Emergence
From Physical Programming
The term emergent refers to the way complex systems arise out of simple units following simple rules. Examples include flocks of birds, ant colonies, the structure of neurons in the brain, social networking sites and even cities. In architecture and design, principles of emergence can be used to evolve environmentally responsive, open-ended and bottom-up systems, as they might exist in nature. Through an understanding of the underlying rules and principles which give rise to these naturally occurring phenomena it is possible to use emergent systems as tools for design generation.
Contents |
Videos
Flocks of Starlings
Starlings over Rome
Emergence doco from US PBS - Part 1
Emergence doco from US PBS - Part 2
Emergence References
Steven Johnson, "Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains and software", 2001. Great introduction to this field, a must read. Steven Johnson's blog
Steven Wolfram, "A New Kind of Science", (online version here). A massive tome of examples of cellular automata and everything else to do with the emergent behaviour of simple programs.
Mike Silver (ed.), 'AD: Programming Cultures', Vol 76, no 4, Wiley Academy. Includes an article by pioneering programming philosopher Malcolm McCullough, reflecting on the developments in programming for design over the last 20 years.
Helen Castle, 'Emergence in Architecture', AA Files 50, Spring 2004. A good overview of the applications of this thinking in architecture.
EMTEC at the Architecture Association. Led by Michael Hensel, Achim Menges & Michael Weinstock.
The Science of Surprise - complexity and the insurance industry. An interesting article on the use of emergence theory.
Flocking References
Craig Reynolds' home page. He made the first computer simulation of birds flocking in 1986.
SIMAE conference on 'matter, systems and new technologies for emergent architectures'. A few big hitters speaking.
Telegraph article on recent studies in bird flocking behaviour.
Conway's Game of Life
Golly An open source Game of Life simulator
Cellular Automata Quartz Composer based Life simulator
GPULife Mac Game of Life screensaver
Digital Game of Life developed during the 2008 Physical Processing class.
