Digital processes embody sensory, manipulator and effector elements as transformations, rules and algorithms; as do organic and biological processes. Because of this, we can generate architectural and output construction solutions, as nature does, because we are working at the level of processes which lie beneath both form and function. This lecture will look at this capability and its implications by plotting an investigative route from biological agents to emerging digital design and fabrication capabilities.
Rupert Soar works at the interface between digital design and fabrication. As a director of Freeform Construction Ltd, he acts as consultant and technology developer for construction companies. Freeform Construction is engaged with digital fabrication processes, novel phase-change and selectively curable construction materials. Rupert is known for his research with termites as the inspiration for agent construction and its implications, from which emerged a discovery in low-energy ‘impedance ventilation’ as a model for passive ventilation in ‘low rise’ buildings. Rupert lectures and collaborates on ‘agent architecture’ and ‘scripted functionality’ and is defining the field of physiomimetics.