Thesis Abstract 02-18-08

This research is set within the context of the Solar Decathlon studio. “The goal of this studio is to design a compact, fully solar-powered home for the 2009 International Solar Decathlon Competition.” The studio work pursues a number of questions including how “networks of small units can create more sustainable communities”(1), how we can “leverage the power of parametric models and performance modeling software…creating a feedback loop between the geometric model and its predicted energy use.”(1)
The research agenda will build off of these questions by asking how such performance feedback loops could be made to apply to experiential qualities in addition to the energy related issues of the solar decathlon house. And how computationally modelled self-organizing systems can manage the relationships between all the performance criteria in a building
Taken together, the hypothesis is that by looking more closely at a design process based on the digital modelling of self-organizing systems, we might propose a more sophisticated method of creating architectural space.
In the hopes of furthering this question, the research builds off of Reyner Banham’s work with zones of environmental comfort, Achim Menges’ gradient thresholds, Juhani Pallasmaa’s phenomenology of experience and Alan Turing’s theory of chemical morphogenesis.
The scope of the work includes the following. 1-Analysis and diagramming of relationships within applicable self-organizing systems found in nature. diagramming will focus on three scales: part-to-part, part-to-whole and whole-to-context. Aplicable systems include but are not limited to: genetic transcription networks, socio-political networks, micro-ecosystems, cellular automata and other artificial life. 2-Diagramming of architectural performance relationships seen through the lens of the self organizing systems analyzed earlier. The same three scales will be addressed here. Architectural performance relationships include issues of energy efficiency, structure and experiential quaities. 3-Development of a computationally modelled self-organizing system based on architectural performance relationships. This model will be in the form of a script for use in the CAD platform Rhinoceros or Generative Components. The script will be used to generate the form of the Solar Decathlon House. Throughout its development, it will be asessed and revised based on its sucess in generating a form that is both interesting and satisfies the performance crteria in the diagrams mentioned above.
This topic is critical to the architectural discipline today because it offers a new way of learning from self-organizing systems that are so prevalent in the natural world. Many other fields from physics to anthropology are looking to models of self-organizing systems for inspiration. Architectural design is a complex process with many conflicting ideas requiring synthesis. My hope is that this method will offer a new way of combining top-down and bottom up methodology to achieve this synthesis in ways that have not been possible before.

(1) from the studio course description