ACADIA 2014

DESIGN AGENCY
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the
Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture
USC School of Architecture, Los Angeles

Edited by David Gerber, Alvin Huang and Jose Sanchez

ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
ACADIA (Conference) (34th : 2014 : Los Angeles, Calif.)
ACADIA 2014 Design Agency : Proceedings of the 34th annual conference
of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, October
2325, 2014, Los Angeles, California / editors, David Gerber (University of
Southern California), Alvin Huang (University of Southern California), Jose
Sanchez (University of Southern California).
Conference hosted by the University of Southern California School of
Architecture.
Includes bibliographical references.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-926724-47-8 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-926724-49-2 (epub).-ISBN 978-1-926724-50-8 (mobi).--ISBN 978-1-926724-51-5 (pdf)
1. Architecture--Computer-aided design--Congresses.
I. Gerber, David, 1970-, author, editor II. Huang, Alvin, 1975-, author, editor
III. Sanchez, Jose, 1980-, author, editor IV. University of Southern California.
School of Architecture, host institution V. Title. VI. Title: 2014 design
agency. VII. Title: Design agency. VIII. Title: Proceedings of the 34th annual
conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture,
October 2325, 2014, Los Angeles, California.
NA2728.A318 2014

720.285

C2014-906244-3
C2014-906245-1

Copyright 2014
ACADIA and Riverside Architectural Press
The individual authors shown herein are solely responsible for their content
appearing within this publication.
No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced
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ACADIA 2014
DESIGN AGENCY
PROCEEDINGS
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the
Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture
October 23 25, 2014
Los Angeles, California
University of Southern California
University of California, Los Angeles
Southern California Insitute of Architecture
Editors

David Gerber University of Southern California

Alvin Huang University of Southern California

Jose Sanchez University of Southern California

ACADIA 2014
DESIGN AGENCY
PROCEEDINGS
1

PREFACE
Michael Fox ACADIA President

INTRODUCTION
David Gerber University of Southern California
Alvin Huang University of Southern California
Jose Sanchex University of Southern California

KEYNOTES & AWARDS

7

CONFERENCE KEYNOTES
Will Wright
Casey Reas
Marc Fornes
Greg Otto

11

2014 ACADIA AWARDS

Zaha Hadid
2014 ACADIA Lifetime Achievement Award
Neil Gershenfeld
2014 ACADIA Award of Teaching Excellence
Jenny Sabin
2014 ACADIA Digital Practice
Award of Excellence
Nancy Yen-wen Cheng
2014 ACADIA Society Award of Excellence
Martin Bechthold
2014 ACADIA Innovative Research
Award of Excellence
Scott R. Marble
2014 ACADIA Innovative Academic Program
Award of Excellence

DESIGN AGENCY
21

SESSION INTRODUCTION

23

IGEO

33

43

Roland Snooks Session Chair

Algorithm Development Environment for
Computational Design Coders with Integration
of NURBS Geometry Modeling and Agent
Based Modeling
Satoru Sugihara

81

EVERYONE IS AN ARCHITECT

91

POLYOMINO

101

111

AGENT-BASED MODELS FOR

COMPUTING CIRCULATION
IMPERATIVE / FUNCTIONAL /
OBJECT-ORIENTED

An Alternative Ontology of
Programmatic Paradigms for Design
Kyle Steinfeld
Carlos Sandoval

63

75

THE AGENCY OF EVENT

Event Based Simulation for Architectural Design

Martin Tamke
Paul Nicholas
Jacob Riiber

PRODUCTIVE HYBRIDS

Folding Social Media as Urban Analysis

Alexander Webb

DESIGNING WITH GRADIENTS

MULTI-SCALAR AGENT-BASED
COMPLEX DESIGN SYSTEMS

The Case Of Climatic-Ecologies Studio:

Informed Generative Design Systems and
Performance-Driven Design Workflows
Sina Mostafavi
Soungmin Yu
Nimish M. Biloria

Renee Puusepp

53

Reconsidering Serial Repetition in Combinatorics

Jose Sanchez
Bio-Inspired Computation for Digital Fabrication
Daniel Richards
Martyn Amos

BOUNDED AGENCY

Integrating Informed Multi-Agent Systems

with Architectural Subtractions
Joshua M. Taron
Matthew Parker

Claudia W. Otten

117

INTERACTING WITH ALTERNATIVES

Alt.Text
Maher Elkhaldi
Robert Woodbury

125

EUCLIDS WEDGE

135

MESH AGENCY

145

EMERGENT INACTIVITIES

Mark Ericson

Gwyllim Jahn
Tom Morgan
Stanislav Roudavski

From the Primitive Hut to the Cerebral Hut

Neil Leach

ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY

153

CONTEXT-AWARE
MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS
Negotiating Intensive Fields
Rodrigo Shiordia Lopez
David Gerber

237

Geometrically Actuated Thermal Flows

Dana Cupkova
Nicolas Azel

247

FABRICATION AGENCY
165

SESSION INTRODUCTION

167

CENTENNIAL CHROMAGRAPH

177

189

SNAP-FIT JOINTS

199

CARET 6 AND THE DIGITAL REVIVAL

OF GOTHIC VAULTS

219

INTEGRATIVE COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN

METHODOLOGIES FOR MODULAR
ARCHITECTURAL FIBER COMPOSITE
MORPHOLOGIES
Moritz Drstelmann
Stefana Parascho
Marshall Prado
Achim Menges
Jan Knippers

229

POST-FORMING COMPOSITE
MORPHOLOGIES

Materialization and Design Methods for

Inducing Form through Textile Material Behavior
Sean Ahlquist
Ali Askarinejad
Rizkallah Chaaraoui
Ammar Kalo
Xiang Liu
Kavan Sha

PARAMETRIC AGENCY
279

SESSION INTRODUCTION

281

HARVEST SHADE SCREENS

291

ILLUSTRATED PROGRAMMING

301

DIGITAL WALLPAPER

311

SMART NODES

FORM COMPLEXITY - REWIND

Gods Eye Sukkahville 2013
Michail Georgiou
Odysseas Georgiou
Theresa Kwok

vi

267

NEARLY MINIMAL

How Intuition and Analysis Inform the Minimal

Surface Geometries in the Pure Tension Pavilion
Alvin Huang
Stephen Lewis

INTRICATE STEREOTOMIC ASSEMBLIES

Hollow Masonry From Buckled Surfaces
Justin Diles

CNC Fabricated, Integrated Mechanical

Attachment for Structural Wood Panels
Christopher Robeller
Paul Mayencourt
Yves Weinand

Kory Bieg

209

257

BEHAVIORAL STRATEGIES

Synthesizing Design Computation and Robotic

Fabrication of Lightweight Timber Plate Structures
Tobias Schwinn
Oliver David Krieg
Achim Menges

A FRAMEWORK FOR LINKING DESIGN

AND FABRICATION IN GEOMETRICALLY
COMPLEX ARCHITECTURE
Heinz Schmiedhofer
Martin Reis
Florian Rist
Georg Suter
Simon Flry

Matias del Campo Session Chair

Data Spatialization and Computational Craft

Adam Marcus

MASS REGIMES

Kris Mun Session Chair

Programming Material for Optimal
Energy Building Skins
Jonathan Grinham
Robert Blabolil
Jeremy Haak
Antnio Leito
Jos Lopes
Lus Santos

Tiles of Proliferation and Continuity

Sabri Gokmen
Daniel Baerlecken
A System for Variable Structural Frames
with 3D Metal-Printed Nodes
Kristof Crolla
Nicholas Williams

317

DIGITALLY DESIGNING
COLLABORATION

399

Computational Approaches to Process,

Practice, and Product
Andrew Heumann
Ryan Mullenix

327

SIMPLEXITY
Unitized FRP Faade Systems
Mark Cabrinha
Jeff Ponitz

333

PARAMETRIC PLANTING

339

EASY TO USE YET NOT

NECESSARILY USEFUL

347

INTERACTIVE SHAPING OF FORCES

357

REVERBERATING ACROSS THE DIVIDE

365

Gven zel

409

SEEING IS DOING

417

PERISTALSIS

427

ADAPTIVE PNEUMATIC FRAMEWORKS

435

PNEUSYSTEMS

445

INSPIRE

453

CASTING NON-REPETITIVE GEOMETRIES

WITH DIGITALLY RECONFIGURABLE
SURFACES

Corentin Fivet
Denis Zastavni

Bridging Virtual and Physical Contexts in

Digital Design and Fabrication
Madeline Gannon

COMMUNICATING CLIMATE-SMART
SCENARIOS WITH DATA-DRIVEN
ILLUSTRATIONS
Nancy Yen-wen Cheng
Brian Lockyear

375

Synchronization of Robotically Actuated

Motion, Sense-Based Interaction and
Computational Interface

Green Wall System Research + Design Using BIM

Danelle Briscoe

New Technology in the Architectural

Schematic Design Process
Eliel De La Cruz
Martin Tomitsch
Mary Lou Maher

FABRICATION AWARE FORM-FINDING

A Combined Quasi-Reciprocal Timber and

Discontinuous Post-Tensioned Concrete Structure
Iain Maxwell
Dave Pigram
Ole Egholm Pederson
Niels Martin Larsen

TEMPORAL AGENCY
387

SESSION INTRODUCTION

389

THIS IS NOT A GLITCH

Synthetic Tools for Robotically Augmented

Fabrication in High-Skill Domains
Joshua Bard
Madeline Gannon
Mauricio Contreras
Zachary Jacobson-Weaver
Michael Jeffers
Brian Smith
A Real-World Lesson in Adaptable Space
Michael Fox
Juintow Lin
Eran Shemish
Frank Melendez
Madeline Gannon
Zachary Jacobson-Weaver
Varvara Toulkeridou

Cellular Pneumatic Envelope Assemblies

Mary OMalley
Kathy Velikov
Geoffrey Thun
Integrated Spatial Gesture Based Direct
3D Modeling and Display
Teng Teng
Brian R. Johnson

Brad Bell
Nathan Barnes
Austin Ede
T. Cord Read

463

Neil Leach Session Chair

Algorithms and Anomalies in Google Architecture
Jason Johnson
Matthew Parker

CASE FOR AN ARCHITECTURAL

SINGULARITY

ARCHITECTURE IN THE ERA OF

ACCELERATING CHANGE
Manuel Kretzer

473

LE CUBE DAPRS

Integrated Cognition for Iterative and

Generative Designs
Pierre Cutellic

ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY

479

487

ONE AND MANY

An Agent Perspective on Interactive Architecture

Henri Achten
Reorienting Trompe lOeil in the Age
of Google Earth
Joshua M Taron
Matthew Parker

555

507

THE SOCIAL WEAVERS

Considering Top-Down and Bottom-Up

Design Processes as a Continuum
Paul Nicholas
David Stasiuk
Tim Schork

565

523

531

539

COMPRESSION BASED GROWTH

MODELLING
Christoph Klemmt

COMPUTATIONAL SAND PILE

TECHNIQUES FOR DIFFUSE
ACOUSTICAL CERAMICS

573

FROM SURFACE TO VOLUME

ADDITIVE FORMWORK

579

ROBOTIC PRODUCTION
IMMANENT DESIGN

Rhett Russo

517

ROBOTIC FABRICATION OF
ACOUSTIC BRICK WALLS
Maximilian Vomhof
Lauren Vasey
Fabio Gramazio
Matthias Kohler
Stefan Bruer
Kurt Eggenschwiler
Jrgen Strauss

SESSION INTRODUCTION
Alisa Andrasek Session Chair

497

TOWARDS A DIGITAL
ANISOTROPIC MATERIALITY
Daniel Rhomberg
Peregrine Buckler
Andrei Gheorghe
Maya Pindeus
Clemens Preisinger
Stefan Thanei

AUGMENTED AGENCY

MATERIAL AGENCY
495

549

3D Printed Flexible Formwork

Brian Peters

Creative Toolpath Design in Micro

and Macro Scale
Sigrid Brell-Cokcan
Johannes Braumann

TEXTILE EFFECTS

Semi-Riged Concrete Formwork

Kenneth Tracy
Christine Yogiaman
Lavender Tessmer

BUG-OUT FABRICATION

A Parallel Investigation using the Namib Darkling

Beetle and Incremental Sheet Metal Forming
Ammar Kalo
Michael Jake Newsum

4D PRINTING AND UNIVERSAL

TRANSFORMATION
Skylar Tibbits
Carrie McKnelly
Carlos Olguin
Daniel Dikovsky
Shai Hirsch

An Approach to Poch with Composites

Nazareth Ekmekjian

589

CONFIGURATIONS OF INTENSITY
Mirco Becker

DATA AGENCY
599

SESSION INTRODUCTION

601

ABSTRACTION VERSUS CASED BASED

609

ACOMODATING CHANGE IN
PARAMETRIC DESIGN

Kyle Steinfeld Session Chair

A Comparative Study of Two Approaches

to Support Parametric Design
Anastasia Globa
Michael Donn
Jules Moloney

Robert Vierlinger
Klaus Bollinger

viii

619

627

637

INTERACTING WITH THOUSANDS

A Parametric-Space Exploration Method
in Generative Design
Halil Erhan
Ivy Wang
Naghmi Shireen

HIERARCHICAL PLANE EXTRACTION

An Efficient Method for Extraction of Planes
from Large Point Cloud Datasets
Naveen Anand Subramaniam
Kevin Ponto

VACUUM INSULATED TUBES

Modular, Self-Supporting Exterior
Enclosure Systems
Aybars Asci
Elizabeth Boone
Gary Haney
Christopher Olsen
Teresa Rainey

647

653

671

FOR ARCHAELOGICAL HERITAGE

Davide Simeone
Stefano Cursi
Ilaria Toldo
Gianfranco Carrara

691 USING PHYSICAL TESTING TO DESIGN

AND EVALUATE THE ACCLIMATISATION

OF KINETIC FAADES FOR DAYLIGHT
AND THERMAL HEAT PERFORMANCE
Kamil Sharaidin

699 ATTACHMENT AS AGENCY IN

OFF-SITE AND ON-SITE INDICATORS

OF PHENOMENA IN GEOSPATIAL
URBAN ANALYSIS TOOLS
Philip Speranza

709 SYNTHETIC ECOLOGIES

Protocols, Simulation, and Manipulation

for Indeterminate Landscapes
Bradley Cantrell
Justine Holzman

ROBOTHERMODON

An Artificial Sun Study Lab with a Robot Arm

and Advanced Model Platform
Mehrnoush Latifi Khorasgani
Daniel Prohasky
Jane Burry
Akbar Akbarzadeh
Nicholas Williams

IMPROVING GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR

DESIGN OPTIMIZATION USING
ARCHITECTURAL DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE
Zhouzhou Su
Wei Yan

661

681 BIM AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

719

SELECTIVE INTERFERENCE

Emergent Complexity Informed by

Programmatic, Social and Performative Criteria
Christopher Welch
Jules Moloney
Tane Moleta

ACADIA 2014 CREDITS

729

CONFERENCE CHAIRS

731

SESSIONAL CHAIRS

Experimental Methods
of Architectural Applications
Marco Corazza
Viral Doshi
Axel Krner
Mehnaj Tabassum

735

ACADIA ORGANIZATION

736

CONFERENCE MANAGEMENT
AND PRODUCTION CREDITS

737

PEER REVIEW COMMITTEE

UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL BEHAVIORS

IN THE INDOOR ENVIRONMENT

741

SPONSORS

FIBER COMPOSITE FABRICATION

A Complex Network Approach

Mani Williams
Jane Burry
Asha Rao

ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY

PREFACE

CATALYST DESIGN IN A CONNECTED WORLD

Michael Fox President, Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture

Our architectural world is one that is not only increasingly digital,

and ideas that were never intended. Perhaps ironically it positions

but also seamlessly networked and connected. As we continue to

the act of designing architecture in a connected world as much

embrace a world where the lines between the physical and dig-

more of an ego-less, emergent endeavor that lies in not designing

ital are increasingly blurred, we are beginning to see a maturing

the future, but designing the platform for the future. Such a posi-

vision for architecture that actively participates in our lives. Our

tion is both noble and profound, for it means the architect must

architectural environments are becoming so inextricably tied to

understand people well enough to not only design for them but to

our technological living trends that they are defining each other

design the interfaces and tools for them so that they in turn can

in a corresponding manner. How architectural design integrates

become designers.

and reconciles the digital in our contemporary context it is nothing

short of reciprocal innovation.

The ACADIA community has always been about innovation with

respect to the use of computation in architecture, in particular with

While there are approximately 1 billion websites, and about 5

respect to design creativity and education. When the organization

billion mobile phones, there are approximately 50 billion smart

was founded in the early 1980s the concerns were on software,

devices. It is the goal (and responsibility) of the Internet of Things

hardware and pedagogy in education. The annual conference every

(IoT) to connect them in a meaningful way. These intelligent

year puts forth an amazing collection of work that is indeed innova-

things are everywhere in our lives and many of them are already

tive in terms of typically pushing the boundaries of what is possible

seamlessly embedded into our architecture, even if at the time

in architecture and computation. It has for years been a premiere

being most of them are weakly connected at best. The protocols

forum for pioneering work in terms of designing and making.

are confusing to say the least and while todays internet supports

Looking at CES this year however, we are starting to see all of the

hundreds of protocols, the IoT will support hundreds more. The

smart-home, smart kitchen projects of academia in the 90s have

service industry alone for such environments projected to reach

made their way into mainstream. The disconnect lies in the realiza-

almost 11 billion by 2017 in just the arena of the smarthome. The

tion that almost none of these projects (academic or corporate) are

point is that while the connectivity issues may not be architectur-

being done by architects and yet the context is architecture. Young

al, our profession needs to realize that the promise of ubiquitous

architectural students are starting to realize that it is possible to at

computing has secured a permanent foothold in our lives and

least prototype anything that they can imagine. Sensors available

has begun to infiltrate not just our devices and objects but our

today can sense nearly anything from complex gestures to CO2

buildings, our neighborhoods, our cities and entire environments.

emissions, to the color of your hair. In addition to sensing, an in-

What is important is that architects understand the potential of

terconnected world digital world means that data sets can also be

the connected world as a catalyst for designing how our buildings

drivers of an interactive building or environment which range from

and environments can truly impact our lives.

internet usage to traffic patterns, to crowd behaviors. Courses are

commonly taught within schools of architecture today that cover

In a sense, such a connected world is in a unique position to reposition the role of the architectural designer. In the paraphrased

behaviors and interaction with contextual subjects ranging from

social urban issues to practical sustainability.

words of Gordon Pask, the role of the designer should be not so

much to create a finished design as to catalyze a design; to ask

I was optimistically intrigued at the past ACADIA conference

that it may evolve. What has made the ubiquitous phone so pow-

to find so few peer-reviewed papers at a conference themed

erful is not that it is a connected device, but that it is a platform for

around adaptability that actually dealt with adaptability, and yet

the creation of applications. It has become a catalyst for design

almost all of the student poster projects had integrated robotics

and kinematics of some sort. I suspect it is a consequence re-

Although Tangible Interaction typically deals with the interfacing of

flecting the maturity of real research that is subject to a peer-re-

objects and artifacts, the connected capabilities has opened up a

view process; a consequence whereby the annual conference

wealth of possibilities, not only at the scale of the building, but also

typically stands as a barometer of the state of architecture and

the city and beyond. It is impossible to predict how quickly architec-

computation. It makes me ask if there is a mechanism by which

ture in the connected world will be widely adopted, and executed,

the organization can lead and direct the future of architecture

and what standards and protocols will work their way to the fore, and

and computation rather than reporting on it, and makes me all

yet it seems that this area of design is becoming an inevitable and

the more supportive of student initiatives as a long-term, per-

completely integral part of how we will make our objects, buildings

manent installment to the conference agenda if only for their

and cities in the future. The platform is ripe to foster unique applica-

pioneering sprirt with respect to innovation.

tions that are tied to our living trends which are both affected by and
affect digital technology. In addition to the amazing and innovative

The foundations of architecture in a connected world stretches

back to cyberneticians nearly 40 years ago and is only now seeing
a renewed growth due to both technological and economic feasibility. The Internet of Things has quite rapidly come to define the

work done in architecture and computation related to designing and

making, I urge that the community recognize this area as a fertile
field ripe for our input. I urge that we ask not how a building was designed, analyzed or made, but rather, what does it do.

technological context inclusively. The context can be defined as

one that affects essentially everything, from objects to buildings to
cities. To use an appropriate analogy, the theoretical foundations
now have a structure, which resides in the connected worlds of

NOTES
i Neil Leach (ed.), Urban Architecture (UA), No 97, September 2012, p. 8.

web, mobile and spatial interfacing and they are also still evolving.

ii Behnaz Farahi, Alloplastic ArchitectureL The Design of an Interactive Tensegrity

Structure, Proceedings to ACADIA conference, 2013.

The early theories of a connected architectural world existed long

iii Pask, G. Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics. Architectural Design, September

1969, 494496.

before mobile devices and web interface technologies changed every aspect of our lives. While the first wave connectivity focused on

iv Frazer, J. An Evolutionary Architecture, London: Architectural Association

Publications, Themes VII, John Frazer and the Architectural Association, 1995.

human to human communication, the current focus is on connect-

v Adam Greenfield, Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (Berkeley,

CA: New Riders,2006).

ed things and devices which extends naturally to buildings, cities

vii Understanding The Protocols Behind The Internet Of Things:

and global environments.

http://electronicdesign.com/embedded/
understanding-protocols-behind-internet-things
viii Understanding The Protocols Behind The Internet Of Things:

Architectural applications are iterative in such a connected context.

The sensors and robotic components are now both affordable and
simple enough for the design community to access, and everything
can easily be digitally connected to everything else. Designing in
particular is not inventing, but understanding what technology exists,
and extrapolating it to suit an architectural vision. In this respect, the
designers of buildings, cities and larger interconnected ecosystems
has a lot to learn from the rapidly developing world of Tangible
Interaction, which was developed as essentially an alternate vision for
interfacing which brings computing back into the real world.

http://electronicdesign.com/embedded/
understanding-protocols-behind-internet-things
ix Jennifer Stein, Scott S. Fisher, Greg Otto, IOT2010 Workshop, University of Southern
California, LA, CA, 2010.
x Jennifer Stein, Scott S. Fisher, Greg Otto, IOT2010 Workshop, University of Southern
California, LA, CA, 2010.
xi Ishii, Hiroshi and Ullmer, Brygg (1997): Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces
between People, Bits and Atoms. In: Pemberton, Steven (ed.) Proceedings of the
ACM CHI 97 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference March 22-27, 1997,
Atlanta, Georgia. pp. 234-241. Available online
xii Hornecker, Eva (2009). Tangible Interaction. Retrieved 16 August 2013 from http://
www.interaction- design.org/encyclopedia/tangible_interaction.html
xiii Data cycle: Behind MITs SENSEable Cities Lab http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/
archive/2011/04/features/data-cycle/page/3
xiv Behnaz Farahi, Alloplastic ArchitectureL The Design of an Interactive Tensegrity
Structure, Proceedings to ACADIA conference, 2013.

ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY

INTRODUCTION
David Gerber University of Southern California
Alvin Huang University of Southern California
Jose Sanchez University of Southern California
The theme of the 24th annual ACADIA conference is DESIGN

non-linear fashion. It is through this perceptual lens that we have

AGENCY, a purposeful instigation of work that looks at re-de-

defined 6 sub-categories describing varying agencies, each exert-

fining the term Agency through the lens of computational

ing their own capacities to simultaneously exert action and produce

design strategies such as simulation, fabrication, robotics, and

reaction within that domain.

novel integrations from science and the media arts. The conference theme is intended to highlight experimental research and
projects that exhibit and explore new paradigms of computing
in architecture. It is a title that has proven to be provocative
and even controversial in the understanding of how we define

These sub-categories are defined as Design Agency,

Fabrication Agency, Parametric Agency, Material Agency,
Temporal Agency and Data Agency.

the term Agency within the discipline of design.

What this implies is that each one of these agencies has a
The term Agency implies the capacity of an agent or actor to
act in a given environment. Perhaps the most obvious question
is who or what represents this agent, and in turn what defines
the world in which they are operating.

certain autonomy and a particular feedback between designer,

agent, and environment. The designer in this sense, engages in
a dialogue with the given material, fabrication or data structure,
discovering its capacities and enabling them to operate. Often,
as we can see in many of the papers, the designer is someone
that mediates between multiple agencies.

For some, the word agent connects directly with concepts

found in computer science and automatas; agents as algorithmic entities that have a certain autonomy to act in a virtual
environment. This autonomy is derived by the use of both
intrinsic and extrinsic data allowing a designer to model the
artificial intelligence of a multitude of entities to discover the
emergent behaviours produced by their interactions. This

There is something critical to be understood here: DESIGN

AGENCY suggests that Design itself has a certain autonomy
over the designer. It suggests that there are internal rules to
the articulation of form and variables that also establishes a
dialogue with a designer.

notion of an agency that is able to produce complex global

behaviours through simple local interactions was originally pop-

As such, DESIGN AGENCY interrogates the idea of control,

ularized by the groundbreaking contributions of Craig Reynolds

perhaps redefining not only the term design but the culture of

with Steering Behaviours and John Conway with the Game of

design itself. Are we the designers of spaces and things, or

Life. More recently, platforms like Processing, created by one

the processes and experiences that produce or are produced

of our keynote speakers Casey Reas, has made the concepts

by these spaces and things? Can we ever truly consider some-

of computational emergence and complex adaptive systems

thing to be designed Top Down or Bottom Up? DESIGN

more accessible and potentially more relevant.

AGENCY implies that there is always a feedback, an interdependence between the designer and the designed.

However, within the context of ACADIA 2014 the term Agency

needs to be understood in a much broader sense. What is abso-

Looking back to models Like Simcity developed by ACADIA

lutely critical in our definition of the term is the understanding that

2014 Keynote speaker Will Wright, we can see a very con-

design processes are enabled by the autonomy of a given process

temporary design strategy. A strategy that is enabled by sys-

or discipline to operate within a given world or environment in a

tems thinking and that produces a weak form of authorship.

DESIGN AGENCY is encapsulated in software while thousands of players explore a vast search-space. The desire and
perseverance of the community is in perpetual dialogue with
the constraints of the system.

The recent emphasis on fabrication in the architecture profession has proven that the algorithmic notion of agency is
also true for fabrication, materials and systems of production.
Architectural practices encapsulate an organization of knowledge that can operate to not only mediate the constraints of
form and perfomance but also those of economy and feasibility. The work of ACADIA 2014 Keynote speaker Zaha Hadid

Image credit: Casey Reas

demonstrates how DESIGN AGENCY is both, the organization

of Labor inasmuch as it refers to the organization of Form.

DESIGN AGENCY will bring together the spectrum of research

and creative practice currently occurring within the ACADIA
community through the combined support of the research
networks of the University of Southern California, University
of California Los Angeles and Southern California Institute
of Architecture. Questions the capacity for computation to
inform or challenge traditional design processes; computation as design operation - the capacity, condition, or state of
acting or of exerting power, and/or computation as design
instrumentality - the design mechanism through which power

Image credit: SimCity 2000 Maxis, Will Wright

is exerted or an end is achieved.

Image credit: Galaxy Soho, Zaha Hadid, Photography by Iwan Baan

ACADIA 2014 DESIGN AGENCY