Lecture date: 2012-02-17
Co-hosted by DRL and EmTech Graduate Programmes
Many categorical problems of complexity and limited indeterminacy have already been codified through software as explicit informational territories [program]. Of crucial importance to these programs is their ability to mediate and reify informational bodies – inputting, conditioning and outputting data such that program-specific value and meaning are added to all three phases and posited as ontologically equivalent objects. Within this mode of design, the urgency for discretely structural strategies is paramount. Structurally Intelligent Swarms is presented as a research trajectory that explores the set of techniques and results of having combined swarm formations, FEA software and evolutionary algorithms within parametric modeling that induce intelligent structural morphologies. Further, these morphologies are situated within normative architectural assemblies by means of explicitly defined grafting techniques and tested as new wholes. Architectural speculations are made as to refining engineered capabilities, expanding on programmatic applications and testing integrated SIS assemblies at alternative scales.
Joshua M Taron is Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Environmental Design and Principal of Synthetiques and co-director of the Laboratory for Integrative Design at the University of Calgary. He co-chaired the ACADIA 2011 Annual Conference. His research has been published and exhibited internationally. Prior to forming Synthetiques, Taron worked for two years as the chief studio designer at Xefirotarch. He has taught at Sci-Arc and the Art Center College of Design.
