涩里番

Hybridizing historic and emerging technological paradigms to create speculative tools for architectural design

The remaking of obsolete computer programs for interactive manipulation in the present is known as 鈥渟oftware reconstructions鈥� (Cardoso Llach and Donaldson 2019) or 鈥渁lgorithmic reenactments鈥� (Galloway 2021). These approaches entail the design and implementation of machines that, through their design and interface, walk their users through the steps and functions of historic computer programs and algorithms. Our research on speculative reenactments builds on these approaches but places emphasis on critical聽speculation. Its originality lies in the hybridizing of past and new technological paradigms (such as generative artificial intelligence) to create machines that enact a form of historical didactics while being playful and critically evocative. By conceptualizing this work as a聽reenactment聽we place emphasis on computation as聽process听补苍诲听辫别谤蹿辞谤尘补苍肠别.听The machines we build render processes visible but also allow us to rethink those machines' spatial expanse; the bodies that move them and which they move.聽

• Hierarchical Decomposition System 2 [1962 >> 2024]

Our first speculative reenactment is HIDECS 2 (Alexander and Manheim 1962). Written in FORTRAN and ran on the IBM 709 of the MIT Computation Center, the system 鈥渄ecomposed鈥� large lists of design requirements into a hierarchy of smaller requirement groups by examining relationships (鈥渋nteractions鈥�) between them. It computed for designers a sequence by which to address and 鈥渞ecompose鈥� their design responses to these smaller groupings of requirements. We have designed and built a physical prototype for the hardware, coded the FORTRAN algorithm of the 1962 program in Java, and developed a speculative custom workflow that automates the 鈥渞ecomposition鈥� process through the ChatGPT and DeepAI APIs. This workflow translates the decomposed groups of verbal statements (鈥渄esign requirements鈥�) into stylized generated images (鈥渄iagrams鈥�) and interactively combines these diagrams to produce a final image of a design.聽

• Planning of Single-Storey Layouts (1964 >> 2024)

We are also working on a reenactment 1964 Algol-based program for automated space planning took that was implemented in an English Electric KDF9 computer (Whitehead and Eldars 1964). The program took as input observed patterns of movement between fixed locations on an existing building and generated a new single-storey floor plan that was optimized for movement. We coded the algorithm in Python and developed two custom-made grid-based 100-cell 鈥渟creens鈥� for data input and output using photosensors and LED lights respectively. The screens display a schematic version of a floor plan. "Users" can click on cells on that plan to input arrival and departure points of an imaginary occupant moving on that plan. The 鈥渙utput鈥� screen then automatically updates to display and optimized version of that same floor plan. We are working on the design of a performance that reenacts the data collection process.聽

News & Publications

Activating informational and statistical dimensions of informal, anecdotal evidence from the history of computational design

We engage methods of digital history from the broad field of the digital humanities to activate an informal publication- the Design Methods Group Newsletter聽headquartered at the University of California, Berkeley, and published monthly between 1966 and 1971.聽The Newsletter played a key role in connecting researchers across disciplines and institutions loosely aligned around their interest in 鈥渞ational approaches to design.鈥澛燭hough the periodical mostly circulated in North America, it also solicited submissions from researchers working in the UK and eventually internationally. We聽have translated the聽Newsletter聽into a digital database and drawing from methods such as topic modelling and network analysis in digital history, we have developed a workflow for querying the database and activating it for historical inquiry. We argue that the newsletter鈥檚聽informality,聽we argue, enables tracing a field聽in formation,聽retrieves and safeguards anecdotal evidence, and renders it available for historical interpretation, representation, and analysis. By overlaying mobilities of concepts and techniques within a social network of actors situated within institutions, we have generated a layered and interconnected聽meshwork聽that reflects the agile topologies of design methods at a time of remarkable intellectual energy and social urgency.

News and Publications