Automata Cities

This thesis is an investigation on generative systems as tools for future urban growth and organization, which various parameters address environment, efficiency, and equality in distribution of services. This is demonstrated through my case studies, in which I test generative systems inspired in other biological processes for aesthetic or systematic purposes, and then apply them to a real-world architectural context. The mechanism was the main tool of design in all the case studies which gave an extensive range of variations and options that met the criteria of my parameters. Such an advanced design strategy also called for other generative digital tools that extended my exploration on these mechanisms, amongst them, extensive 3d modeling software’s, high resolution rendering engines, and a little bit of scripting. Many of the digital systems that I used to solve issues throughout my thesis repeat in other various projects to prove an important overlap of digital tools, that I argue should be present from the conception to the completion of a project. This coherence within design methodology I believe, is the difference between many schools that practice practical architecture, and those that experiment with many state of the art technologies. This means that an architect under the notion of these technologies would initially design considering the wider limitations of digital fabrication process, for example large scale 3d printing or 6 axes robotic arms and wouldn’t worry over representational means knowing the capabilities of his modeling and rendering technologies. It is important to note that this design strategy is to aid one technology translate into the other and facilitate the general process of design through this close interdependency. The case studies shown in this thesis were focused at three different scales where some type of generative machine was used at some instance within the project. Such projects range from hallucinations of iconic Art Deco structures as deep dreamed by an AI, to reinterpretations in the structure in a 19th century cathedral. But the thesis progresses in a linear manner gradually growing in scale and using generative machines to define relocation of larger amounts of people. It begins by describing a scenario where many factors, such as economic and political, aren’t accounted in order to achieve more radical solutions.