the units, creating amorphous surfaces surrounding programmatic voids, which are in fact a response to its environment. Housing sensors to read both environmental and human change in the environment, these individual units can asses the situation at the local scale, ultimately affecting the regional.
Many questions are raised within this project such as; exactly where and how do people and the human factor play into this autonomous role of an external agent? How do they influence swarm, or how is the swarm influenced by the person? Where do architects and designers fit into the equation? Do we need them in certain instances? Many uses for swarm intelligence theory has been named, from shipping routes to manufacturing models, but little to no projects have posed the possibility of these models being used for architecture, even though when seeing such models as autonomous robotic swarms, they do not envision this as part of their daily lives within the built environment. Why is this? Is it because humans simply do not relate to this seemingly foreign system, especially one that would become their dwelling or a part of their created environment? Many do not believe that there is a natural ordering system that could achieve the same or better results. Humans hold similar emergent and mathematical properties which can be found in them as can be found in ant colonies, but in fact we are different, we have a much higher level of intelligence [than ants], yet while comparing building methodologies our singular “hives” are much less efficient than their [the ants] models. Some disclaim the fact that we may in any way or shape be comparable to the mathematics of nature and of insects—perhaps this could be a reason for dismissal of such approaches to building systems and design practices. Many portray this in the future as being the means to our end, the day that the robots take over and we are no longer left to think or create for ourselves. Many speculations and assumptions can be made, but we and our systems that we have created are so intertwined can we not say that now? From electricity to automobiles, we are so connected with our devices that it is hard to picture ourselves and lives without them. This however does not give cause to handing over the built environment away to robotic edifices. So what does? It is a new building system, and there is an emerging paradigm shift, so opinions are not easily shifted, but the simplest analogy is if one were to try and explain to someone the power of personal computing in the twenty-first century to someone who is looking at the invention of the Comptometer–unimaginable. People probably laughed at the man who told them one day you would be able to watch reruns of actual filmed footage on a screen in a box… or maybe they didn’t. As Albert Einstein said, ’insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’, so we must challenge our current way of thinking, and explore new possibilities creating new discourses in an enlightenment of architectural practice and techniques, trying to find a more efficient system– which means we must look at all possibilities no matter how radical or mundane, not just a select few as seen fit by the select few.
Performing multiple roles within the watershed the main goal of this project aims at cleansing the Huron River, upon which a discourse will be built between the natural ecosystem and the people who inhabit it [the watershed]. Dual functions will result from the architectural structure system; an exploration of transferring information and data into architectural form, and the emergent properties that might arise by the use of a single mass-produced and customizable building agent. Due to the Huron River’s problem with Phosphorus pollution via non-point source runoff, and the scale at which data collection takes place in relation to the area of the watershed, a proposal must be made that reaches outside of the bounds of a traditional single entity. By looking at technological advancement and current trends in both the architectural and governmental programs, building systems outside of the traditional brick and mortar can be synthesized to reach a solution. Numerous fields outside of the architectural profession are already taking advantage of swarm algorithms to produce emergent properties, from traffic systems to shipping routes, yet architecture has yet to expand on this grammar and technology, even though the prevailing tools (parametric modeling) are inevitably headed in this direction. Together, both grammar of swarm algorithms and autonomous agents can be constructed in a manner conducive to life on the river.
To aid in the collection of mass amounts of data, through the creation of an emergent system which carries the flow of information from the local to global scales, the Huron River watershed will be the environment for an autonomous building agent which roams the river banks of dense urban areas, self-assembling into an aggregation which blocks non-point source pollution, cleanses the river, and also creates habitable spaces for recreationists, scientists, and educators/students. Acting as agents in their environment, autonomous building blocks randomly walk and test the river searching for stimuli, in this case Phosphorus, which remains the Huron Rivers greatest threat to aquatic life, culturing rampant amounts of algae growth and depleting oxygen levels uninhabitable by organisms within the river ecosystem. By shear number the agents will be able to cover vast distances, constantly testing the river, creating an up-to-date map of the phosphorus content, pointing to concentrated areas of run-off pollution. Interacting through a distributed peer-to-peer network on the local scale information will be shared by both agents and scientists to help inform the community.
Initially fanning out in random directions from the main “hive” agents will send out a wireless pheromone to its neighbors when the stimuli has been found—a positive test for p15 in quantities greater than 5ugL. Upon receiving the signal, agents from the nearby hive will swarm to this location via the shortest route, self-assembling into a second aggregation at this location. The swarm’s primary and initial goal is simply to aggregate and cleanse the water of phosphorus while also keeping a live analysis of data. The reason for primary aggregation as a main focus for the agents is due to the fact that at their base unit of intelligence they are only interested in their neighbor’s local position and local information. The second phase of the aggregation will involve an optimization in two main areas; human and environmental information exerting influence on form and space within and on the aggregate. The environment factors will lead to a form optimized to its climatic conditions and also keep its relation to the river, which is constantly in a state of flux. The human information transforming the spaces will come in the form of existing and proposed human traffic flows from a relationship analysis of the aggregated site. By carving voids within the aggregate for recreation, science labs, and educational spaces, awareness will be brought to the area in plight, simultaneously creating capital gain through human interaction.
After the site has been reclaimed, and the watershed recovered in this area, the aggregates will disassemble and continue randomly testing the river and repeating the entire process, thus continuing a cycle that will continually keep the interests of both the river and its inhabitants interacting. Emerging from this local interaction of agents on the Huron River could eventually lead to a global system, keeping track of all pollutants on main urban river systems, each adapting in their own way to their particular environment.
an interesting article from 2006, swarm architecture ii. this is a very intriguing article in light of the recent project which will show a design for a system of autonomous agents along the huron watershed. -JB
Space is a computation. Architects design constructs as to structure the movements of information. This is true for the simplest house. Urban planners design strategies as to structure the flow of information in the city. This is true for all cities, big or small. Instead of focusing on the material appearance of spaces which are built after imagining the movements of people, we must pay more attention to the membranes of those spaces in the design process and to the openings in the membranes allowing for the flow of information in whatever form. A door essentially is an on-off switch in the membrane, the movement of stuff is structured as to flow through that door. Doors are open or closed [or half open and half-closed], the spaces are switched on or off, or sort of switched on or off. The membranes are semi-permeable envelopes around a certain quantized volume of space. The semi-permeable membranes let through people, light, heat, cold, small animals, air, radiation, information, food, water, gas, waste, molecules, wind, sun, moist, materials, cars, shopping bags, television programmes, waves, books, paper. A wide range of different materials is coming in through the membranes, another wide range of materials is leaving the space somewhat later. Some things come in through explicit holes, others come in by diffusion, by radiation, by transmission, or are carried by other messengers. Much of it is carried by people, coming in and going out. People are information carriers, they run in, about and out the house. The information they carry out of the house is of different content then the information – in whatever disguise – they take out of their house. The information content and some material properties of incoming information is changed inside the space. This space can be considered as a content transformer, it digests the incoming material / information. Taken to the extreme all material is a form of information, and taken even further all information is a form of computation. Thus space computes information. The question to be raised here is: does the space compute or do the people in the space compute? In the context of Swarm Architecture I understand human action in such a way that it must be the space which does the trick. The space is full of more or less active components, many of them communication with each other, many of them interacting with certain intervals, and many of them interacting in real time. I see people as drivers of the space when looking at it from a certain distance. To understand this better you may imagine a highway with cars running on it. When one finds oneself inside this traffic system, one always refers to the other players as cars. You always would state: that car came from the right, there goes a Ferrari. The cars are the players in the traffic system, and these cars are eventually driven by someone, but they are only their operators, they basically function as programmes running the car. So the car is the flocking bird in the traffic swarm, and the person is a member of the running car, and not a member of the highway traffic system. How can we look at space with this in mind? Then it is the space itself that behaves and acts, as driven by their programmes and executed by a variety of actors, among them people, but also light bulbs, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, sofa’s, shopping, bookshelves, tables and chairs. They all move or are moved inside a certain space. In the mind of the Swarm Architect, all actors / players behave in relation to each other following a set of simple rules. And it is the space which defines the workspace of the players. Seen from further away this space interacts with other spaces. Then you loose track of the swarm of interacting players within the space with their semi-permeable membranes, and you are monitoring a swarm of interacting spaces. And the human people flow through this from space to space, from car to space, from small space to vast space. Seen from the point of view of space, people operate on the space as if they operate a computer. Just like the computer does the computation, the space performs the computation and transforms the information content of the information / materials absorbed into it. People also compute in their own domain: they feed on vegetables and meat, they eat and drink, they absorb sounds and light, they smell and sense. People compute that information and spit out information in a different format. People are transformers, just like spaces are transformers on a meta-level as seen in relation to people.
Now that we have left behind the anthropocentric world view, which states that people are in the centre of knowledge, and now that we have accepted space and people as equal players in the field, we can start thinking of another approach towards architecture. Now we can build up a language of Swarm Architecture [SA from now on]. In SA people interact with people, books interact with tables, paper interacts with people, all are active players in a complex adaptive system called a car, a space, a home, a street, a city… “
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
(…excerpt from the in progress ‘architectural’ graphic novel archimorph)
Archimorph
The Near Future
It is July in Nebraska, and the humid air looms over Jim as he removes the handkerchief from his back pocket and wipes the sweat from his brow. Yet again, it has been another day of relaxation and self-reflection, of daydreaming under the willow tree, and tending to the garden. This type of day is not unordinary for Jim, for in this time material possessions are worthless and only meaningful to the owner when he needs them. There is no theft or robbery here, for anyone can have whatever it is that he or she desires, and the need to steal from a neighbor is never felt. With money being worthless and material objects conceived at the blink of an eye, Jim has spent the last few months tending to his life and taking the time to question deeper meanings of life.
As his daydream dissipates, he looks at beautiful blue sky and continues his walk back up to the house. Upon reaching the entrance of the house, it senses his presence and dilutes the wall from a solid to fog, allowing for his passage, and back again upon entry. As he enters, his house senses that he is tired by the stride in his walk, slumped posture, and breathing rhythm. Walls, once translucent soaking in the day’s sun, now become black shutting out the exterior light. Changing its molecular make-up the floor becomes soft to the touch and comfortable to the inhabitant, and from out of the floor a couch materializes to catch Jim as he lays down for a midday nap.
Fifty miles away an F5 tornado is tearing through the Nebraska landscape, for it is once again tornado season. Unknowing of the oncoming disaster, Jim slumbers in his sleep as his house is directly in the path, and will with out a doubt be destroyed under any other past building methods. For the last twenty years there has not been a single death by natural disasters, and on key there will not be one today. Today, as every day, each house within the projected path of the tornado is able to sense its oncoming presence, and just as a starfish on the ocean floor, move itself out of the way and protect itself. A change in barometric pressure is processed by the house and it senses the danger before it ever hits, moves out of the way, and afterwards returns back to its place of being.
Jim awakes to the walls clearing from their translucent sleep, revealing bright blue skies as he notices that it is daylight outside, the birds are chirping and it is the next morning. The house senses his awakening, revealing a kitchen next to his bedroom. He notices that the tree which once stood in front of the house is gone, with only a torn stump still remaining. ‘There must have been another tornado during the night’, he thinks as he groggily heads outside to assess the damage of the landscape. Jim’s house however, like all of the others, did not sustain any damage and he slept right through the horrendous storm. For his house, like every other house, was well prepared. Over fifty miles away, before any tornado was sighted, or even touched ground, a farmer’s house sensed an unusual change in air pressure. The house collected the data, was able to predict its path and life, and send signals to all surrounding buildings to protect themselves and their inhabitants. As the tornado touched ground and scoured the earth for nearly seventy miles, every house was aware, and moved out of the way in time for the tornado to pass, and then safely crawl back to its original location.
To find out how we got this point in time, we must go back in time and look at the beginning, where it all began, how it began, and why it began…
The Beginning
Grey is working late again as he usually does, everyday, every night, all day, all night. He sleeps little and spends all of his hours either working or thinking about his work at hand. He is an architect, but not the egotistical driven Fountain Head architect of the twenties. No, he is more like DiVinci or Einstein–a renaissance man. This is someone who has devoted their life in the name of science. The project he now works on has consumed his life for nearly three decades, and is quickly coming to an end as he finalizes the project, and begins to sign the release forms. With his signature on the page, Grey is about to single handedly change the world as those living in it now know it. From this point on a new age will begin, one that will revolutionize the world and forever change it.
The project coded ‘Archimorph’, a project conceived in his earlier years, took over his life and sent him down a tangent path in time to create a new world order. Technology has now caught up with the project’s aspirations, as its fulfillment is conceived. Initial nanobots can be built via convergent assembly, and the processes Grey helped to develop and design are able to see self-reproducing nanobots. Feeding off of carbon by splitting Co2 molecules, the nanobots harvest the carbon from the atmosphere for building, and release the lone oxygen molecule back into the air. These carbon molecules are taken to the nanofactoy within the bots carbon shell, where they can then be used to build a new member of nanobot. It is today, that the first ‘Archimorph’ will be released to the public in stores, offering for the first time a new future for civilization.
After today, money for material objects will be worthless and no more than a paper object ready for recycling. People will now work for service industries, but no longer in the manufacturing process, for nothing needs manufactured. With the proper script, nanobots are able to be recoded into any object desired. As Grey prepares for yet another sleepless night, he ponders how the public will react to such a future. Will there be a future? Life altering questions such as these are the reason Grey has not slept more than a wink at a time in months.
The bell clanks against the glass door as the first customer of the morning walks into the Archimorph store. His name is Jim, a middle aged man, who has been standing in line for over a week in hope to be the first customer through the door. For this is the first time the public will be able to own an Archimorph. It is also the last exchange he will ever make on a material object. There have been many debates of concern over the release of such technology, especially with the ‘grey goo’ myth, a theory that the nanobots will eat up all carbon molecules on the planet, killing every living thing on it. But Jim has faith in the technology, and the designer behind it–he has been a supporter of the project from day one. After all, people said the Hadron collider would destroy the earth too, and he’s still here with the knowledge of knowing he is within ten dimensions. Hardwired into each nanobot is a process of limits, telling them when to start, and most importantly when to quit. The nanobots must know when to terminate, because it is only then that they, like other living creatures, must know there limits and keep from taking too much.
Before him in the middle of the shop, Jim stares upwards at a large plume completely constructed of nanobots. Their molecular make-up has been changed so that it has the composition of cotton. He walks up to the column, and like cotton candy pulls a chunk from the column. Within the palm of his hand he now has the first nanobots owned in public. The local media is at hand to report the first exchange in the town; a flash, a snap, and a shot of Jim is frozen in time. Like a kid with a new bike, Jim rushes to the place where he once called home. As he approaches the yard he recalls the white picket fence, the wood shake siding, and the eighteenth century design. A week ago he had his house demolished and the materials sold off for proper recycling. Now all that remains is his old concrete stoop– something he kept for memories, as it was a place where he spent many of nights waiting for such a day.
Coming to all customers of the new technology is a personal display device, directly linking the user to the nanobots. With his PDA in one hand, and his Archimorph in the other, Jim prepares for the inevitable. He lays the cube on the ground and turns on the PDA. The welcome screen loads and it prompts Jim for a few quick informative details–his height. Six Feet. His weight. Two Hundred Twenty. The number of persons living in the house. One. And the room types in which he desires- bedroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom. The program takes Jim’s modular dimensions, and based off of pre programmed spatial requirements inserts this as criteria for the evolution process. It does not matter which rooms Jim picks, for the house can be anything he wants it to be at that given time. He may even decide to turn it into a watch, where he can carry it with him throughout the day. One minute he may be sitting on a chair in the kitchen, and after eating the room becomes the living room, the chair a comfy lounge.
The PDA jumps to life and calculates Jim’s position via GPS as well as; local annual climate data, local and global building codes, and joins his systems to the worldwide network—Resident Number One. Upon receiving the information from Jim, the PDA runs the program which takes his information, inputs the fitness criteria which will influence the evolutionary algorithm that will be run on a natural growth algorithm. After the program has run through ten million generations of evolution on the given form, it finally decides that is has selected nine optimally fit forms for Jim’s context. The nine houses appear on the screen and Jim determines he likes parts of both A and E. He struggles to choose between the two and so he resorts to refining the process more. He picks the individual qualities he likes about each of the houses, and runs them back through the evolutionary process. Finally the end result is returned and Jim looks onto his new house. He then looks onto the ground at the small cube of nanobots, no bigger than his fist, which will in a half hour be the amorphous house he sees on the screen in front of him. He presses Start. At first he does not notice anything, and thinks that this project may be hoax, and in fact not actually work– it did after all seem somewhat outlandish. But in fact the nanobots within the cube are linking up creating new networks and relationships with one another, harvesting carbon straight out of the air for new building materials, reading climate data for molecular composition, and processing trillions of lines of code and script.
Within a minute he notices that the cube actually has gotten bigger, and is in fact beginning to lose its cube shape and become a blob on the ground. Within ten minutes the cube has grown into a large plant-like structure which reaches out into the air, and digs itself into the ground creating foundation, walls, and structure. At twenty minutes the west exterior wall is complete–it has calculated the climate data, adjusted for the thickness and molecular makeup of the wall, calculated the water shed and direction, and channeled tubular veins throughout the exoskeleton to direct rainwater for collection and later reuse. Jim gazes in amazement as the cube transforms before his eyes.
While the structure grows Jim decides that he needs a seat to watch the spectacle before him. He scans through the scriptWiki on the PDA for instructions (a script) on how to build a rocking chair out of the nanobots. While the house is still growing, he reaches onto the built portion of the house and rips off a handful of the house. The wall realizes it has been damaged, begins self-replication of the nanobots in that area, and in fills in the void. With the blob of nanobots in his hand, he sends the instructions to the group of nanobots to form into the red rocking chair he found online. He sets the blob down, and within five minutes before him sits the exact same red rocking chair. He sits down, kicks back, and watches his house under construction by trillions of workers, smaller than a blood cell. He looks back down the neighborhood and for as far as he can see, people in their front yards, gazing at the future, as their house builds itself.
Filed under: Theory
A “user” receives a “box of bots” (nanobots configured at molecular scale to resemble a solid cube [at human scale] that will fit into the palm of a hand)
nanobots react thru wireless signal via nano-processors hidden within the carbon body.
Process modifications:
A “user” inputs data to User Interface(UI) [data includes: # of persons, activities desired, personal information, see data]
The user information is calculated into the script.
Spacial parameters defined and ran thru script.
–[see experiment: social erosion]
The nanobot processor reads climate/local/global data (sunlight, wind, temperature, long/lat, etc. )
Information is calculated into script
Exoskeletal needs are set based off of data.
The user data and climate/local/global data are combined to find the form.
Data is then input into an evolutionary algorithm(TBD) based off of a growth script (TBD) until the optimal solution is achieved.
The structure links up wirelessly to a global/local p2p network to optimize itself based off of given criteria [stated previously].
-Loop for continuous optimization.
Growth – convergent assembly creates initial “box of bots”. Growth is based off of a natural growth algorithm such as the l-system of recursive growth. After this process bots are able to self-replicate thru Co2 cracking.
Spatial – how is space defined after use inputs information?? What “yoke” (space) does the eggshell (exoskeleton) grow around?
Possibly based off of erosion algorithm experiment (social erosion)
Space is a collection of data from the user information, climate data, and le modular data.
Capillaries – are “voided” out as exoskeleton grows. based off of l-system growth–don’t grow, but are “left out”. the Boolean extraction of an l-system capillary ran thru the exoskeleton. these are two types : hydro collection and wind distribution. Hydro collection breaks down into distribution water and collection water. Water being collection opens pores and basins on rain side of site to the collection and storage “tanks”. Distribution capillaries are used to distribute potable water throughout the structure. Wind capillaries are used to create wind tunnels which ventilate the structure. Pores open up on the side where the desired wind is present. (SW/NW)
Rooting System – home anchors itself into ground by growing “tentacles/roots” into the soil, which grow like roots based off of the l-system. dig down into soil to create a structural stronghold into the site. keep building grounded.
Self-Replication – Nanobots use nanotubes in process of carbon dioxide cracking where co2 is split into oxygen (o2)/carbon(c). Carbon is then harvest by the nanotubes, based into the carbon hollow body of the nanobot, mixed with a catalyst in the “factory” and made into a new polycarbonate body for a new body, nanotube, or nano-processor.
Collective Knowledge – nanobots use hive or swarm theory to communicate. Each bot only know basic jobs to perform its task. They use collective knowledge to act as a single organism.. much like ants or a computer network. Computers offline can be tapped into via the network for extra storage, speed, etc. to contribute to the whole. one nanobot by itself might not be capable of handling very complex problems such as calculating all of the data needed to create the structure, but by pulling from the collective knowledge of the whole, the structure can become much like a living organism, or like ants where they are able to form ant bridges, etc. data, as well as electricity, are sent wirelessly to the Nano-processors, which then pass along electricity and data thru the multi walled carbon nanotubes from one bot to another.
Openings – no long are openings seen as windows and doors but as permeable membranes. Desired areas of entries can become gaseous and allow of passage of a solid object (the human). this happens at the molecular level of the nanobots where the density of the structure is minimized to give a gaseous, permeable affect. self-reproduction allows for the nanobots to become more dense at the molecular level, allow for the porous opening to fill back up and become a protective membrane once again.
Nano-Factory – the nano-factory within the carbon hollow body, might look nothing like convergent assembly as we know it today, but instead “tentacles” [see 'flagella'] which hang from the inside of the carbon body. these “tentacles” are used to pass carbon molecules along from one tentacle to the next acting as stages in a factory. each tentacle only knows very basic operations, once again much like an ant (pass molecule left/pass molecular right). one tentacle does not see the entire picture, and focuses only on its job. this then mixes the molecules with a catalyst to produce the needed part.
Climate Medications – include shifting permeable walls, opening of capillaries, thickening/thinning of walls, denseness at molecular level, surface area ratio in direction of sun along axis, harvesting of essentials (sun, wind, light), non harvesting.
These are a couple thoughts and processes of the project that i am working on at the moment.
Yesterday in Indianapolis we began to write the L-System script for Generative Components. Using C# and Rhino Visual Basic we worked on writing an L-System that would be ran thru a genetic evolution code and then put into GC. Fitness Criteria, based of climatic conditions and inhabitable space, would be used to filter out the millions of possible evolutions that this code would produce. After Nth generation a building would finally evolve into the optimal structure for its environment –throwing away any all possible combinations which do not make it. Users would then be able to pick from say nine different homes which were the highest optimal houses that met the fitness criteria. These could then been shared from user to user via the peer-to-peer network. Once the house was constructed it would be constantly adapting to the environment, and our end for the project this means a working model based off climatic factors in GC. Early on in the project we discussed how this building might evolve, with a GUI much like Biomorph Land. This project is definitely headed in the write direction and we shall continue to work on the script for the genetic evolution of our building. A working parametric model was also built using Generative Components.
-”Thank You” for the help and collaboration” to our friends at BSU.
-Image of capillary in Human lung.
It has been discussed that our structure might grow with an L-System script while simultaneously growing with the environmental data, rather than the structure growing and then environmental data optimizing the structure. This would now happen all in one process–in one script. It is now being proposed that our capillary system grows in a similar manner – simultaneously. We have been working with an L-System script that grows our network capillaries. It would be our wish that while the L-Systems code and environmental data are growing the structural exoskeleton, the capillary L-System script will run simultaneously, only instead of growing nanobots in these areas, it will tell the other script to leave voids there. This will help to maximize efficiency of the structure and capillary system. Environmental data such as wind currents and precipitation values would be the variables for this script and would be updated continuously through the peer-to-peer network.
Filed under: Theory
HERE is an example diagram that graphically explains the relation of the peer-to-peer connection between the structures. A final layout will need to be chosen before the graphics can fully be expressed. Structures, become nodes, which are linked to a wireless network– a pure Peer-to-Peer Network. Data and variables are exchanged through this network, from one structure to the next so that a totally efficient structure will evolve from the collective whole working together to solve problems. This would happen automatically from the user interface, and may need no attention from the inhabitant. The peer-to-peer network that links structures enables them to optimize themselves into the most efficient structure possible at that given time.
The process begins with the user and then the structure optimizing itself to climate, regional, and global data. After this initial process is done it searches for local structures within its p2p network, and optimizes itself to structures who are more efficient and adapted over time. The structure then links itself to regional and global p2p networks, optimizing itself to these regional and global conditions. Once the structure has optimized itself and recieved all updated data from the network, it will constantly run the loop optimizing itself in the future. After the intial run the stucture may repeat the process without the users interaction, updating automatically to climatic conditions and sharing information.
