Digital Morphogenesis

The architectural singularity is approaching. It is the point at which buildings become more intelligent than their occupants and designers. This will significantly change the roles of the built-environment professions in the design, fabrication, construction and operation of buildings. By exploring self-organizing behaviour in biological development this article describes the approaching challenges of this architectural singularity. Elements of morphogenetic design have been applied in various disciplines associated with intelligent building (IB), including architecture, engineering and computing. However, these previous discipline-specific approaches have not considered the trans-disciplinary implications of morphogenetic growth processes on the role of the disciplines associated with IB. Therefore, this article introduces a science fiction prototyping (SFP) scenario that proposes a morphogenetic design process for IBs based on Drosophila melanogaster development and grounded in the contemporary technologies of Building Information Modelling, digital fabrication and parametric design. Based on a discussion of the implications for the design team a morphogenetic architecture framework for IB is proposed.

Written for architectural educators, this paper discusses whether digital fabrication can be usefully employed in early architectural education. The paper uses examples from a course that aims to introduce the fundamentals of digital architectural design to first-year students. To achieve this, the course integrates digital fabrication as the core element of the production workflow. Challenging but rewarding, early adoption of digital fabrication exposes students to the process- and material-based thinking of contemporary architecture at a time when they form lasting attitudes to designing.

Como diseñadores, durante siglos hemos intentado “humanizar el espacio de la naturaleza”, geometrizando a esta por la fuerza: hemos cortado, cepillado y desbastado todo lo natural, para encasillar nuestras obras en banales estructuras de vigas y columnas ortogonales.
A comienzos del siglo XXI, es tiempo de dejar las efímeras discusiones del pasado, y concentrar nuestras energías en el futuro. Nos encontramos en los albores de una nueva [R]evolución, un quiebre, un cambio de concavidad de la curva, donde el papel de lo digital y de lo biológico es predominante. Los nuevos diseños deben despojarse de esa mirada nostálgica hacia el ayer, para adaptarse al devenir. Nuestra supervivencia como especie depende de ello.
En este sentido, abogamos por, a través de la tecnología, redescubrir los complejos teoremas de la vida, buscando emular la naturaleza de un modo superador, crear del mismo modo en que esta lo hace.
Como diseñadores, debemos establecer una nueva estética, expresivamente superior, que explorará nuevos campos del conocimiento, y fragmentará por fin a la caja decimonónica, fractalizandola, diluyéndola bajo las leyes de una geometría topológica, de mallas y líneas NURBS. Nuevas formas nacerán ante nuestros ojos, formas complejas, dinámicas, precisas, eficaces, matemáticas. Formas diseñadas utilizando visores de realidad virtual y algoritmos de inteligencia artificial, formas construidas mediante robot voladores provistos de inyectores, que imprimirán tridimensionalmente nuestras ciudades, augurándonos un futuro fantástico.

"Si nos obsesionamos con la necesidad de instruir destrezas de programación repetiremos los errores de los 90’ cuando el CAD (Diseño Asistido por Computadora) igualó al dibujo técnico. Aquellos que desean programar deben ser instruidos por
programadores-diseñadores y no por “computines”. Además, mucho más crucial, es la necesidad de enfocarse más allá del scripting hacia el meta-tema: un enfoque apropiado para aprender de los sistemas emergentes en los que los scripts operan; culturalmente ycomo una teoría emergente"  Mark Burry. Scripting Cultures. Reino Unido: Wiley. 2011. Pp 48-49.

El uso de computadores en arquitectura y diseño aumenta el control y amplifica la exploración en diseño. Ambientes de diseño nuevos como el Modelado Paramétrico, establecen la posibilidad de generar cambios en las soluciones a tiempo real, como también la capacidad de poder controlar complejas estructuras de componentes de gran robustez, que no podrían ser concebidas sin el uso del computador. Entendiendo en general el potencial técnico disponible en los Ambientes de Diseño Paramétrico, han sido muchas las críticas acerca de lo que realmente se trata, como también
la ventaja real de su implementación en la disciplina de la arquitectura.
En esta tesis nos enfrentamos a esta disyuntiva, desde aspectos generales de la Ciencia del Diseño y sus actuales estudios acerca de los Ambientes de Diseño Paramétrico, como también visitando y aunando temáticas en común que
han sido postuladas dispersamente por la práctica digital, como el enfoque hacia un diseño de series, enfoques de composición multiescalar y enfoque en las ideas tras la programación.
Desde el estudio de estos elementos y la propuesta de una postura crítica, pretendemos crear un nuevo tipo de Patrones de Diseño para la difusión, asistencia y el enfoque en los temas relevantes del Diseño Paramétrico. Esto debido a que
los Patrones creados por Christopher Alexander han evidenciado en distintas disciplinas ser herramientas exitosas el desarrollo del diseño y la difusión de ideas.
Nuestros Patrones, no obstante, son miembros de una capa de abstracción superior a los Patrones de Diseño, ya que trabajan en una dimensión anterior a la programación, donde se causa la abstracción desde el Conocimiento e intenciones de diseño hacia la parametrización, cayendo en la categoría de los Metapatrones.
Esta tesis exploratoria formula los Metapatrones Morfogenéticos, como lineamientos o guías para el trabajo en Ambientes de Diseño Paramétrico.

A number of essays and interviews published between 1997 and 2008, revised for this edition, which V2_Publishing kindly made available as a complete pdf. The book contains a memorable introduction by the late Detlef Mertins, a number of early essays that were strongly influenced by Paul Virilio, and many discussions of architectural and art works combined with theoretical analyses.

La rápida e intensiva evolución que han experimentado las tecnologías biológicas y digitales a finales del siglo XX, han producido importantes transformaciones en nuestros hábitos cotidianos y laborales.
En el campo específico de la arquitectura, se iniciaba con esto, un universo de nuevos planteos que desafían las concepciones tradicionales del diseño, dando lugar a una arquitectura con una expresión espacial germinal, fluida, en continuo proceso de cambio y de transformación hasta su concreción física final. Una arquitectura de modelos digitales producidas a través de una amplia gama de herramientas tecnológicas: modelos paramétricos, algoritmos genéticos, tecnologías CAD/CAM, que permiten optimizar los recursos de un modo lógico, más allá de la construcción gráfica o del discurso exclusivamente conceptual. Revelando el peso de lo biológico y de lo digital en la práctica del arquitecto contemporáneo.

En este ámbito, la presente investigación parte de la hipótesis de que un nuevo paradigma está surgiendo en el modo de concebir la arquitectura.

Dentro de la situación contemporánea donde los límites disciplinares parecieran ser difusos, algunos afirman que la arquitectura biodigital es la nueva vanguardia, otros que es una moda formalista pasajera que en muy poco tiempo será olvidada. Hasta qué punto constituye dicho marco un nuevo paradigma es aún un tema sometido a debate. ¿“Revolución científica” o “anomalía”? Esta dicotomía presenta un campo abierto que será objeto de esta investigación cuyos límites y consecuencias son impredecibles.

Gaudi was always a crucial point in Architecture and Design history , not just for being part of the most revolutionary modernism movement in the nineteenth century which is Art Nouveau that boosted and casted a lot of the recent emerging design trends and movements such as morphogenesis and biomimicry , and not for being a star architect model which became common amongst the architectural practice and academia context since the beginning of the modernism era , or for being another stunning Spanish artist ; regardless from all these strong precursors to form Gaudi's crucial form in architecture , there is a shady part of Gaudi's design thinking process that wasn't revealed until the lately SAGRADA FAMILIA mania that invaded the world for its brilliant structural secrets being revealed thanks to the latest digital parametric technology , this human discovery to man maid masterpiece contributed in understanding the Gaudisim school of design , and revealed that he was hardly understood by his time and for many decades after , it also revealed his ultimate brilliance exhibited through his timeless architectural statements. In this paper ,I aim to highlight the precursors that formed the real Gaudi Architectural mind ; including his ,background , childhood ,education , social activism and beliefs , and how far did these elements evolve through his architectural design synchronically , th is paper will include an analysis of the manifesting projects of his different design affiliations , through this analysis , I will be able to extract the proof that Gaudi was the pivotal point for nearly most of the contemporary nature related trends , and Morphogenesis in particular .

What is contemporary architecture?
Although it seems to be a simple question, we will soon discover with some discouragement how ambitious and complicated it can be to find an appropriate answer to this question.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the contemporary word is defined as to " living at, happening at or belonging to the same period "[2].
In the specific field of design, contemporary architecture implies a chronological question. In its essence refers to architecture product of its time, and which defines its own topicality.
Conceptually, contemporary architecture rejects those historical styles of the past, replacing them with an innovative and different proposal from what existed so far. For the architects Beatriz Villanueva Cajide and Francisco Javier Casas Cobo, contemporary architecture, "... historiographically, does not exist, except in the absolute present, understanding as such the moment lived and, maybe, ten or twenty years ago, until the moment when the historiography frames it like history and ceases to be contemporary "[3].
In the contemporary, we rethink architecture as "... to check that aspects have lost validity, which have been renewed and what [new] concepts ... have appeared" [4]. It is in this sense that the idea of contemporary architecture acquires greater relevance: as a motor of change, it establishes new theoretical positions between man and his architectural production.
In the beginning of this new century, we find ourselves living a particularly sensitive historical moment. For Josep María Montaner, we are able to "... have a certain perspective to interpret the evolution of architecture ... and detect the most remarkable characteristics of the recent turn of the century" [5].
We are in the presence of a new way of understanding the architectural project, under a technological-digital perspective, where process and generation are tinged with a search for optimization and efficiency. Numerous sources produce and reproduce an unprecedented architecture, developed in an area of some formal forcefulness, where mathematical algorithms, digital biological systems and advanced structural systems try to detach from their heavy historical-eclecticist load.
In an attempt to answer the initial question, this article proposes the study of six key concepts, six elements that help us understand and define precisely the characteristics of this new architecture.

Among the many emerging discourses and technologies potentially adhering to landscapes, morphogenesis, conceived as an architectural theory, derives materiality, functionality, and form from the biotic world. As part of a discussion of “data driven” or “bottom up” design, Leach’s morphogenesis recognizes that “nature itself can teach us about the efficiency of certain structural organizations.” (Leach, 2009) This case study experiments with morphogenesis in the landscape. The study method is to document a morphogenetically derived installation’s form in the landscape. The team developed a morphogenetic module, built 330 copies of it, and created an emergent intervention (Algaeic Infrastructure) for a specific site in an example of Clement’s Third Landscape.

Built from recycled cardboard, Algaeic Infrastructure proposes an emergent pattern derived from the module’s form, the landscape, and the process of building. The structure is created by interactive rules similar to the development of computer programs that “think” (Johnson, 2011) and thus physically models a version of “learning.” The interlocking system was deployed along an arroyo as an event space for High Desert Test Site (HDTS) in October 2013. The project site is Montessa Park, Albuquerque, NM, where the city’s edge intersects the military base and the airport. A past dairy, deep downcutting of the arroyo, a prison farm, and current “sacrifice” uses, such as ATVs, shooting ranges, and garbage collection layer this in-between (Third) landscape. The ecological implications of this study lie in the proposal of a flexible, modular, morphogenetic system allowing building/designing to accommodate ecological flows rather than impede them.

La rápida e intensiva evolución que han experimentado las tecnologías biológicas y digitales a finales del siglo XX, han producido importantes transformaciones en nuestros hábitos cotidianos y laborales.
En el campo específico de la arquitectura, se iniciaba con esto, un universo de nuevos planteos que desafían las concepciones tradicionales del diseño, dando lugar a una arquitectura con una expresión espacial germinal, fluida, en continuo proceso de cambio y de transformación hasta su concreción física final. Una arquitectura de modelos digitales producidas a través de una amplia gama de herramientas tecnológicas: modelos paramétricos, algoritmos genéticos, tecnologías CAD/CAM, que permiten optimizar los recursos de un modo lógico, más allá de la construcción gráfica o del discurso exclusivamente conceptual. Revelando el peso de lo biológico y de lo digital en la práctica del arquitecto contemporáneo.

En este ámbito, la presente investigación parte de la hipótesis de que un nuevo paradigma está surgiendo en el modo de concebir la arquitectura.

Dentro de la situación contemporánea donde los límites disciplinares parecieran ser difusos, algunos afirman que la arquitectura biodigital es la nueva vanguardia, otros que es una moda formalista pasajera que en muy poco tiempo será olvidada. Hasta qué punto constituye dicho marco un nuevo paradigma es aún un tema sometido a debate. ¿“Revolución científica” o “anomalía”? Esta dicotomía presenta un campo abierto que será objeto de esta investigación cuyos límites y consecuencias son impredecibles.

In this paper we formulate and define a novel conceptual schema termed MFD: Material-Fabrication-Design. MFD is defined as a computational informing process that enhances tectonic relationships between structure and material within the logic of fabrication technologies. This research investigates, explores and formulates the transition towards the integration of computationally informed processes in design. Beyond simply exemplifying these phenomena, the research explores the state of the art, and formulates and explicates the impact of these developments on theories, knowledge and the processes of design. Through comparative analysis of selected case studies of Material-Fabrication-Design the research identifies and formulates emerging design models, design principles and techniques. By undertaking systematic research into the development of fabrication technologies, their relationship to design, and their diverse strategies we identify the diverse set of Material-Fabrication-Design (MFD) models that represent this innovative field.

Post-Anthropocentric Creativity; Call for Submissions, special issue of Digital Creativity, 27:1, January 2016; Guest editors: Stanislav Roudavski and Jon McCormack. This special issue aims to audit existing conceptions of creativity in the light of non-anthropocentric interpretations of agency, autonomy, subjectivity, social practices and technologies. Specifically, it seeks to explore how 1) the agents, recipients and processes of creativity and 2) the purpose, value, ethics and politics of creativity relate to phenomena of computation. The editors encourage innovative narrative or visual strategies that can express relevant scenarios better that more typical forms of academic writing. Dialogues, conversations, plays, scripts, instruction sets, games or visual essays (for example) might be suitable alongside logical arguments or formulae.

This paper explores the concepts of multi-criteria optimization in architecture and discusses two different methodological approaches: goal-oriented tech-niques and methods based on computational morphogenesis. The aim of the paper is to propose potential directions for the development of multi-criteria optimization tools for architects. The applicability of both approaches and the role of architect as Decision Maker (DM) in the optimization processes are discussed. The conclusion summarizes that goal-oriented techniques, such as Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization (EMO) Algorithms and hybrid meth-ods, are more likely to be successfully implemented in design tools. Non-goal oriented techniques, like Compositional Pattern Producing Networks (CPPNs) and Novelty Search, although recognized as harder for direct implementation, show enormous research potential. They are promising for evolving aestheti-cally pleasant objects, however further work is necessary to determine wheth-er they can contribute to the field of multi-objective optimization in architecture.

Procedural, parametric and generative computer-supported techniques in combination with mass customization and automated fabrication enable holistic manipulation in silico and the subsequent production of increasingly complex architectural arrangements. By automating parts of the design process, computers make it easier to develop designs through versioning and gradual adjustment. In recent architectural discourse, these approaches to designing have been described as morphogenesis.This paper invites further reflection on the possible meanings of this imported concept in the field of architectural designing. It contributes by comparing computational modelling of morphogenesis in plant science with techniques in architectural designing. Deriving examples from case-studies, the paper suggests potentials for collaboration and opportunities for bi-directional knowledge transfers.

The paper discusses the implementation of a multi-agent system as an integral component of a hybrid, digital-physical architectural environment. It contributes to the existing practice-based architectural research in two ways: 1) by describing an innovative integration of a multi-agent system for surface patterning; and 2) by discussing this integration in terms of emergent materiality. This case-study demonstrates suggestive creative approaches and observes in the field the operation of a concept that promises to be useful for future analysis, research and design."

This article considers how the concepts and practice of digital architectural design can influence early architectural education.The article approaches this topic through one example, the Virtual Environments course – a constituent of the Bachelor of Environments program at the University of Melbourne.The institutional remit of this course is to introduce first-year students to the roles of design representation. However, recently, the course developed to encompass these pragmatic educational aims and began to question canonical attitudes towards architectural education and practice.At the core of this course are the notions, methods and skills of digital architectural design, understood not as a stylistic option or as a novel paradigm, but as a catalyst for creativity, experimentation, critical thinking and the sustained growth of creative communities.

La creciente evolución de la tecnología digital está produciendo cambios asombrosos en nuestra sociedad. Un confuso panorama todavía no muy bien definido, generador de grandes controversias, de donde surgen defensores y detractores. Los primeros, con una excesiva confianza en estos sistemas, lo consideran una pieza clave para liberarnos de las concepciones del diseño mecanicista, expresando una nueva mirada “sustentable”, que contribuya a mejorar las condiciones de vida de las generaciones futuras; en tanto que los segundos, aferrados a planteos más tradicionales, y con un temor desmesurado ante la supuesta dependencia que estos sistemas nos generan, lo consideran peligroso, capaz de generar resultados efectivistas, aunque poco fiables, y sin un claro rigor teórico, una moda pasajera que será olvidado en poco tiempo cuando un nuevo sistema haga su aparición.
Por el momento, el presente se nos manifiesta “gaseoso”, esquivo, confuso, “Antes de poder verlo en aumento, fatalmente se pixela o se diluye”.

This talk approaches the Goethean Morphology as the forerunner of contemporary techniques of pattern generation via natural computing and computer graphics. I propose to read Goethe’s Morphology as an original device of reduction, departing from the phenomenological realm to intuit nature’s self-generating processes. In this sense, I understand Goethe’s main gesture as an attempt to comprehend the logic of nature from within, instead of merely trying to represent or mimic it. I show how this very methodological gesture paved the way to some of the most innovative branches of natural computing and Artificial Life: namely, how the use of computer graphics and computer simulation in natural computing context can be seen as a contemporary actualization of Goethe’s research program. Finally, I ask how the later can contribute to change the definition of the notion of life itself and to blur the nature/culture divide.

In dieser Arbeit werden folgende Themen zueinander in Bezug gesetzt: Shoei Yoh, Odawara
and Galaxy Toyama Gymnasium; Frei Otto, Multihalle Mannheim; Neri Oxman, Form Follows
Flow und das Themenfeld Morphogenesis and Emergence von Michael Hensel, Achim Menges
und Michael Weinstock. Die Schwerpunkte dieser Arbeit werden auf den Teilgebieten der Materialisierung,
Konstruktion und Gestaltung liegen. Zudem werden weitere Erkenntnisse aufgezeigt.
Im Anhang findet sich der diagrammatische Aufbau des Projektes von Shoei Yoh.

How does an architect use a sheet of paper and a digital system? Paper is a two-dimensional support on which the architect carries out the creative drawing process. However, if we fold the paper, the architect is now able to begin to manipulate and even create space. A digital system, to put it succinctly, uses " electronic technology to manage, store and process information " allowing its user to work quickly and flexibly. So what is the relationship between these two tools? At first sight, none, as they exist independently. However, the fusion of the two has powerful consequences, as can be seen in the work of the architect Michael Hansmeyer who manages to incorporate all the beauty of the action of folding through a digital sheet with the help of a computer, where the final result is a shape that approaches a real application at an architectural level – Proto-architecture. Paper-folding, or origami as it is usually known, can be taken out of its original role and turned...

Η αρχιτεκτονική ήταν και είναι πάντα προϊόν του καιρού της.

Στο κείμενο που αναπτύσσω περιγράφω τη σχέση φύσης και αρχιτεκτονικής, όπως αυτή αναδύεται από τη χρήση ψηφιακών μέσων και τεχνικών. Αναφέρομαι  μέσω δύο παραδειγμάτων, τόσο στα νέα εργαλεία όσο και στις νέες διαδικασίες – μηχανισμούς μορφογένεσης. Η αρχιτεκτονική μεταβάλλεται, για να ανταποκριθεί στη συνεχώς αυξανόμενη πολυπλοκότητα του ‘κατοικείν’. Με τα κατάλληλα εργαλεία και μέσα μπορούν να οπτικοποιηθούν και να καταγραφούν οι ποικίλες δυναμικές και μεταβολές στο χρόνο.  Οι τεχνικές και ο πολιτισμός αναπτύσσονται ταυτόχρονα με προφανή αντίκτυπο στην αρχιτεκτονική.

Η ύπαρξη του υπολογιστή σήμερα είναι ό,τι ήταν η μηχανή για τη βιομηχανική εποχή. Η μηχανή επέκτεινε τη μυική δύναμη του ανθρώπου, ενώ στον κόσμο της πληροφορικής και των δικτύων ο υπολογιστής επεκτείνει τη νοητική του δύναμη αποθηκεύοντας,
συνδυάζοντας, αξιοποιώντας και αποδίδοντας μεγάλο όγκο δεδομένων – data.

‘Η τεχνολογία πριν μετατραπεί σε τεχνική είναι πρώτα κοινωνική διαδικασία’(Gilles Deleuze), δηλαδή τα νέα τεχνολογικά μέσα πρέπει πρώτα να χρησιμοποιηθούν ευρύτερα στην πρακτική της αρχιτεκτονικής, ώστε να κατανοηθούν και να υποστηριχθούν, και μετά να εξερευνηθούν βαθύτερα ως εργαλείο.

Since the time of Alan Turing's death, in the early nineteen-fifties, largely due to beliefs spawned by Turing's formative work into machine intelligence, dreams that the design process can be automated by an artificial system, have been theoretical catnip in the field of  Architecture. The first wave of interest in this subject can be identified to have peaked around 1972 with Nicholas Negroponte's experiments for an 'Architecture Machine' at MIT. In developmental biology, the incentives that drive natural growth systems are referred to as morphogens. It is acknowledged in this field that without morphogens, systems would not be able to grow. It is also possible to observe morphogens in the human creative design process.Since the initial excitement into the potential of artificial design systems in the late sixties, it is fair to say that relatively small progress has been made: the architect's position as designer, has not received any serious artificial challenger. It is therefore interesting to note the general absence of the concept of Morphogens in historical and contemporary proposals for artificial design systems. However, in 2002, Manuel DeLanda published an article on the requirements of an artificial process which will be used in this essay to identify the morphogens of an artificial design process.The main body of this essay is formed into three sections documenting the proposed morphogens. The first of these is defined as a requirement to grow, which can be seen in nature in phototropism. The second, is to have large populations of problems and solvers to encourage,competitiveness; this will also be used to explore the idea of community design with reference to the open source community. The third incentive will be used to organise both the proposed Design Engine, and the resultant design, calibrating the cybernetic relationship between the human designer(s) and the artificial tools.This essay seeks to extrapolate morphogens from a wide variety of sources develop a proposal for a Universal Design Engine, to be tested in the subsequent thesis design project. The Engine will be formed from a small community of unskilled human designers, or an individual,with morphogenetically motivated artificial tools

How does an architect use a sheet of paper and a digital system? Paper is a two-dimensional support on which the architect carries out the creative drawing process. However, if we fold the paper, the architect is now able to begin to manipulate and even create space. A digital system, to put it succinctly, uses "electronic technology to manage, store and process information" allowing its user to work quickly and flexibly. So what is the relationship between these two tools? At first sight, none, as they exist independently. However, the fusion of the two has powerful consequences, as can be seen in the work of the architect Michael Hansmeyer who manages to incorporate all the beauty of the action of folding through a digital sheet with the help of a computer, where the final result is a shape that approaches a real application at an architectural level - Proto-architecture. Paper-folding, or origami as it is usually known, can be taken out of its original role and turned i...

Based upon a completed practice-based research project, this paper presents informa- tion on the design process and computational methods used to develop advanced adap- tive geometries in relationship to behavioural goals, criteria and constraints. The paper highlights potential strengths of the approach, draws attention to foundational theo- retical considerations and provides a basis for future work.

A book showcasing ideas, projects, designs and courses united by the theme of Investigative Designing (and digital architectural design). Realised at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne.

Paper copies can be purchased here: http://www.bookshop.unimelb.edu.au/bookshop/p?8880000451055

How does an architect use a sheet of paper and a digital system? Paper is a two-dimensional support on which the architect carries out the creative drawing process. However, if we fold the paper, the architect is now able to begin to manipulate and even create space. A digital system, to put it succinctly, uses "electronic technology to manage, store and process information" allowing its user to work quickly and flexibly. So what is the relationship between these two tools? At first sight, none, as they exist independently. However, the fusion of the two has powerful consequences, as can be seen in the work of the architect Michael Hansmeyer who manages to incorporate all the beauty of the action of folding through a digital sheet with the help of a computer, where the final result is a shape that approaches a real application at an architectural level - Proto-architecture. Paper-folding, or origami as it is usually known, can be taken out of its original role and turned i...

Como diseñadores, durante siglos hemos intentado “humanizar el espacio de la naturaleza”, geometrizando a esta por la fuerza: hemos cortado, cepillado y desbastado todo lo natural, para encasillar nuestras obras en banales estructuras de vigas y columnas ortogonales.
A comienzos del siglo XXI, es tiempo de dejar las efímeras discusiones del pasado, y concentrar nuestras energías en el futuro. Nos encontramos en los albores de una nueva [R]evolución, un quiebre, un cambio de concavidad de la curva, donde el papel de lo digital y de lo biológico es predominante. Los nuevos diseños deben despojarse de esa mirada nostálgica hacia el ayer, para adaptarse al devenir. Nuestra supervivencia como especie depende de ello.
En este sentido, abogamos por, a través de la tecnología, redescubrir los complejos teoremas de la vida, buscando emular la naturaleza de un modo superador, crear del mismo modo en que está lo hace.
Como diseñadores, debemos establecer una nueva estética, expresivamente superior, que explorará nuevos campos del conocimiento, y fragmentará por fin a la caja decimonónica, fractalizandola, diluyéndola bajo las leyes de una geometría topológica, de mallas y líneas NURBS. Nuevas formas nacerán ante nuestros ojos, formas complejas, dinámicas, precisas, eficaces, matemáticas. Formas diseñadas utilizando visores de realidad virtual y algoritmos de inteligencia artificial, formas construidas mediante robot voladores provistos de inyectores, que imprimirán tridimensionalmente nuestras ciudades, augurándonos un futuro fantástico.

Σχετικά πρόσφατα, και μετά την έντονη επιρροή του Γάλλου διανοητή G.Deleuze, παρατηρείται στην αρχιτεκτονική η χρήση των «τοπολογικών επιφανειών». Ο χώρος γίνεται αντιληπτός, ως τοπολογικά μορφοποιημένος. Αναπροσδιορίζεται ως περιοχή συνεχούς ροής και μεταμόρφωσης από σχήμα σε έδαφος. Οποιαδήποτε αλλαγή της τοπογραφίας αντιμετωπίζεται ως χειρισμός επιφάνειας ενός πολύπλοκου πεδίου μεταβαλλόμενου από εξωτερικούς περιβαλλοντικούς παράγοντες.
Ένα τέτοιο παράδειγμα «προγραμματικής επιφάνειας» είναι η υλοποιημένη πρόταση του αρχιτεκτονικού γραφείου Foreign Office Architects, με αρχιτέκτονες τους Farshid Moussavi και Alejandro Zaera-Polo, για τη προβλήτα του σταθμού του λιμανιού της πόλης Yokohama στην Ιαπωνία, ύστερα από τον διεθνή αρχιτεκτονικό διαγωνισμό με 700 συμμετοχές.

Characterised by a concise style, made up of simple phrases that aim at clarity and scientific effectiveness, the brief introduction of The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis by Alan Turing already includes all of the themes which will be discussed in detail in the following paragraphs of his text; at the same time, the author’s awareness that these topics require knowledge that may not be obvious to all readers also emerges. Such knowledge is then mentioned and briefly explained in several passages, as happens for example – in paragraphs not reported here – for some concepts related to the differential equations and the chemical reactions on which his model is based. Hence, the essay has several levels of reading, and, even in this case, it is the author himself who advises the reader which paragraphs to tackle and which to leave out on the basis of his scientific preparation, without losing the general sense of the discussion. This is the reason why this article leaves out mathematical formalisation, as well as the paragraphs that focus more in detail on the physical-chemical aspects. Instead, we have isolated the description of the model, the summary of the results obtained and the author’s conclusions, which contain the desired but unfinished developments of the work. This allows us to focus on the more general characteristics of the model and to appreciate its influence in different areas, above all from an aesthetic point of view, in different  fields, therefore not only in physics and chemistry, but also in the theory of arts, architecture and design, in relation to particular artefacts for which, for example, adjectives such as ‘morphogenetic’, ‘parametric’ or ‘performative’ are used.

Cities as organisms in constant transformation can be described with the aid of models based on dynamic and complex systems. Among the different possibilities, we will analyse Alan Turing's morphogenetic model as an exemplary case: it has been initially used to account for the growth of living beings, but it has been later applied to many different fields as well. Its adequacy to describe the development of cities lies in the fact that it is a stochastic model, where the interaction between a series of local forces gives rise to global arrangements that cannot be actually predicted.
We will deal with some of the most relevant approaches in urban morphogenesis related to these theories in order to prove that, from this point of view, there are analogies between phenomena that occur in the natural and in the artificial domain and that cannot be explained making use of a hylomorphic scheme, according to which form is imposed to an inert matter. On the contrary, form emerges through a mechanism of self-organisation whose description requires particular eidetic categories.

Dans un précédent article, nous annoncions que l’architecture computationnelle, les approches évolutionnaire et morphogénétique – mettant l’accent sur les processus d’autopoïèse, d’auto-organisation ou d’émergence -, embrassent le paradigme de la complexité. Qu’est-ce que la complexité signifie ? Le moins que l’on puisse dire, c’est que la complexité – mot problème plutôt que solution (Edgard Morin) – est une notion complexe !

The increasing complexity in architectural design brought a parallel evolution of tools for shape generation and management. Digital tools which better fulfil this need are the generative design software.The aim of this work is finding and testing real life uses of generative design software beyond academic edges. The specific target is transform a complex surface into a similar surface mostly made of flat panels.As a testing ground it has been chosen the support in construction of complex shapes made with ordinary and well known tools. The combination of software used is Rhinoceros, with its plugin Grasshopper, and a couple of opensource add-on, Lunchbox and Paneling tool. The cases are listed from the simplest to the most complex, and the first four are solved with the automated procedure, the fifth, manually. Based on the cases studied it is possible to confirm that the method is applicable to the majority of the complex surfaces.