A collaboration between members of the
Architectural Association Diploma Unit 11commissioned by The City Planning
Department of Groningen, Holland.
Project concept and computer programming:
John & Julia Frazer, Gianni Botsford, Cristiano Ceccato, Peter
Graham, Dominic Skinner, Guy Westbrook. Status
Completed 1996 |
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In its first five years, John Frazer's Diploma Unit
11 at the Architectural Association in London, developed a theoretical
framework of an alternative generative process, using computer models
to compress evolutionary space and time. This led to a prototype that
could be demonstrated interactively, and the launch on the Internet
of an experimental evolutionary environment, which attracted global
participation, and established a dematerialised model.
The new phase
of the programme externalised this conceptual model into constructed
form, focusing on urban-scale evolution and other historical and cultural examples
of co-operative and ecologically integrated development. The approach has been
to consider metabolic processes as a way of understanding both the formal development
of urban symbiosis and the specific problem of materialisation.
The city planning department of Groningen, Holland, commissioned a small working
prototype of a predictive urban computer model. The unit produced an evolving
model which explains the transition from the past to the present, and projects
future trajectories - a 'what if' model for generating, exploring and evaluation
alternatives.
The model mediates in scale, space and time: in scale between
the urban context and the fine grain of the housing typologies; in space
between the existing urban fabric of Groningen and specific dwelling
units; in time between the lifestyle within the medieval core and the desires
of the citizens of the next century.
A particular characteristic of the prototype is that it combines generative
techniques (cellular automata) and learning strategies (genetic algorithm),
to produce a
rule-based system which learns on the basis of feedback from the city's inhabitants.
Central
to the model is the idea that the computer program inhabits an environment,
enters it, reads, understands its developmental rules and history, grasps
its topography, latitude, and climate, models its society and economy-
and then
starts to solicit suggestions and make proposals for possible futures.
The
model becomes an inhabitant. It maintains a discourse with other
human inhabitants and tries to understand and interpret their desires,
aspirations,
urges, expectations,
and reactions to their existing environment and projected future environments.
On the basis of this interaction, the virtual Inhabitor patiently modifies
its criteria for evolutionary development and selection, endlessly repeating
the
process of refining and modelling prototypical futures. As it does so
, it occasionally produces experimental genetic mutations or amplifies
variety.
The Inhabitor can inhabit at any level: cell, room, house,
district, city, region, continent, planet. It can inhabit past, present
and possible
future
environments.
The model has a 'collective consciousness' inferred from virtual inhabitants
of past and present habitats, and from the interaction of citizens
who provide feedback to inform and select criteria.
The core of the
Inhabitor is the Evolver, an evolving genetic model in which the
isospatial datastructure and genepool are controlled by
genetic
algorithms.
The Evolver is a recursively self-similar program which employs the
same strategies at each level of interaction. It provides starting
configurations
or seeds
for genetic algorithms, which learn on the basis of feedback from
specific sites.
The criteria for genetic selection are determined by citizen interaction
with the Enabler.
The Enabler has connections to an interactive map
(input desire lines, etc.) and an active output model. This is the
basis for dialogue
between the virtual
Inhabitor and real Inhabitants.
The Generators: A hierarchically self-similar datastructure models
the environment at the regional, urban, district and site scales
(part of
a continuum of
scales, from global down to cellular). The datastructure is strategically
modular without
being geometrically constrained to modularity. It can interact
with other sites at the same level, or with other levels either
top-down
or bottom-up.
Using
specific data (GIS), these levels are mapped to specific situations
and respond to exogenous
influences. In the case of Groningen, economics, solar logic, and
central place spatial structures are three of the thematic generating
models
evolved within
the schema of the prototype, and demonstrate at the level of the
local topography, the city form, the Oosterhamrick district and
the Ciboga
site. Generative
modellers actively generate new possibilities from inputs from
the Evolver. In turn,
feedback from specific sites affects the selection processes in
the Evolver.
The implementation of the theoretical model was achieved on a network
of PC computers, each running a specific aspect of the model concurrently,
and exchanging
information
in real-time. The final model can be described by the following
components: A.
The Groningen Joint Model
The cumulative manifestation of the Groningen Experiment is a symbiotic model
which consists of the core components of the project, these being the Inhabitor,
the Evolver and the Enabler (see main description). The Joint Model's purpose
is to tie together the forces through which the external models, known as Generators
, inform the project. A continuous exchange of information between the Generators
and the Joint Models creates a symbiosis in which the Generators deliver a
constant supply of raw data to the Joint Model; this in turn gathers additional
data through
the Inhabitor and the Enabler, and then parses qualitative information my seeking
successful urban development rules through the Evolver, and then returning
this quality information to the Generators to serve as new seed data for their
next
iteration.
B. Thematic Generator Models
The collective Groningen Model is broken down into generative
components which focus on particular factors of urban growth.
The choice of which factors to
model was driven by a combination of individual team members' interests and
an understanding
of the hierarchy of the impact on urban growth by the factors being considered.
In the case of the Groningen Experiment, the factors modelled via the Generators
included Economics, Solar Logic and Spatial Systems, among others. The strength
of each Generator lies in its ability to filter relevant data from a complex
system and to model it specifically according to relevant criteria, allowing
concurrent focusing on several different issues. Together, these Generators
would feed specific information regarding their field of inquiry to the Joint
Model,
and would be in turn fed compounded analysed data from the same model to
drive them. Below are described three main Generator models
used in the project:
1.
Economics Model
2. Spatial Systems Model
3. Solar Logic Model see + Data Structure Research
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