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The Architecture of Emergence: The Evolution of Form in Nature and Civilisation
John Wiley and Sons Ltd, Feb 2010, Pages: 280
Emergence is one of the most exciting new fields in architecture today, gaining interest from not only academics and students but also leading professionals, with directors from Fosters, Arup and Bentley Systems all attending the most recent symposium on the subject at the Architects Association, London.
As a concept, Emergence has captured the zeitgeist, embodying the pervasive cultural interest in genetics and biological sciences. In the sciences, Emergence is an explanation of how natural systems have evolved and maintained themselves, and it has also been applied to artificial intelligence, information systems, economics and climate studies. The potential of the mathematics of Emergence that underlie the complex systems of nature is now being realised by engineers and architects for the production of complex architectural forms and effects, in advanced manufacturing of ‘smart’ materials and processes, and in the innovative designs of active structures and responsive environments.
- The first book to provide a detailed exploration of the architectural and engineering consequences of this paradigm, and a detailed analysis of geometries, processes and systems to be incorporated into new methods of working.
- Sets out a new model of ‘Metabolism’ that uses natural systems and processes as a model far beyond the minimising environmental strategies of ‘sustainability’.
This scholarly and radical book effectively challenges established cultural and architectural histories. It expands the conventional worldview by placing human development alongside ecological development: the history of cultural evolution and the production of cities are set in the context of processes and forms of the natural world. The emergence of the human species and the evolution of culture are shown to be closely coupled to the changes in climate and ecology, while it is described how humans have extensively modified the surface of the earth, the ecological systems that exist upon it, and the climate.
As expansive in its thinking as its reach, The Architecture of Emergence draws from the life sciences, the complex systems of the physical world, anthropology, archaeology and the evolution of human culture. The first half of the book is focused on the complex systems of the physical world - the forms and processes of the climate, the land surface of the earth, the emergence and evolution of all living species and of genetics, followed by the dynamics of individual and collective metabolisms from which of intelligence, social and spatial orders emerge while the second half of the book is focused on the evolution of human culture in relation to climate and ecology and the episodic collapse and reorganisation of cultural and ecological systems. Weinstocks grand synthesis proceeds from the recognition that to study form is to study change, and that all forms of the world are energy and material systems that have a lifespan, exist as part of the environment of other active systems, and are one iteration of a endless series that proceeds by evolutionary development. Energy, Information and Material flow through all the forms of the world, and human forms and culture have coevolved and developed within those flows.
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