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Neri Oxman

MAN-NAHĀTA
Computational growth across material and urban scales offers a framework for design through self-organization, enabling the generation of vast, diverse forms exhibiting characteristics like those that emerge through the biological growth processes found in Nature. In this project, we construct an oriented volume spanned by surface normals of the shape at every point. The value of the oriented volume drives the iterative deformation of the shape. Depending on the parameterization of this process, we can obtain distinctly different growing forms. Importantly, the emergence of these forms is driven only by the time evolution of a geometric operator acting on the shapes iteratively, thereby connecting geometry and growth through an algorithm. To form the Man-Nahata landscape, the buildings of the urban landscape are transformed through repeated morphological closing operations, where the field of influence follows a gradient from the center to the outskirts of a circular region.

FUSE

FRAGILE
Fragile is an audio-visual installation that aims to investigate the relationship between stressful human experience and the transformations that occur in our brain. Recent scientific research has shown that neurons belonging to different areas of our brain are affected by stress. In particular stress causes changes in neuron circuitry, impacting their plasticity, the ability to change through growth and reorganization.
Our process exploits the scientific data provided by the Society for Neuroscience and elaborates this information trying to show the effect of external interactions on our nervous system and ultimately on our relationship with the outside world. In order to achieve this we developed an artwork composed of different digital representations following one another, branching into 5 screen projections.

Studio Roosegaarde

Grow
Daan Roosegaarde’s latest artwork GROW is an homage to the beauty of agriculture. In the world film premiere GROW appears as a luminous dreamscape of red and blue waves of light over an enormous field. GROW is inspired by scientific light recipes which improve plants’ growth and resilience. Most of the time we hardly notice the huge areas of the Earth which are literally feeding us. GROW highlights the importance of innovation in the agriculture system: How can cutting-edge light design help plants to grow more sustainably? How can we make the farmer the hero?

Stine Deja

Cold Sleep
Right now, approximately 400 human bodies are frozen at -196 degrees Celsius in America and Russia. They are dead – legally speaking. The hope is to one day defrost and resuscitate them. The procedure is controversial. Nonetheless, cryopreservation, i.e. preserving people at extreme temperatures below zero, is an area marked by growth. The condition is sometimes referred to as ‘cold sleep’, which is also the title of Stine Deja’s first solo show in Denmark at Tranen. The exhibition is an installation of kinetic sculpture and animation. Cryopreserved bodies in thermal, yellow suits are suspended in big, circular aluminium structures revolving around their own axis on small islands in a desert landscape. In the sand lie craters where artificially inseminated cells divide. A barren desert landscape is usually seen as lifeless and abstract. In Deja’s version it becomes a place for being before or after human life, or, as the artist has it, “a population in another dimension.”

Driessens & Verstappen

Breed
Breed (1995-2007) is a computer program that uses artificial evolution to grow very detailed sculptures. The purpose of each growth is to generate by cell division from a single cell a detailed form that can be materialised. On the basis of selection and mutation a code is gradually developed that best fulfils this “fitness” criterion and thus yields a workable form. The designs were initially made in plywood. Currently the objects can be made in nylon and in stainless steel by using 3D printing techniques. This automates the whole process from design to execution: the industrial production of unique artefacts.
Computers are powerful machines to harness artificial evolution to create visual images. To achieve this we need to design genetic algorithms and evolutionary programs. Evolutionary programs allow artefacts to be “bred”, rather than designing them by hand. Through a process of mutation and selection, each new generation is increasingly well adapted to the desired “fitness” criteria. Breed is an example of such software that uses Artificial Evolution to generate detailed sculptures. The algorithm that we designed is based on two different processes: cell-division and genetic evolution.

ANDY LOMAS

Morphogenetic Creations
Created by a mathematician, digital artist and Emmy award winning supervisor of computer generated effects – Andy Lomas, Morphogenetic Creations is a collection of works that explore the nature of complex forms that can be produced by digital simulation of growth systems. These pieces start with a simple initial form which is incrementally developed over time by adding iterative layers of complexity to the structure.The aim is to create structures emergently: exploring generic similarities between many different forms in nature rather than recreating any particular organism. In the process he is exploring universal archetypal forms that can come from growth processes rather than top-down externally engineered design.Programmed using C++ with CUDA, the series use a system of growth by deposition: small particles of matter are repeatedly deposited onto a growing structure to build incrementally over time. Rules are used to determine how new particles are created, and how they move before being deposited. Small changes to these rules can have dramatic effects on the final structure, in effect changing the environment in which the form is grown. To create these works, Andy uses the GPU as a compute device rather than as a display device. All the data is held in memory on the GPU and various kernel functions are called to do things like apply forces to the cells, make cells split, and to render the cells using ray-tracing. The simulations and rendering for each of the different animated structures within this piece take about 12 hours to run, Andy explains. By the end of the simulations there are over 50,000,000 cells in each structure.The Cellular Forms use a more biological model, representing a simplified system of cellular growth. Structures are created out of interconnected cells, with rules for the forces between cells, as well as rules for how cells accumulate internal nutrients. When the nutrient level in a cell exceeds a given threshold the cell splits into two, with both the parent and daughter cells reconnecting to their immediate neighbours. Many different complex organic structures are seen to arise from subtle variations on these rules, creating forms with strong reminiscences of plants, corals, internal organs and micro-organisms.

Azuma Makoto

Encapsulated environmental system: Paludarium YASUTOSHI
This machine is fully equipped with a mist machine as if wrapping plants in a fog from both sides and drip feed-water system which can be activated depending on the situation in order to maintain the condition of a plant and control inside temperature and humidity. Also the cylindrical shape can fully capture the natural light by 365°angles from glasses, and it can correspond to plant growth by having the series’ largest scale of height. Fans on the ceiling play a role of wind, and a plant can listen music from the waterproofed speakers. The machine takes in essential elements – rain, wind, light and sound – by artificial means and completes a small world where its ecological cycle is condensed. It enables us to admire the beauty of the plants by not being affected by external environment.

Broersen & Lukács

Point Cloud Old Growth
Forest on Location
In the video work Forest on Location, we see the avatar of the Iranian opera singer Shahram Yazdani walking through a forest. One moment, the forest wraps around him protectively, the next moment the trees crumble away into loose pieces of bark, or melt into a static green mass. At the same time, the forest as a whole floats around in darkness, uprooted. It is a forest without a location, except on our screen. The young man’s avatar appears to be wandering around there aimlessly. It is a wonderland that he exits from towards the end of the video, when his body slips straight through the green wall. This finally breaks the spell of the illusory forest, and everything is revealed to be no more than staged decor. But the forest does exist as a real forest, somewhere. This virtual green world is a digital back-up of Bia?owie?a Forest: the last remaining stretch of primeval low land forest that once covered much of Central Europe. Inspired by what the historian Simon Schama wrote about Bia?owie?a in Landscape and Memory (1995), Persijn Broersen and Margit Lukács journeyed to Poland to capture the forest suffused by old-Germanic nostalgia and mythical atmosphere.

Szymon Kaliski

Fabfungus
FabFungus is a physical installation inspired by questions of digital life and cellular growth. FabFungus is also a computational tool for creating digital structures grown out with a simulated process. It is also a manifestation of couple of these forms, brought to physical reality through imperfect 3D printing.

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau

The Interactive Plant Growing
Interactive Plant Growing is an installation that deals with the principle of the growth of virtual plant organisms and their change and modification in real time in 3D virtual space. These modifications of pre-defined “artificially living plant organisms” are mainly based on the principle of development and evolution in time. The artificial growing of program-based plants expresses the desire to discover the principle of life as defined by the transformations and morphogenesis of certain organisms. Interactive Plant Growing connects the real-time growing of virtual plants in the 3D space of the computer to real living plants, which can be touched or approached by human viewers.

FEDERICO DIAZ

geometric death frequency 141

The title of the piece is a pun that, with irony, alludes to the exceeding of tradition, irreconcilable dichotomy between life and death in a sculpture made, provocatively, by lifeless forms“, adds Diaz. “The line between life and none-life is more fleeing than we usually think: think about a virus that attacks a complex organism and reproduces in the same way as a micro-organism, even though it’s only an agglomerated of lifeless molecules: a natural crystal that, even though is a stone, can be born and undergo a fascinated process of growth that mimes perfectly the ways of an organic life“.

Wang & Söderström

Growth
Wang & Söderström is a Copenhagen based transdisciplinary duo composed of Swedish designer Anny Wang and architect Tim Söderström. The bridging of the physical and digital realms is a major theme in their practice and they are constantly trying to challenge the boundaries between them. Fluctuating between art and design, Wang & Söderström wants to throw out pre-existing conventions regarding the digital and put emphasis on the emotional and tactile side of materials, objects and textures to give the digital a more human-relatable quality and create more meaningful connections. “By 3D scanning elements from nature, like tree trunks, leaves and plants and mixing it with surrealistic materials and behaviors, we wanted to let them continue to grow in a digital environment.”

Michael Frank

Beetle in Undergrowth
“I have a strong background in zoology and botany. When I’m rendering realistic or fanciful depictions of flora and fauna, I constantly fall back on my studies and research. Since all of my artwork involves 3D computer imaging, I rely heavily on organic geometry and algorithms that govern natural branching and growth patterns. My art mimics nature in more ways than one.” Michael Frank

mathias bengtsson

growth table
Mathias Bengtsson developed unique computer software seven years ago to quickly design prototypes. Its initial intention was not to simply use a particular technology and deploy its possibilities, but to use it as a tool for the imitation of nature and natural forms. Such design software can, according to Mathias Bengtsson, be compared to the growth of a plant whose machine somehow registers the genetic code to calculate its final form. Mathias Bengtsson only has to guide this development to obtain the desired shapes.

MARIA HSU

TranStructures
TranStructures Big cities are unceasingly in motion: growth, decay, changes. São Paulo is the source of my look and thoughts on metropolis. Recompose, redo continuously, from the probable to the improbable, allow us to try infinite possibilities that can lead us from sublime to disaster. Billions of hyperexpressions are induced always at random. The mechanisms that regulate the normal, the pre-established, rupture allowing the appearance of the possible others.

Ronald van der Meijs

A Time Capsule of Life
FILE FESTIVAL
The sculpture is created from plastic bags, a contemporary mode of collecting daily goods. When connected together they form a transparent structure of cells and conduits. By connecting the bags with air tubes the bags will be pumped up. This is put in motion by the movement of the audience who become part of the system, allowing the seed to grow out as a mature structure. By vacuum the balloon structure growth and decay alternate in a process of which man forms a natural part. When the sculpture is growing or reducing it causes a cracking sound because of the sort of plastic the shopping bags are made of.

MVRDV

Wego Hotel
In a world subject to the effects of dramatic climate change, declining resources, ever-increasing income inequality, widespread political instability, rapid population growth and concomitant consumption of space design disciplines must work towards radical solutions.
architecturecolor

SARAH SCHNEIDER

サラ·シュナイダー
Сара Шнайдер/
שניידר שרה
사라 슈나이더
سارة شنايدر
Centro de Rehabilitacion en Austria

“The project developes an architecture that uses rules of natural growth and connects both growth and ornament, with a landscape environment, topologically and calligraphically. The ornament creates a symbiotic relationship with the existing environment by framing existing topographic features and at the same time giving a feedback to the landscape by creating topographical irregularities.”

SUSAN CLUSENER

Fruit Series
“I am fascinated by the physical-ness of things: how a flame moves, how trees bend, how water feels on the skin. I am especially fascinated by the invisible forces at work in living things. In particular, those forces associated with growth and renewal, but also its other side, death and decay.”

big ARCHITECTS

المهندسين المعماريين كبيرة
큰 건축가/
אדריכלים גדולים
isenberg school

Developed in collaboration with boston-based practice goody clancy, BIG’s design seeks to consolidate university departments currently located across the campus. With the goal of enhancing the isenberg school’s reputation, the scheme will house the entirety of ISOM within one coordinated assemblage of buildings. A flexible configuration allows for the school’s future growth, accommodating both executive in residence programs and experiential learning.

Vasilis Asimakopoulos

“I am interested in the moment that stretches from “now” to the future. The interweaving web of images and possibilities connecting our world and the parallel. The trails of the heavy scent left from this point to tomorrow and right next to it. Dystopia. New life. Post-apocalypse. Growth. The descent. Love. Arsenic. Candies. And everything vibrating in between.”

Parker Fitzgerald and Riley Messina

Overgrowth
Inspired by a pursuit of beauty, Riley combines classically thoughtful botanical designs with Parker’s carefully considered film images in an expression of the multifaceted relationship between humankind and nature. The two artists contrast anonymous portraiture with sweeping landscapes in an attempt to capture both the malleable and untamed aspects of the natural world.

KOHN PEDERSEN FOX ASSOCIATES

Yongsan IBD Block H
Inspired by crystalline growth patterns found in nature, the tower’s three tiered wings radiate out from the building’s center. Unlike the design of most Y-type high-rise towers, the design of Block H “steps” each wing asymmetrically so there is a low-wing, a mid-wing and a high-wing. The three wing configuration also enables each apartment to have a corner view from the living space, while maximizing its privacy from the adjacent unit.

Dimitris Mairopoulos and Skylar Tibbits

Self-Replicating Spheres

Self-Replicating Spheres explores the processes of growth, encapsulation and division through macro-scale objects on an oscillating table. This project attempts to demonstrate synthetic cellular division and replication through non-biological physical objects, without the use of robotics. The individual spheres were created with a hollow shell and an arrangement of small metal spheres and magnets. This internal structure provides the force of attraction for growing connections, the flexibility and, ultimately, the capability to divide. By adding more spherical units and supplying energy in the form of the oscillating table, the system will continually grow and divide.

Lee Griggs

cgi masks
Madrid-based 3D artist Lee Griggs created some fascinating topographical illustrations using 3D animation and rendering software Maya Xgen and Arnold. Each piece is comprised of countless spheres, cylinders, or cubes that have been extruded and colored to create images reminiscent of ocean floors, bacterial growth, or even weather patterns.

BRUCE MAU

بروس ماو
브루스 마우
ברוס מאו
ブルース·マウ
A incomplete manifesto for growth

Arik Levy

АРИКА ЛЕВИ
アリック·レヴィ
אריק לוי
아릭 레비
阿里克利维
أريك ليفي
RockGrowth RG5

Arnold Schönberg

In a twelve-tone composition, every note can be accounted for as being a member of the original series or one of its permutations, providing unity to the piece as a whole. Additionally, a twelve-tone series is a repository of intervals and can be seen as an outgrowth of atonal music with its emphasis on interval over chord or scale. The basic premises of twelve-tone music are as follows: 1- All twelve notes of the chromatic scale must occur; 2-No note can be repeated in the series until the other 11 notes of the chromatic scale have occurred (exceptions include direct repetition of a note, trills, and tremolos); 3-The series can be inverted, retrograded, and the inversion can be retrograded; 4-The order of notes in a series remains fixed, without reordering.

MYEONGBEOM KIM

МИЕОНГБЕОМ КИМ
김명범
tree boat

“I try to examine how my surroundings are perceived and remembered. To do this, I listen to a whisper from the objects within my surroundings. I attempt to have an intimate, private dialogue with the world, trying to concretely present the way things approach me, by using other mediums. To ask what an objects means to me is like asking what being I am. I have consistently experienced my surrounding objects from the perspective of life, growth, and decline, which lends vitality to my work.”

GRAHAM THOMPSON

Synthetic Sustainability

Graham Thompson tries to redefine urbanism by proposing urban synthetic hyper structures that sustainably manage urban density, personal space, and communal areas. A fresh graduate from the Bartlett School of Architecture the proposal features undulated surface towers, farming zones, clean energy generating systems, green transportation facilities and recreational areas. The sustainable structure would come along a water depository within barren undeveloped land ready for zoning. The undulating bionic towers of the project would act as urban farming zones that promote local flora and fauna managed by the inhabitants for sustainable growth. These agricultural zones have individual harvesting grids with water filtration and nutrient monitoring systems. The tower canopies are layered with solar recharging zones to harvest solar energy and locally meet power needs. Graham also visualizes eco train stations for green transportation along with green service stations for eco car charging.

Undercurrent architects

Leaf House Sydney

Leaf House is building that allows users to be inside and in-the-garden at the same time. It is a self contained cottage forming part of a coastal residence in Sydney; a Pavilion for experiencing Nature. The building integrates the environment and reflects qualities of the landscape: its canopy structure blends into the foliage; its podium base shapes the terrain. The design is characterised by curved copper roof shells resembling fallen leaves and a vine-like structural system channelling dynamic growth inside. Daylight filters through porous roof shells onto a podium deck and the open plan living areas. Views and reflections subtly modulate the surrounding garden through an enclosure of moulded glass. Private spaces offer introspection inside the sandstone podium buried in the terrain. The project entailed design and building roles as methods were improvised to achieve high technical complexity within cost constraints.

REZA ALI

EMERGENT
According to wikipedia, “emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.” Thus “EMERGENT” was created using a particle system that was given basic rules of behavior, this is very similar to swarm algorithms using in architecture to create 3D forms. The application/particle system was created/simulated using Processing and OpenGL. The particle trails (locations over time) were imported to Maya using a MEL script and then animated to show their growth over time. I developed a (pretty complex) Processing application that helped me simulate the particle system (300 particles, with per particle interaction) in real-time.