Stigmergy Mechanism as a Form of Architectural Space Programming

Abstract

This paper explores the understanding of architectural spaces driven by the knowledge that animals communicate by modifying the environment, in which they live. The way that animals communicate by modifying the environment forms an interaction, which is referred to as stigmergy, a mediated form of animal interaction. The paper elaborates on the process of stigmergy, in which animal colonies communicate with their living environment and leave different kinds of spatial traces. The paper argues that the stigmergy process can be potentially used as the basis of architectural programming. This writing explores multiple scenarios of the process of stigmergy in several insect colonies, highlighting the mechanism of stigmergy that is driven by three main components of stigmergy, namely Agent, Medium, and Traces. The writing focuses on how in stigmergy the agent interacts within a particular medium and creates traces in spaces. Findings on such mechanism of interaction are utilized to inform architectural programming that is based on the interaction between humans, animals, and the environment as integrated ecological systems. The development of the programming using the stigmergy method appropriates the social mechanisms of insects, in composing the spatial development of architecture, producing architectural systems for soil fertilization and revitalization of the environment.