Evolving Structures >> some basics:

evostruct (51)in #technology • 7 years ago (edited)

Let's start quite general. Let's start with some to me obvious aspects why I do what I do. How I initially happened to get here, while in the end of this text – whenever or if it ever will be finished – we all should be on quite the same level regarding the lack of knowledge where this whole process could lead to.

To begin with, there's the fact that I do come out of the field of Architecture – even if it took some time for me to feel comfortable to be even associated with such a classification. For many years now I haven't even thought about static walls, immobile and permanent habitats, haven't practiced linear planning processes, haven't been drawing floor plans, and so on.. well, one could say it's experimental architecture...

When it comes to finding new things – that's by the way where my interest has always been – it's not really about planning. If anything, it's about not planning. I don't have to tell much more about those early discussions on the insufficiency of anticipating the (formal) outcome of a process before even pointing out a wide range of challenges to face. This whole 'thing' got somehow more and more clear to me when I minutely detailed worked out the principles of the narrative that in fact many or most 'solutions' are to be found without even having thought about a 'problem' connected to it.

I could now write about functions as the connection of effect and usage and about all those unforeseeable side-effects that lead to the constitution of new ones. And for sure you already see the connection to processes of biological evolution here. So now I could continue with the restabilization of selection criteria as the basis for the development of nearly all kinds of new structures and lead back to the essential openness regarding goal setting in design processes, but.. ..I'll write about those things another time ;)

To come back to what I do, you understand now that for a long time I've been aiming at widening the subsequent potential of developments. I've been looking for those sorts of things that enable 'all sorts of things'. ..you know, for this unicellular organism that can evolve to whatever...

As a consequence of this I more and more started to work on dynamic structures – on transformations. ..Why that? ..The thing is, that when you try to materialize static constructions, every unexpected movement appears to be a 'mistake'. In contrast, when you openly aim for dynamic structures every unexpected instability illustrates a new possibility. By this early abandoning of statics it's now being understood as maybe even more interesting – as something the structure is defining by finding itself. Now, working on structural systems based on elasticity, the current field of attention regarding the practical process is dealing with mulitstable or metastable structures whereby the shape can change between two or more different states.

So now we're at the point where direct interaction is entering our field of view. It is both essential for shaping and also the main source of new insights in the structural potential. ..Too much for now...

There are many other main aspects and perspectives I missed out, but the time will come to cover them. For now I think that's enough :) Cheers!

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