PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
The programme has two distinct phases: the Studio and the Dissertation, which are both aligned with and supported by the research of the programme team and the advanced expertise our alumni and research colleagues in practice and industry.
Design research is central to the agendas of Emergent Technologies and Design. The programme proceeds from the fundamental premise of a shared understanding between staff, students, researchers and collaborators across the world that nature and artifice are strongly coupled; that the cultural production of artefacts and systems exist as part of the environment of other active systems; and that they are subject to change. We also share an under-standing that causality of change is complex and multi-scalar, that the dynamics of change are perturbed and accelerated by human activities; we share a concern for the consequences of those changes to society and the natural world.
PHASE I
The Studio
The Studio comprises workshops, seminars, electives and design projects that are led by EmTech staff and our associated researchers, and offers a creative and intellectually rigorous sequence of study that builds knowledge and skill. It provides an intensive engagement in design science and introduces our students to the wider community of design researchers in London practices. It concludes with guiding students through the formation of a detailed proposal for an original architectural inquiry, to be pursued in the Dissertation.
WORKSHOPS AND SEMINARS
Induction – The Boot Camp
This two-week workshop presents a comprehensive introduction to the core skills and techniques in algorithmic thinking, geometry, digital design and fabrication. It is centred on the development of associative geometric models and the relations between digital morphogenesis and material realisation. The Induction Studio concludes with fabricated and digitally modelled material systems that resolve problems of parametric control, material behaviour, structural integrity, precise dimensional control and spatial organisation.
Design and Technology
This seminar builds on the techniques and methods explored in Boot Camp to develop proposals with advanced computational design, analysis and fabrication strategies. It aims to engage analytical tools as methods for generative design and explores a variety of computational workflows, concentrating on experimentation, analysis, evaluation and decision-making processes. A range of computational form-finding and analysis methods are introduced, alongside of C# programming and advanced digital fabrication techniques.
Natural Systems and Biomimetics
The course aims to develop an understanding of how biology can be a model for material, mechanical, spatial and computational systems. An introduction to the ways in which organisms have evolved through form, materials and structures in response to varied functions and environments is followed by an account of engineering, logical and organisational design principles that have been abstracted from nature in current research projects for industry and material science. A study is made of a natural system (general form, anatomy, energy flows, geometry, organisation, hierarchies and behaviour), along with an exploration of interrelations and an abstraction of design principles.
Emergence and Evolutionary Computation
Evolutionary algorithms have been used extensively in recent years to mimic the principles of evolutionary science, as a means to solve common real-world problems through search and optimisation procedures of single or multiple objectives. Ranging from the fields of economics to politics and music to architecture, evolutionary algorithms have proven to be an efficient problem-solving technique, resulting in multiple trade-off solutions for issues that possess a variety of ‘fitness criteria’ (objectives) in conflict with one another. The aim of the seminar is to introduce the concepts of multi-objective optimisation, as well as to develop an understanding of their application in design practices.
DESIGN PROJECTS
Design 1: Digital and Material Fabrication
This project explores physical and digital compu-tational techniques to develop architectural qualities of different material systems adapted for specific climatic contexts. Digital models investigate possibilities in response to various environmental parameters, while physical models explore the integration of material behaviour and robotic fabrication processes. The purpose of Design 1 is to design and develop computational workflow techniques, and to analyse and fully fabricate material systems that are situated within the programme’s Design and Build research agenda.
Design 2: Ecological and Urban Design
This project focuses on creating new design experiments and system logics for ecologically sensitive settlements with urban tissues in extreme climates and ecological contexts. Designs are developed for a land-water entity that act as both a place of production and human inhabitation. Situated in an ecologically sensitive context, design solutions are expected to integrate multi-scalar infrastructures and networks with patterns and clusters of dense or distributed inhabitable blocks, and associated productive landscapes that have their own intricate networks.
ELECTIVES
Design Science and Ecological Systems
The scientific method is an evolving set of procedures based on systematic observations and measurements; the formulation of ideas (hypotheses) and predictions from those obser-vations that are then tested by experiment; the subsequent modification of the hypotheses; and further experimentation. These are developed until there is no distance between the hypoth-esis, prediction and observed results of the experiment. The aim of the course is to introduce scientific inquiry into design and design research.
History of Robotic Fabrication in Architecture and Design
This course presents the development of industrial robotics in architecture and design, covering the history and current state of the field, with implications for future development. Seminars will chronicle the early beginnings of robotics and the myths that surround them, with a special emphasis on automata, and the treatment of robots in science fiction, movies and culture in general. The course then elaborates on the employment of robotics in architecture and engineering.
PHASE 2
The Dissertation
The Dissertation Research Studio extends the acquisition of research competencies through extensive collaborative dialogue with the programme’s research community of active post-doctorate researchers and PhD candidates. There are two main fields of Design Research in which we are active: Dynamic Material Systems with Advanced Fabrication (including robotic techniques) and Ecological Urban Design in emergent biomes. Students integrate explorations of the theoretical discourses, relevant sciences and case studies of ‘state of the art’ projects in the domain of their chosen topic, and set out the methods and protocols for the development of their Design Proposal. The development and conclusion of the final proposal is pursued through iterative design cycles.
Design and Build
Design and Build is our ‘extracurricular’ collaborative student project, and is an essential part of the methodology and culture of the Emergent Technologies and Design programme. The project runs throughout the year, alongside both Studio and the Dissertation, providing opportunities to design and deliver a built project with real mate-rial, structural, fabrication and assembly constraints. The experience gained through the project enhances the design, computational and analytical skills students have acquired in Studio, and develops crucial transferrable skills that are applicable to professional practice. Our Design and Build projects have been published internationally in the architectural press and have received industry awards.
