Morphogenetic Design Experiment 01

This Morphogenetic Design Experiment investigates the potential combination of digitally evolved geometry and computer-aided manufacturing, with the aim of achieving a coherency between manufacturing logic, material constraints and increasingly complex geometries. Evolutionary computation is used to initiate a process that evolves two interlocking surfaces through geometric fitness criteria. The experiment was based on the understanding that the geometrical data of surfaces with varying curvature can be described by a system of tangential and perpendicular construction planes, which is also suitable for subsequent computer-aided laser-cutting of sheet material. A number of geometric constraints were established, including the local curvature in relation to the overall surface geometry or the density of construction planes needed according to the degree of curvature. This required a broadening of fitness criteria from a static ranking device to an evaluation tool that evolves within a feedback loop of form generation and external analysis. In the experiment many generations of two interrelated curved surfaces were bred in an environment defined by attracting and repelling forces, and the evolved surfaces were analysed in other software packages. Emergent geometric patterns informed and changed the fitness criteria accordingly. Geometric features such as the regional change in curvature and the direction of surface normals  defined the position and number of construction planes, as well as the depth of the sections, across many populations. The guiding geometric relations were relatively simple, but through the nonlinear evolution intricate surface articulations were produced. Through the mutual adaptiogenesis of geometric fitness criteria and geometric articulation the morphogenetic process yielded an ever increasing complexity, which always maintained the logic of the material system ready for immediate manufacturing with the laser-cutter. The result of this experiment shows a level of complexity and coherence that is very difficult to achieve in conventional design approaches.

Since its acquisition in 2011 the models of the project form part of the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou Paris.

Morphogenetic Design Experiment 01
Achim Menges, Martin Hemberg (Software Development)