Digital anonymity RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION Human-machine interaction in architectural design Advanced Research (Under 35) Giuseppe Bonoa, Pilar Maria Guerrierib, a The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, United Kingdom [email protected] b Dipartimento di Architettura e Studi Urbani, Politecnico di Milano, Italy [email protected] Abstract. The paper seeks to define the concept of digital anonymity. Digital Concerning references, in terms of research centres, the work devel- anonymity is defined as the autopoietic condition of architectural design in the oped by institutes and laboratories referring to leading universities, digital era, a state in which the combination of decontextualisation and deper- sonalisation of the design process leads towards emergent and anonymous such as MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), ETH Zurich design results. (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich), UCL (University Starting from the analysis of principles coming from the architectural world and College London) and University of Stuttgart, is particularly impor- then extending their definitions to considerations relative to other disciplines, the paper tries to delineate a new ethic of human-machine interaction and integra- tant. In this regard, research groups, such as the Design Computa- tion in the current architectural discipline. tional Lab at The Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) or the Insti- The evidence suggests that digital anonymity is the touchstone of an ongoing tute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) at University evolutionary process, which is translating architectural design into its new digital realm. of Stuttgart, are research clusters in which the most advanced studies Keywords: Algorithmic Design; Architecture; Authorship; Creativity; Digital Ar- in architecture are conceived and developed. Furthermore, journals chitecture. such as AD (Architectural Design) and the work done by special- ist groups in renowned architectural firms – i.e., ZHACode (Zaha Introduction The modernity of our era is char- Hadid Architects Code) at Zaha Hadid Architects, and ARD Group acterised by the dichotomy be- (Applied Research + Development Group) at Foster+Partners – are tween what is real and what is virtual. The traditional design ap- other pivotal references used for the development of this paper. proach based on acquisition and sedimentation of knowledge is now more frequently substituted by algorithms, which can autono- The digital measure of The rise of artificial creativity over mously produce endless variations starting from a given set of data. anonymity human creativity is the first step The debate on mathematical computation and its relationship with to take into consideration to un- human creativity offers the opportunity to reflect deeper on the new derstand the digital measure of anonymity. Talking about the pri- autopoietic status of architecture in which design can potentially be macy of artificiality over humanity means believing in the fact that reproduced in an independent way compared to human creativity. computers are creative in themselves, and that their creativity is in There are significant cultural implications related to the fact that, some way independent from any human input. Although the gen- nowadays, new software and plug-ins are able to partially substitute esis of artificial creativity lies in the similitude between the human human creativity. This shift is changing the profession consistently, brain and the computational machine (Von Neumann, 1958), the the overall built environment, design and production processes as current evolution of computational design is giving life to artificial well. The topic is of interest not just for architects, but also for spe- processes, which have their starting point in human inputs, while cialists in other disciplines in which ongoing digital progress plays at the same time assuming their independence through a level of an important role in the production of final results. complexity that only computational calculation can reach. The evo- This paper seeks to define the concept of digital anonymity as the au- lution of Big Data analysis is a clear example of this. Furthermore, topoietic condition of contemporary architectural design, a state in the level of novelty created through this computational complexity which the combination of decontextualisation and depersonalisa- is unique and independent from the human input. For instance, tion of the design process leads towards emergent and anonymous the work of the British artist Harold Cohen and his pioneering AI design results. In order to define the concept of digital anonymity, system AARON is quite significant in this regard, since the entire the paper critically analyses specific cases, which provide evidence concept of computer-generated art gives evidence to the fact that of the ongoing shift from human creativity towards artificial creativ- computers can produce unique and unexpected design results from ity. The examples are taken from three specific areas related to archi- a set of rules created by human beings. tectural design and the built environment, such as structural design, Having specified that the primacy of artificial creativity over human environmental design and morphogenetic design, i.e., the use of al- creativity is legitimated by the new level of complexity and novelty, gorithms for structural optimisation and form-finding techniques, which exclusively belongs to the artificial world, it is more appropri- environmental building design, and morphogenetic design strate- ate to say that such primacy is complementary rather than opposite gies for material synthesis. to the human one. In fact, as Margaret Boden clearly explains in her book The Creative Mind. Myths and Mechanisms (Boden, 1990), Methodology The methodology adopted is computational processes – including scripts, frames, and semantic based, on the one hand, on the nets – are helpful to understand how the brain works and how some selection of the most recent case studies from the most advanced aspects of human creativity are possible. The reason is «because international research centres and, on the other hand, on a critical symbolic and representational structures and transformations are reinterpretation of historical references, which clarify the transition the focus of computer programming, the essence of creativity may towards anonymity within the architectural field. not be so far removed from computational processes as is usually as- 177 ISSN online: 2239-0243 | © 2021 Firenze University Press | http://www.fupress.com/techne TECHNE Special Series Vol. 2 2021 181 DOI: 10.13128/techne-10705 01 | Truss design explorations with StructureFIT, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 02 | Roof structure design exploration, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), © © Caitlin Mueller and Digital Structures Renaud Danhaive, Caitlin Mueller and Digital Structures sumed» (Boden, 1983). Margaret Boden herself – commenting the tecture in Europe and the United States in the 1990s. To this day, work of Harold Cohen and his AI system AARON – provides the designers and architects are the best specialists in it» (Carpo, 2017). interpretative key to read the complementary relations between hu- Apart from being at the forefront of the digital revolution, architects man and artificial creativity: and designers are constantly extending the boundaries of architec- A functioning program has its own inbuilt dynamism. Its activities tural design through the introjection of external references into the can be both flexible and constrained, and a proper amalgam of flexi- architectural discipline. Such an endless extension is a distinctive bility and constraint is central to creative intelligence (Boden, 1983). feature in the current digital era, and some of the results obtained Hence, flexibility and constraint are the two main qualities to un- with such an attitude represent pertinent examples of digital ano- derstand the real measure of complementarity between human nymity. and artificial creativity, a balance that can only be fully appreciated Three design areas can be considered of particular importance to through the awareness of an «inbuilt dynamism». Such inbuilt dy- better understand the existence of digital anonymity in contempo- namism represents the appropriate measure through which ano- rary design practice. Such design areas are structural design, envi- nymity should be viewed in the current digital era, intending ano- ronmental design and morphogenetic design. nymity not merely as a lack of human authorship, but rather as its The first design field in which traces of digital anonymity can be transformation due to the complexity and novelty promoted by the found is structural design. In this case, the use of custom algorithms current process of mathematisation and, more in general, by the and software applications plays a fundamental role in the creation of influence of artificial intelligence over human intelligence. For this the final design results, in particular through the use and develop- reason, human creativity interacts with the artificial one through a ment of optimisation and form-finding techniques. As explained by model based on inbuilt dynamism. This factor can be considered as Mark Burry in his description of the works of Antoni Gaudí and Frei the most appropriate measure for digital actualisation of the concept Otto as main precursors of computational design