Abstract
As the prevalence of digital technologies in architecture has increased, so to has the exploration of advanced geometries and structures. Simultaneously, there has been increased inquiry into the principles demonstrated by natural systems and their application to design. This strain of thinking has been highly influential and particularly productive in the fields of material science and industrial design, which employ techniques of multi-scalar analysis to organisms such as plants in order to deduce their bio-mechanical properties. This has lead to the creation of new materials with unprecedented strength to weight ratios and designs for automobile chassis with greater structural efficiency. In architecture however, there have been many attempts at exploiting biomimetic principles through digital means, but since the field of study has yet to be well defined the results have predominantly been limited to formal simulacra.
State of the Field
A few researchers at various institutions have attempted to move
beyond superficial application of natural forms to develop a
working methodology that embeds the core principles of natural
systems to architectural production. These include Michael
Weinstock and George Jerominidis of the EmTech group at the
Architectural Association and the School of Construction
Management and Engineering at the University of Reading, Achim
Menges of the Institute for Computational Design at Stuttgart
University , and Neri Oxman of the Mediated Matter group at the
MIT Media Lab. Their ambition of creating systems with embedded
intelligence and complexity through bottom-up approaches will
serve as a foundation for our work.
Proposal
The ambition of this study is to develop a greater level of
instrumentality for the methodology of biomimetic design that
has begun to emerge within the discipline. The analysis of
natural systems is used as a point of departure from which
unique behaviors are culled and re-interpreted through material
research. Potential systems for investigation include: plant
morphologies, collective intelligence of groups and biological
differentiation. We plan to explore these systems through a
combination of digital and physical strategies in order to
leverage mutually beneficial overlap. By liberating the design
process from a traditional top-down, deterministic approach, a
method can evolve that allows for the internal multiplicity of
hierarchies with robust networks.
The research is structured into three phases:
1. Initial research on three potential natural systems
2. Material research based on a chosen natural system
3. Synthesis of both stages of research in the form of a built
artifact such as a component-based
assembly, or envelope.
The ultimate goal of the research is to establish a new
performative basis from which to think through architectural
problems.
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