Synthetic ecologies protocols, simulation, and manipulation for indeterminate landscapes

Abstract

The finite methods of design and engineering have created static counterpoints to systems that are continually in fluctuation. There is a necessity to engage dynamic environmental phenomena through methods that mimic an indeterminate control framework as a means of developing infrastructures and settlements that are more tightly entwined with complex ecologies. The work outlined in this paper positions the design and curation of synthetic ecologies through the lens of simulation and monitoring as a way to develop logics of interaction. Advances in computational design research, engineering simulation, and computational fluid dynamics are providing designers with the tools to challenge the determinacy of systems engineering with informed dynamic solutions. Synthetic ecologies describe a conceptual methodology for autonomous landscape manipulation guided by protocols that are informed through multiple physical and temporal scales of data, learning from past and future scenarios. This methodology, developed as a response to landscape indeterminacy, expresses a computational approach to designing complex and evolving ecologies.