Emergence in Urban Environments: Agent-based Simulation of Environment Reconfiguration
Online PDF PhD Thesis, supervisor Assoc. Prof. Dr. Henri H. Achten, MOLAB FA CTU
Online version of the Dissertation Thesis Emergence in Urban Environments: Agent-based Simulation of Environment Reconfiguration.
Abstract:
The paradigm of emergence that we are dealing with within the framework of several
scientific disciplines (e.g. artificial intelligence, cybernetics, evolutionary biology, systems theory,
cognitive sciences and others), also appears in architectural and urban context as an essence of design
processes and methods of production or development of architectural and urban forms. This concept
can be applied in observations and simulations of the unpredictable behaviour of the urban
environment as well as validation of its characteristics in various simulated environmental scenarios
and conditions by means of using information technology. It is a spontaneous creation of an organized
whole out of a disordered collection of interacting parts. This phenomenon is very well legible in the
field of architecture and urbanism as so called “bottom-up” concept of environmental development,
where city urban structure emerges from low-level rules and negotiations between local participants to
a higher-level sophisticated environment.
The aim of this research is a spatial simulation of city environment
development which would simulate its growth and reconfiguration based on demands and requirements
on a lower level and its qualitative description. This spatial simulation would serve as a decision making
tool for architects when applying various spatial scenarios of environment configurations and
thereby it would create a basis for spatial planning decisions in subsequent stages of zoning
proceedings, mainly in the early design stages. The core of the interest of this research is definition of
the spatial alignment of the urban pattern based on bottom-up requirements. In particular, this
embodies approach walkable distances in the places of interests in the selected urban environment, the
spacing distances between the urban elements, and the definition of appropriate graininess of the
urban fabric and its density. In that manner it is possible to specify an equable spread of urban
activities and volumes in the structure and therefore define a relevant diversity of the environment
with different measure of the densities of the spatial alignment. As such, the observer is allowed
to simulate the spatial relations and explore its qualitative potentials and tendencies in already existing environment,
or define its inadequacies.