Part 2: Pushing the envelope. A process perspective for architecture, engineering and construction

Abstract

In this article, I am building on a ‘process view of nature’ and how biological interfaces or membranes emerge through the combined action of (locally) autonomous construction agents. In Part 1, I considered the simultaneous aggregation and disaggregation of matter around embedded processes, and used to create, sustain and regulate matter, energy and information gradients from which ‘work’ is derived for the benefit of the agents or organisms present in the system. In Part 2, I intend to demonstrate that emerging digital design, simulation and fabrication techniques, when linked to sensory and effector feedback, memory and actions, directed by pre-encoded objectives (as rules or algorithms), produce the same (or similar) fundamental unit of ‘agency’ as biological agents possess. By understanding how biological membranes emerge in nature, as the outcome of ‘negotiated agency’, to regulate and distribute matter, energy and information between adjacent spaces, we can begin to consider the building envelope as a biological interface or membrane from which ‘work’ can be derived from the environment we inhabit, as a physiological extension of ourselves.