Sustainable Concepts in Advanced Design

Computing Self-Organization:
Environmentally Sensitive
Growth Modeling

Biological processes and computation:

The nature is the master of all designs; it is wise, and perfectly tuned as a perfect functional and complex machine. In some aspects how it works is a difficult puzzle to solve, but, people like Professor Premyslaw Prusinkiewcz, from the University of Calgary, Canada, try to reveal to the world the self-organization processes behind the grow of all living things; Each one perfectly calibrated and adapted to an specific environmental context. Those processes can be observed from the diminute cells, to the social organization of insects, how the plants grow, and much more. But what is Self organization? The answer to this question sounds easy, but it isn´t:

“Self-organization is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source”.

The easiest example to illustrate this definition can be found in the embryology, in other words, how an organic system is grows and develops (and all in-between processes like cellular differentiation and morphogenesis), from the zygote to a child.

With the will of translate this concepts from the nature to the virtual world, Biologists and computational scientists worked together to create a software capable of generate and evolve plants, that grow digitally, reacting to environmental stimules. That means each little change on the input affect the development of the model. Moreover, it’s worth to say that the configurations are almost infinite. All this observations are valuable, because they can lead to an architectural strategies created by specific environmental conditions, that possesses advances levels of functionality and performativity.

The wish to understand the logic behind growing processes in the nature is not new, some 40 years ago (1968), an Hungarian named Dr. Aristid Lindenmayer (November 17, 1925 – October 30, 1989) began to work with simple multicellular organisms, wishing to find their growing patterns. In the same year he developed a description based on his observations, called The Lindermayer System or L-system. L system is a parallel rewriting system, namely a variant of a formal grammar (a set of rules and symbols), most famously used to model the growth processes of plant development, but also able to model the morphology of a variety of organisms. This system can be also used to draw fractal graphics.

The ideas of Lindenmayer, applied to computational simulation (programmed by the Calgary team), has opened a big field of possibilities, in terms of modeling and simulation experiment, allowing the manipulation in a easy way of the variables that permits the creation of a large variety of plants at the architectural level. This can be used in architecture to see how buildings structures and envelopes react, in order to be optimized to satisfy established objectives. In words of Professor Prusinkiewicz, the virtual models show (synthetically) the interplay between various aspects of development, and it´s mechanisms, in a clear way. The result of these simulations can be translated into a revolutionary sensibility to design, as they facilitate the understanding of its relationship with the environment.

Stepping into the realm of biomechanics, the simulation can be taken far beyond, by adding physical, biological and environmental input, like gravity or tropism. One good example is the recreation of the orientation of the leaves, towards to the sunlight; this can lead to the design of photovoltaic membranes for example.

In terms of mimicry, looking how the plants manage to deal with smalls resources like thorns, hairs, against extreme conditions dictated by the environment, the architects can adapt this features to their projects to achieve the performance observed in nature.

All this natural aspects can be translated to a computer generated model, to experiment with them, and get results to that can be applied in Architecture.

But this software goes even more further, for example in terms of ecology (the interactions between organisms and their natural environment) it is capable of study the ecological behavior of an individual or a group of organisms, how they are affected by (and how they can affect) their surroundings. This ecological behavior is divided in 3 levels:

1) Stimulus: an external agent that creates a change in an organism
2) Sensibility: the capacity to perceive the stimulus
3) Sensitivity: the response to the stimulus.

When the case of study is a population of organisms, the Calgary team developed simulation tools that can create spatial distributions for plants communities, they are very complex, because each individual has its own and particular features, related to its position in that ecosystem. That is possible by the use of two base models combined in a bidirectional one that is divided in two levels

1) Higher level: it determines the plat distribution
2) Lower level: determines plants shapes and features

This last feature in the Calgary software can leave the field of ecology, and be used in architecture to determine the appropriate distribution of buildings in a determined area, and how each one will react on its emplacement. In resume, this Simulation program works in at 2 scales:

1) Micro (how the organism grows)
2) Macro (how the organism interact with the environment)

All this simulations and experiments can provide the designers with multi performance systems that are optimized that can be used to develop intelligent projects capable of interact and coexist in peace with the nature.

Excerpt from: Hensel, Michael 2006: “Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design” AD 76/2 = 180; p.12-17.

Summarized by: Esteban Pacheco.

Example: Sustainable Habitat 2020 "Off the grid"

The aim of this project is to create a living membrane, like the leaves of a tree, capable of taking energy from, light, wind. Also by channeled using small pipes, the water can be stored and use for comfort, and even the human waste is upcycled in this system, just like the nature does.