Towards morphogenetic assemblies evolving performance within component-based structures

Abstract

Performative design can be understood as the combined usage of spatial analysis simulations and form generation procedures to imbue architectural form with material characteristics and behaviours which define desirable structural, environmental and economic performance. However, to date, design processes that facilitate the integration of 'form generation' and 'spatial analysis' remain under-developed, making existing performative design methodologies highly reliant upon the manual execution of analysis and evaluation procedures. This paper presents an evolutionary design process that uses integrative computational pipelines and generatively defined component-based assemblies to produce performative structures in response to solar performance. The resulting structures demonstrate how performative composite behaviour can emerge within 'disassociated' componential assemblies and produce complex formal interrelationships which surpass simplistic parametric logics. This offers new possibilities for conceiving highly integrated 'morphogenetic assemblies' and suggests trajectories for further research within the field of morphogenetic design. ©2011, Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA).