ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY - Philip Beesley Architect · ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY USC School of...
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R Edited by David Gerber, Alvin Huang and Jose Sanchez
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture
ACADIA 2014DESIGN AGENCY
USC School of Architecture, Los Angeles
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
ACADIA (Conference) (34th : 2014 : Los Angeles, Calif.)ACADIA 2014 Design Agency : Proceedings of the 34th annual conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, October 23–25, 2014, Los Angeles, California / editors, David Gerber (University of Southern California), Alvin Huang (University of Southern California), Jose Sanchez (University of Southern California).
Conference hosted by the University of Southern California School of Architecture.Includes bibliographical references.Issued in print and electronic formats.ISBN 978-1-926724-47-8 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-926724-49-2 (epub).--ISBN 978-1-926724-50-8 (mobi).--ISBN 978-1-926724-51-5 (pdf)
1. Architecture--Computer-aided design--Congresses.I. Gerber, David, 1970-, author, editor II. Huang, Alvin, 1975-, author, editor III. Sanchez, Jose, 1980-, author, editor IV. University of Southern California. School of Architecture, host institution V. Title. VI. Title: 2014 design agency. VII. Title: Design agency. VIII. Title: Proceedings of the 34th annual conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, October 23–25, 2014, Los Angeles, California.
NA2728.A318 2014 720.285 C2014-906244-3 C2014-906245-1
© Copyright 2014ACADIA and Riverside Architectural Press
The individual authors shown herein are solely responsible for their content appearing within this publication.
No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission of the copyright owner. An electronic copy of the paper in .pdf format will be stored in the CUMINCAD database.
ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY
ACADIA 2014DESIGN AGENCYPROCEEDINGSProceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in ArchitectureOctober 23 – 25, 2014Los Angeles, California
University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of California, Los AngelesSouthern California Insitute of Architecture
Editors David Gerber University of Southern California Alvin Huang University of Southern California Jose Sanchez University of Southern California
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PREFACEMichael Fox ACADIA President
INTRODUCTIONDavid Gerber University of Southern CaliforniaAlvin Huang University of Southern CaliforniaJose Sanchex University of Southern California
KEYNOTES & AWARDS
CONFERENCE KEYNOTESWill WrightCasey ReasMarc FornesGreg Otto
2014 ACADIA AWARDSZaha Hadid 2014 ACADIA Lifetime Achievement Award
Neil Gershenfeld 2014 ACADIA Award of Teaching Excellence
Jenny Sabin 2014 ACADIA Digital Practice Award of Excellence
Nancy Yen-wen Cheng 2014 ACADIA Society Award of Excellence
Martin Bechthold 2014 ACADIA Innovative Research Award of Excellence
Scott R. Marble 2014 ACADIA Innovative Academic Program Award of Excellence
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ACADIA 2014DESIGN AGENCYPROCEEDINGS
ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY
EVERYONE IS AN ARCHITECTClaudia W. Otten
POLYOMINO Reconsidering Serial Repetition in Combinatorics
Jose Sanchez
DESIGNING WITH GRADIENTS Bio-Inspired Computation for Digital Fabrication
Daniel Richards Martyn Amos
MULTI-SCALAR AGENT-BASED COMPLEX DESIGN SYSTEMSThe Case Of Climatic-Ecologies Studio: Informed Generative Design Systems and Performance-Driven Design Workflows
Sina MostafaviSoungmin YuNimish M. Biloria
INTERACTING WITH ALTERNATIVESAlt.Text
Maher Elkhaldi Robert Woodbury
EUCLID’S WEDGEMark Ericson
MESH AGENCYGwyllim Jahn Tom Morgan Stanislav Roudavski
EMERGENT INACTIVITIESFrom the Primitive Hut to the Cerebral Hut
Neil Leach
DESIGN AGENCY
SESSION INTRODUCTIONRoland Snooks Session Chair
IGEOAlgorithm Development Environment for Computational Design Coders with Integration of NURBS Geometry Modeling and Agent Based Modeling
Satoru Sugihara
BOUNDED AGENCY Integrating Informed Multi-Agent Systems with Architectural Subtractions
Joshua M. TaronMatthew Parker
AGENT-BASED MODELS FOR COMPUTING CIRCULATION
Renee Puusepp
IMPERATIVE / FUNCTIONAL / OBJECT-ORIENTED An Alternative Ontology of Programmatic Paradigms for Design
Kyle SteinfeldCarlos Sandoval
THE AGENCY OF EVENTEvent Based Simulation for Architectural Design
Martin Tamke Paul NicholasJacob Riiber
PRODUCTIVE HYBRIDS Folding Social Media as Urban Analysis
Alexander Webb
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CONTEXT-AWARE MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMSNegotiating Intensive Fields
Rodrigo Shiordia Lopez David Gerber
FABRICATION AGENCY
SESSION INTRODUCTIONMatias del Campo Session Chair
CENTENNIAL CHROMAGRAPH Data Spatialization and Computational Craft
Adam Marcus
BEHAVIORAL STRATEGIES Synthesizing Design Computation and Robotic Fabrication of Lightweight Timber Plate Structures
Tobias Schwinn Oliver David Krieg Achim Menges
SNAP-FIT JOINTS CNC Fabricated, Integrated Mechanical Attachment for Structural Wood Panels
Christopher Robeller Paul MayencourtYves Weinand
CARET 6 AND THE DIGITAL REVIVAL OF GOTHIC VAULTS
Kory Bieg
NEARLY MINIMALHow Intuition and Analysis Inform the Minimal Surface Geometries in the Pure Tension Pavilion
Alvin HuangStephen Lewis
INTEGRATIVE COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN METHODOLOGIES FOR MODULAR ARCHITECTURAL FIBER COMPOSITE MORPHOLOGIES
Moritz DörstelmannStefana Parascho Marshall PradoAchim MengesJan Knippers
FORM COMPLEXITY - REWIND‘God’s Eye’ Sukkahville 2013
Michail GeorgiouOdysseas GeorgiouTheresa Kwok
MASS REGIMESGeometrically Actuated Thermal Flows
Dana CupkovaNicolas Azel
A FRAMEWORK FOR LINKING DESIGN AND FABRICATION IN GEOMETRICALLY COMPLEX ARCHITECTURE
Heinz SchmiedhoferMartin ReisFlorian RistGeorg Suter Simon Flöry
INTRICATE STEREOTOMIC ASSEMBLIESHollow Masonry From Buckled Surfaces
Justin Diles
POST-FORMING COMPOSITE MORPHOLOGIESMaterialization and Design Methods for Inducing Form through Textile Material Behavior
Sean AhlquistAli AskarinejadRizkallah ChaaraouiAmmar KaloXiang LiuKavan Sha
PARAMETRIC AGENCY
SESSION INTRODUCTIONKris Mun Session Chair
HARVEST SHADE SCREENS Programming Material for Optimal Energy Building Skins
Jonathan GrinhamRobert Blabolil Jeremy Haak
ILLUSTRATED PROGRAMMINGAntónio LeitãoJosé LopesLuís Santos
DIGITAL WALLPAPERTiles of Proliferation and Continuity
Sabri GokmenDaniel Baerlecken
SMART NODESA System for Variable Structural Frames with 3D Metal-Printed Nodes
Kristof Crolla Nicholas Williams
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CASE FOR AN ARCHITECTURAL SINGULARITYSynchronization of Robotically Actuated Motion, Sense-Based Interaction and Computational Interface
Güvenç Özel
SEEING IS DOINGSynthetic Tools for Robotically Augmented Fabrication in High-Skill Domains
Joshua BardMadeline GannonMauricio Contreras Zachary Jacobson-WeaverMichael JeffersBrian Smith
PERISTALSISA Real-World Lesson in Adaptable Space
Michael FoxJuintow LinEran Shemish
ADAPTIVE PNEUMATIC FRAMEWORKSFrank MelendezMadeline GannonZachary Jacobson-WeaverVarvara Toulkeridou
PNEUSYSTEMSCellular Pneumatic Envelope Assemblies
Mary O’Malley Kathy VelikovGeoffrey Thun
INSPIREIntegrated Spatial Gesture Based Direct 3D Modeling and Display
Teng TengBrian R. Johnson
CASTING NON-REPETITIVE GEOMETRIES WITH DIGITALLY RECONFIGURABLE SURFACES
Brad BellNathan Barnes Austin Ede T. Cord Read
ARCHITECTURE IN THE ERA OF ACCELERATING CHANGE
Manuel Kretzer
LE CUBE D’APRÈSIntegrated Cognition for Iterative and Generative Designs
Pierre Cutellic
DIGITALLY DESIGNING COLLABORATIONComputational Approaches to Process, Practice, and Product
Andrew HeumannRyan Mullenix
SIMPLEXITYUnitized FRP Façade Systems
Mark CabrinhaJeff Ponitz
PARAMETRIC PLANTINGGreen Wall System Research + Design Using BIM
Danelle Briscoe
EASY TO USE YET NOT NECESSARILY USEFULNew Technology in the Architectural Schematic Design Process
Eliel De La Cruz Martin TomitschMary Lou Maher
INTERACTIVE SHAPING OF FORCESCorentin Fivet Denis Zastavni
REVERBERATING ACROSS THE DIVIDEBridging Virtual and Physical Contexts in Digital Design and Fabrication
Madeline Gannon
COMMUNICATING CLIMATE-SMART SCENARIOS WITH DATA-DRIVEN ILLUSTRATIONS
Nancy Yen-wen Cheng Brian Lockyear
FABRICATION AWARE FORM-FINDINGA Combined Quasi-Reciprocal Timber and Discontinuous Post-Tensioned Concrete Structure
Iain MaxwellDave Pigram Ole Egholm PedersonNiels Martin Larsen
TEMPORAL AGENCY
SESSION INTRODUCTIONNeil Leach Session Chair
THIS IS NOT A GLITCHAlgorithms and Anomalies in Google Architecture
Jason JohnsonMatthew Parker
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ONE AND MANYAn Agent Perspective on Interactive Architecture
Henri Achten
AUGMENTED AGENCYReorienting Trompe l’Oeil in the Age of Google Earth
Joshua M TaronMatthew Parker
MATERIAL AGENCY
SESSION INTRODUCTIONAlisa Andrasek Session Chair
THE SOCIAL WEAVERSConsidering Top-Down and Bottom-UpDesign Processes as a Continuum
Paul NicholasDavid StasiukTim Schork
COMPUTATIONAL SAND PILE TECHNIQUES FOR DIFFUSEACOUSTICAL CERAMICS
Rhett Russo
ADDITIVE FORMWORK3D Printed Flexible Formwork
Brian Peters
TEXTILE EFFECTSSemi-Riged Concrete Formwork
Kenneth TracyChristine YogiamanLavender Tessmer
BUG-OUT FABRICATIONA Parallel Investigation using the Namib Darkling Beetle and Incremental Sheet Metal Forming
Ammar KaloMichael Jake Newsum
4D PRINTING AND UNIVERSAL TRANSFORMATION
Skylar TibbitsCarrie McKnellyCarlos OlguinDaniel Dikovsky Shai Hirsch
TOWARDS A DIGITAL ANISOTROPIC MATERIALITY
Daniel Rhomberg Peregrine Buckler Andrei GheorgheMaya PindeusClemens PreisingerStefan Thanei
ROBOTIC FABRICATION OF ACOUSTIC BRICK WALLS
Maximilian VomhofLauren VaseyFabio GramazioMatthias Kohler Stefan BräuerKurt EggenschwilerJürgen Strauss
COMPRESSION BASED GROWTH MODELLING
Christoph Klemmt
FROM SURFACE TO VOLUME An Approach to Poché with Composites
Nazareth Ekmekjian
ROBOTIC PRODUCTION IMMANENT DESIGNCreative Toolpath Design in Micro and Macro Scale
Sigrid Brell-Cokcan Johannes Braumann
CONFIGURATIONS OF INTENSITYMirco Becker
DATA AGENCY
SESSION INTRODUCTIONKyle Steinfeld Session Chair
ABSTRACTION VERSUS CASED BASEDA Comparative Study of Two Approaches to Support Parametric Design
Anastasia GlobaMichael DonnJules Moloney
ACOMODATING CHANGE IN PARAMETRIC DESIGN
Robert VierlingerKlaus Bollinger
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INTERACTING WITH THOUSANDSA Parametric-Space Exploration Method in Generative Design
Halil ErhanIvy WangNaghmi Shireen
HIERARCHICAL PLANE EXTRACTIONAn Efficient Method for Extraction of Planes from Large Point Cloud Datasets
Naveen Anand SubramaniamKevin Ponto
VACUUM INSULATED TUBESModular, Self-Supporting Exterior Enclosure Systems
Aybars AsciElizabeth Boone Gary HaneyChristopher OlsenTeresa Rainey
ROBOTHERMODONAn Artificial Sun Study Lab with a Robot Arm and Advanced Model Platform
Mehrnoush Latifi KhorasganiDaniel ProhaskyJane BurryAkbar AkbarzadehNicholas Williams
IMPROVING GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR DESIGN OPTIMIZATION USING ARCHITECTURAL DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE
Zhouzhou SuWei Yan
FIBER COMPOSITE FABRICATIONExperimental Methodsof Architectural Applications
Marco CorazzaViral DoshiAxel KörnerMehnaj Tabassum
UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL BEHAVIORS IN THE INDOOR ENVIRONMENT A Complex Network Approach
Mani WilliamsJane BurryAsha Rao
BIM AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOR ARCHAELOGICAL HERITAGE
Davide SimeoneStefano CursiIlaria ToldoGianfranco Carrara
USING PHYSICAL TESTING TO DESIGN AND EVALUATE THE ACCLIMATISATION OF KINETIC FAÇADES FOR DAYLIGHT AND THERMAL HEAT PERFORMANCE
Kamil Sharaidin
‘ATTACHMENT’ AS AGENCY IN OFF-SITE AND ON-SITE INDICATORS OF PHENOMENA IN GEOSPATIAL URBAN ANALYSIS TOOLS
Philip Speranza
SYNTHETIC ECOLOGIESProtocols, Simulation, and Manipulation for Indeterminate Landscapes
Bradley Cantrell Justine Holzman
SELECTIVE INTERFERENCEEmergent Complexity Informed by Programmatic, Social and Performative Criteria
Christopher WelchJules Moloney Tane Moleta
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Michael Fox President, Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture
Our architectural world is one that is not only increasingly digital,
but also seamlessly networked and connected. As we continue to
embrace a world where the lines between the physical and dig-
ital are increasingly blurred, we are beginning to see a maturing
vision for architecture that actively participates in our lives. Our
architectural environments are becoming so inextricably tied to
our technological living trends that they are defining each other
in a corresponding manner. How architectural design integrates
and reconciles the digital in our contemporary context it is nothing
short of reciprocal innovation.
While there are approximately 1 billion websites, and about 5
billion mobile phones, there are approximately 50 billion smart
devices. It is the goal (and responsibility) of the Internet of Things
(IoT) to connect them in a meaningful way. These intelligent
things are everywhere in our lives and many of them are already
seamlessly embedded into our architecture, even if at the time
being most of them are weakly connected at best. The protocols
are confusing to say the least and while today’s internet supports
hundreds of protocols, the IoT will support hundreds more. The
service industry alone for such environments projected to reach
almost 11 billion by 2017 in just the arena of the smarthome. The
point is that while the connectivity issues may not be architectur-
al, our profession needs to realize that the promise of ubiquitous
computing has secured a permanent foothold in our lives and
has begun to infiltrate not just our devices and objects but our
buildings, our neighborhoods, our cities and entire environments.
What is important is that architects understand the potential of
the connected world as a catalyst for designing how our buildings
and environments can truly impact our lives.
In a sense, such a connected world is in a unique position to re-
position the role of the architectural designer. In the paraphrased
words of Gordon Pask, the role of the designer should be not so
much to create a finished design as to catalyze a design; to ask
that it may evolve. What has made the ubiquitous phone so pow-
erful is not that it is a connected device, but that it is a platform for
the creation of applications. It has become a catalyst for design
and ideas that were never intended. Perhaps ironically it positions
the act of designing architecture in a connected world as much
more of an ego-less, emergent endeavor that lies in not designing
the future, but designing the platform for the future. Such a posi-
tion is both noble and profound, for it means the architect must
understand people well enough to not only design for them but to
design the interfaces and tools for them so that they in turn can
become designers.
The ACADIA community has always been about innovation with
respect to the use of computation in architecture, in particular with
respect to design creativity and education. When the organization
was founded in the early 1980’s the concerns were on software,
hardware and pedagogy in education. The annual conference every
year puts forth an amazing collection of work that is indeed innova-
tive in terms of typically pushing the boundaries of what is possible
in architecture and computation. It has for years been a premiere
forum for pioneering work in terms of designing and making.
Looking at CES this year however, we are starting to see all of the
smart-home, smart kitchen projects of academia in the 90’s have
made their way into mainstream. The disconnect lies in the realiza-
tion that almost none of these projects (academic or corporate) are
being done by architects and yet the context is architecture. Young
architectural students are starting to realize that it is possible to at
least prototype anything that they can imagine. Sensors available
today can sense nearly anything from complex gestures to CO2
emissions, to the color of your hair. In addition to sensing, an in-
terconnected world digital world means that data sets can also be
drivers of an interactive building or environment which range from
internet usage to traffic patterns, to crowd behaviors. Courses are
commonly taught within schools of architecture today that cover
behaviors and interaction with contextual subjects ranging from
social urban issues to practical sustainability.
I was optimistically intrigued at the past ACADIA conference
to find so few peer-reviewed papers at a conference themed
around “adaptability” that actually dealt with adaptability, and yet
almost all of the student poster projects had integrated robotics
PREFACECATALYST DESIGN IN A CONNECTED WORLD
2ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY
and kinematics of some sort. I suspect it is a consequence re-
flecting the maturity of real research that is subject to a peer-re-
view process; a consequence whereby the annual conference
typically stands as a barometer of the state of architecture and
computation. It makes me ask if there is a mechanism by which
the organization can lead and direct the future of architecture
and computation rather than reporting on it, and makes me all
the more supportive of student initiatives as a long-term, per-
manent installment to the conference agenda if only for their
pioneering sprirt with respect to innovation.
The foundations of architecture in a connected world stretches
back to cyberneticians nearly 40 years ago and is only now seeing
a renewed growth due to both technological and economic feasi-
bility. The “Internet of Things” has quite rapidly come to define the
technological context inclusively. The context can be defined as
one that affects essentially everything, from objects to buildings to
cities. To use an appropriate analogy, the theoretical “foundations”
now have a “structure”, which resides in the connected worlds of
web, mobile and spatial interfacing and they are also still evolving.
The early theories of a connected architectural world existed long
before mobile devices and web interface technologies changed ev-
ery aspect of our lives. While the first wave connectivity focused on
human to human communication, the current focus is on connect-
ed things and devices which extends naturally to buildings, cities
and global environments.
Architectural applications are iterative in such a connected context.
The sensors and robotic components are now both affordable and
simple enough for the design community to access, and everything
can easily be digitally connected to everything else. Designing in
particular is not inventing, but understanding what technology exists,
and extrapolating it to suit an architectural vision. In this respect, the
designers of buildings, cities and larger interconnected ecosystems
has a lot to learn from the rapidly developing world of Tangible
Interaction, which was developed as essentially an alternate vision for
interfacing which brings computing back into the “real world”.
Although Tangible Interaction typically deals with the interfacing of
objects and artifacts, the connected capabilities has opened up a
wealth of possibilities, not only at the scale of the building, but also
the city and beyond. It is impossible to predict how quickly architec-
ture in the connected world will be widely adopted, and executed,
and what standards and protocols will work their way to the fore, and
yet it seems that this area of design is becoming an inevitable and
completely integral part of how we will make our objects, buildings
and cities in the future. The platform is ripe to foster unique applica-
tions that are tied to our living trends which are both affected by and
affect digital technology. In addition to the amazing and innovative
work done in architecture and computation related to designing and
making, I urge that the community recognize this area as a fertile
field ripe for our input. I urge that we ask not how a building was de-
signed, analyzed or made, but rather, what does it do.
NOTESi Neil Leach (ed.), Urban Architecture (UA), No 97, September 2012, p. 8.
ii Behnaz Farahi, Alloplastic ArchitectureL The Design of an Interactive Tensegrity Structure, Proceedings to ACADIA conference, 2013.
iii Pask, G. “Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics.” Architectural Design, September 1969, 494–496.
iv Frazer, J. An Evolutionary Architecture, London: Architectural Association Publications, Themes VII, John Frazer and the Architectural Association, 1995.
v Adam Greenfield, Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (Berkeley, CA: New Riders,2006).
vii Understanding The Protocols Behind The Internet Of Things:
http://electronicdesign.com/embedded/understanding-protocols-behind-internet-things
viii Understanding The Protocols Behind The Internet Of Things:
http://electronicdesign.com/embedded/understanding-protocols-behind-internet-things
ix Jennifer Stein, Scott S. Fisher, Greg Otto, IOT2010 Workshop, University of Southern California, LA, CA, 2010.
x Jennifer Stein, Scott S. Fisher, Greg Otto, IOT2010 Workshop, University of Southern California, LA, CA, 2010.
xi Ishii, Hiroshi and Ullmer, Brygg (1997): Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces between People, Bits and Atoms. In: Pemberton, Steven (ed.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 97 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference March 22-27, 1997, Atlanta, Georgia. pp. 234-241. Available online
xii Hornecker, Eva (2009). Tangible Interaction. Retrieved 16 August 2013 from http://www.interaction- design.org/encyclopedia/tangible_interaction.html
xiii Data cycle: Behind MIT’s SENSEable Cities Lab http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/04/features/data-cycle/page/3
xiv Behnaz Farahi, Alloplastic ArchitectureL The Design of an Interactive Tensegrity Structure, Proceedings to ACADIA conference, 2013.
The theme of the 24th annual ACADIA conference is DESIGN
AGENCY, a purposeful instigation of work that looks at re-de-
fining the term “Agency” through the lens of computational
design strategies such as simulation, fabrication, robotics, and
novel integrations from science and the media arts. The confer-
ence theme is intended to highlight experimental research and
projects that exhibit and explore new paradigms of computing
in architecture. It is a title that has proven to be provocative
and even controversial in the understanding of how we define
the term ‘Agency’ within the discipline of design.
The term ‘Agency’ implies the capacity of an agent or actor to
act in a given environment. Perhaps the most obvious question
is who or what represents this ‘agent’, and in turn what defines
the world in which they are operating.
For some, the word agent connects directly with concepts
found in computer science and automatas; agents as algo-
rithmic entities that have a certain autonomy to act in a virtual
environment. This autonomy is derived by the use of both
intrinsic and extrinsic data allowing a designer to ‘model’ the
artificial intelligence of a multitude of entities to discover the
emergent behaviours produced by their interactions. This
notion of an agency that is able to produce complex global
behaviours through simple local interactions was originally pop-
ularized by the groundbreaking contributions of Craig Reynolds
with Steering Behaviours and John Conway with the Game of
Life. More recently, platforms like Processing, created by one
of our keynote speakers Casey Reas, has made the concepts
of computational emergence and complex adaptive systems
more accessible and potentially more relevant.
However, within the context of ACADIA 2014 the term “Agency”
needs to be understood in a much broader sense. What is abso-
lutely critical in our definition of the term is the understanding that
design processes are enabled by the autonomy of a given process
or discipline to operate within a given world or environment in a
non-linear fashion. It is through this perceptual lens that we have
defined 6 sub-categories describing varying agencies, each exert-
ing their own capacities to simultaneously exert action and produce
reaction within that domain.
These sub-categories are defined as Design Agency,
Fabrication Agency, Parametric Agency, Material Agency,
Temporal Agency and Data Agency.
What this implies is that each one of these agencies has a
certain autonomy and a particular feedback between designer,
agent, and environment. The designer in this sense, engages in
a dialogue with the given material, fabrication or data structure,
discovering its capacities and enabling them to operate. Often,
as we can see in many of the papers, the designer is someone
that mediates between multiple agencies.
There is something critical to be understood here: ‘DESIGN
AGENCY’ suggests that Design itself has a certain autonomy
over the designer. It suggests that there are internal rules to
the articulation of form and variables that also establishes a
dialogue with a designer.
As such, DESIGN AGENCY interrogates the idea of control,
perhaps redefining not only the term design but the culture of
design itself. Are we the designers of spaces and things, or
the processes and experiences that produce or are produced
by these spaces and things? Can we ever truly consider some-
thing to be designed ‘Top Down’ or ‘Bottom Up’? DESIGN
AGENCY implies that there is always a feedback, an interde-
pendence between the designer and the designed.
Looking back to models Like Simcity developed by ACADIA
2014 Keynote speaker Will Wright, we can see a very con-
temporary design strategy. A strategy that is enabled by sys-
tems thinking and that produces a weak form of authorship.
INTRODUCTIONDavid Gerber University of Southern CaliforniaAlvin Huang University of Southern CaliforniaJose Sanchez University of Southern California
4ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY
DESIGN AGENCY is encapsulated in software while thou-
sands of players explore a vast search-space. The desire and
perseverance of the community is in perpetual dialogue with
the constraints of the system.
The recent emphasis on fabrication in the architecture pro-
fession has proven that the algorithmic notion of agency is
also true for fabrication, materials and systems of production.
Architectural practices encapsulate an organization of knowl-
edge that can operate to not only mediate the constraints of
form and perfomance but also those of economy and feasi-
bility. The work of ACADIA 2014 Keynote speaker Zaha Hadid
demonstrates how DESIGN AGENCY is both, the organization
of Labor inasmuch as it refers to the organization of Form.
DESIGN AGENCY will bring together the spectrum of research
and creative practice currently occurring within the ACADIA
community through the combined support of the research
networks of the University of Southern California, University
of California Los Angeles and Southern California Institute
of Architecture. Questions the capacity for computation to
inform or challenge traditional design processes; computa-
tion as design operation - the capacity, condition, or state of
acting or of exerting power, and/or computation as design
instrumentality - the design mechanism through which power
is exerted or an end is achieved.
Image credit: SimCity 2000 Maxis, Will Wright
Image credit: Galaxy Soho, Zaha Hadid, Photography by Iwan Baan
Image credit: Casey Reas