Agent Structures is a series of student investigations generated in Arch 711A at Pratt Institute, Graduate Architecture and Urban Design.  The premise of the seminar focused on the use of swarm intelligence as way of form finding. The exhibit explores the nature of these complex systems as a way to generate space and structure based on simple rules and logic. Systems borrowed from nature, mathematics, and physics were applied to a design problems and their intelligence embedded into the design solutions. Using object oriented programming with parametric design tools we investigated how these emergent systems can feed into the discourse of architecture in order to evaluate new methods of making. The investigations focused on creating full scale pavilions which required the research to explore structure and fabrication methodologies.  Investigating how the behavioral model can be adapted to understand the constraints of structure and fabrication was vital the design process. Parameters such as connectivity, member size, material stiffness, raw material length and quantity were embedded into the final solution. This allowed for the system to become construction aware unifying both the design and construction processes. The results of the investigations are presented as 5 full scale structures.

Credits:

Sponsored By Bentley Systems Incorporated

Professor:

Robert Cervellione

Get Inside Me:

• Simon Chawky
• Michael Leach
• Adrian von der Osten

Listestix:

• Vida Chang
• Frances Fox
• Bridget Rice

NOKaidoscope:

• Alanna Kleiner
• Lan Nguyen
• Yasin Ozdemir

Outbreak:

• Michael Austin
• Manuel Castaneda

Urban Narrative:

• Ahide Sanchez
• Vivi Xin