1

Unit

Cell

Space

Terrace

MaxCount

5

5

3

Outer Layer of the Units

1a: >2 “cells”, turn into “terrace”1c: >1 “terraces”, turn into “space”

1b: >2 “spaces”, turn into “terrace”1d: >1 “terraces”, turn into “cell”

1e: >0 “terraces” and >0 “spaces”, turn into “cell”

MaxCount

8

8

N/A

2D Cellular Automata: The Seaweed Tower“Taking the information that has been devalued into redundancy by rep-etition as communication, and producing new information out of it again” W.McKenzie 2004

Amiina Bakunowiczpage 1

ARCHITECTURAL SCENARIO

The tower is built within the free space of the existing site. The concept of the design of the tower lays in the interaction between fi ve elements: cell, space, terrace, site and void. Cells represent closed space for private use, whils the unit “space” is of an open struc-ture and provide free circulation of inhabitants. Best performance is achieved when each type of units is accumulated in groups that have natural light and have direct ac-csess to the terraces. The function-ality gets closer to the optimum as the tower grows and each fl oor gets smaller.

Originally the algorythm was based on van Neumann neighbourhood, that didn’t give necessary fl exibility in both functionality of the building and pattern creation. Moore neigh-bourhood allowed to achieve better results.

TRANSITIONAL RULES AND THEIR DIAGRAMS:

1. FOR THE OUTER SINGLE LAYER OF UNITS

rule 1a: for every “cell”, if there are other 3...5 neighbouring “cells”, then turn itself into the “terrace”

rule 1b: reversing rule 1a, for every “space”, if there are other 3...5 neighbouring “spaces”, then turn itself into the “terrace”

rule 1c: for every “cell”, if it is between two “terraces”, then turn itself into the “space”

rule 1d: reversing rule 1c, for every “space”, if it is between two “terraces”, then turn itself into the “cell”

rule 1e: for every “terrace”, if it has other one or two neigh-bouring terraces and any number of “spaces”, then turn itself into the “cell”

2. FOR THE ALL INNER UNITS

rule 2a: for every “cell”, if there are other 1 or 2 “spaces” or only 1 “cell”, then turn itself into the “space”, to keep the popu-lation of the “spaces” up

rule 2b: for every “space”, if there are other 1 or 2 “cells” or only 2 “spaces”, then turn itself into the “cell”, to keep the pop-ulation of the “cells” up.

3. SHAPING THE TOWER: FOR THE OUTER SINGLE LAYER OF UNITS

rule 3a: by controlled chance, either “cell” or “terrace” or “space” if neighbouring 2 or more “voids”, turn into “void”. The rule allowing carving the tower into the terraced pyramid-shaped tower.

rule 3b: eliminates appearance of free standing columns of sin-gle units

TRANSITIONAL RULES TABLE (excluding rule 3)

STATES OF THE UNITS:

“CELL” - an enclosed space with walls or partitions

“SPACE” - an open space with only columnsns

“TERRACE” - an outdoor space with columns and balustrades

“SITE” - a non - changing unit

“VOID”

- no architectural element assigned. It is an epty space between the tower and the existing site

POSSIBLE SITES AND INITIAL LAYOUT OF THE UNITS:

The existing objects of the site can be initially programmed and the tower will be built within the distance equal of the width of one unit from any of the exist-ing buildings:

Inner Core of the Units

2a: 0<”spaces”<3 or 1”cell”, turn into “space”

2b: 0<”cells”<3 or 2”cells”, turn into “cell”

N/A

2

Msc Architecture: Computing and Design 2012/2013no :: u1235266tutors :: Emmanouil Zaroukas, John Harding

Amiina Bakunowiczpage 2

There are two different sets of rules (rules1 and 2) that govern the pattern formation. First - for the outer layer of the tower units, and second - for the all inner units. However on a smaller scale these rules do affect both the in-ner and the outer layers of cells at the same time. Please see the diagrams above showing how patterns are cre-ated on outside and inside of the tow-er. At the end of the algorythm a third set of rules is in place. It carves the pyramid out of the tower maintaining the same relationships between the units (inner and outer).

VON NEUMANN NEIGHBOURHOOD EXPERIMENT:

OUTSIDE PATTERN CLASS I:

OUTSIDE PATTERN CLASS II: OUTSIDE PATTERN CLASSES II & III:

MOORE NEIGHBOURHOOD

PATTERN DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE PLAN THROUGHOUT THE ITERATIONS (left to right from 1 to 15):

OUTSIDE PATTERN CLASS II: OUTSIDE PATTERN CLASS III: INSIDE PATTERN CLASS III/IV: FORMATION OF THE PYRAMID-LIKE TOWER

or + =

Rule 3a: Shaping The Tower PSEUDO-CODE Assign a ramdom number between 0 and 1 to the variable b. Each agent of the class “Cells” checks that b is between 0.5 and 0.7 and the agent of the class is neither a “void” or a “site” and it is located on the outer layer of the tower then the member of the class turns int “void”. Controlling the spread of the random numbers, it is possible to determine how tall or short a fi nal pyramid can be.

FLOW CHART OF THE MAIN() FUNCTIONFUNCTION

FROM TOWER ..............................................TO PYRAMID