Phil Ayres

Royal Danish Academy

Phil Ayres is an associate professor at the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA) in Copenhagen. Here he discusses bio‐hybrid structures and their novel applications in creating ‘greener’ worldmodelling architectural outcomes at odds with established formal tectonic tropes.

In this paper, we present a planar mesh topology adjustment scheme for the auto- mated production of principled Kagome weave patterns. Kagome is a triaxial weave system based on a hexagonal lattice. Double curvature is induced by replacing hexagonal cells with alternative polygons. These singular- ities are digitally represented by constructing a t...

This paper explores how computational methods of representation can support and extend kagome handcraft towards the fabrication of interlaced lattice structures in an expanded set of domains, beyond basket making. Through reference to the literature and state of the art, we argue that the instrumentalisation of kagome principles into computational...

The topological principles underlying Kagome weave have long been tacitly understood and exploited by the craftsperson to realise functional and art objects with complex morphologies at modest length scales. In this paper, we report on efforts to transfer this understanding into digital design tools and fabrication approaches that can be applied at...

Key to our project flora robotica is the idea of creating a bio-hybrid system of tightly coupled natural plants and distributed robots to grow architectural artifacts and spaces. Our motivation with this ground research project is to lay a principled foundation towards the design and implementation of living architectural systems that provide funct...

Fungal mycelium networks are large scale biological networks along which nutrients, metabolites flow. Recently, we discovered a rich spectrum of electrical activity in mycelium networks, including action-potential spikes and trains of spikes. Reasoning by analogy with animals and plants, where travelling patterns of electrical activity perform inte...

The technologies of weaving and fermentation represent two of humanity’s most enduring technologies. In the Fungal Architectures project, we investigate their combination in the development of a novel architectural construction concept that utilises mycelium-based composites in conjunction with Kagome weaves. Underlying this investigation is an eff...

When studying the split-gill fungus Schizophyllum commune , we observed that the growing colonies displayed endogenous spikes of electrical potential similar to the action potentials of neurons. In order to investigate the impact of light on the electrical activities of these colonies, we exposed them to intermittent stimulation with cold light (58...

Growing colonies of the split-gill fungus Schizophyllum commune show action potential-like spikes of extracellular electrical potential. We analysed several days of electrical activity recording of the fungus and discovered three families of oscillatory patterns. Very slow activity at a scale of hours, slow activity at a scale of 10 min and very fa...

Mycelium-based composites (MBC) can be designed utilising a wide range of lignocellulosic substrates and widely distributed versatile ligninolytic fungi. While a wide range of mechanical behaviour has already been reported in the past 15 years, showing potential to obtain viable products for a variety of uses; no systematic description of the engin...

Growing colonies of the split-gill fungus Schizophyllum commune show action potential-like spikes of extracellular electrical potential. We analysed several days of electrical activity recording of the fungus and discovered three families of oscillatory patterns. Very slow activity at a scale of hours, slow activity at a scale of tens minutes and v...

Growing colonies of the split-gill fungus Schizophyllum commune show action potential-like spikes of extracellular electrical potential. We analysed several days of electrical activity recording of the fungus and discovered three families of oscillatory patterns. Very slow activity at a scale of hours, slow activity at a scale of tens minutes and v...

Mycelium networks are promising substrates for designing unconventional computing devices providing rich topologies and geometries where signals propagate and interact. Fulfilling our long-term objectives of prototyping electrical analog computers from living mycelium networks, including networks hybridised with nanoparticles, we explore the possib...

The living mycelium networks are capable of efficient sensorial fusion over very large areas and distributed decision making. The information processing in the mycelium networks is implemented via propagation of electrical and chemical signals en pair with morphological changes in the mycelium structure. These information processing mechanisms are...

In response to global challenges of resource scarcity, increasing attention is being paid to bio-based materials - a domain that covers familiar materials such as timber and emerging materials such as bio-plastics and mycelium composites. The ability to observe, analyse, simulate, and design with their interior heterogeneity and behaviour over time...

The design research presented in this paper grounds itself in a tradition of seeking new architectural form from the affordances and proclivities of new materials. We report on the developmental stages of a construction concept that involves the growing of mycelium-based composites within stay-in-place scaffolds produced using Kagome weaving techni...

The increasing experimental investigations of Mycelium-Based Composites (MBC) in design and architecture necessitate efforts from pedagogues to find ways to transmit knowledge and support regarding the guiding principles of mycology so as to empower students in their investigations and study. The adoption of MBC craft in arts and applied arts offer...

Mycelium based composites (MBC) exhibit many properties that make them promising alternatives for less sustainable materials. However, there is no unified approach to their testing. We hypothesise that the two-phase particulate composite model and use of ASTM D1037 could provide a basis for systematisation. An experimental series of MBC were produc...

Mycelium-based composites (MBC) are a promising class of relatively novel materials that leverage mycelium colonisation of substrates. Being predicated on biological growth, rather than extraction based material sourcing from the geosphere, MBC are garnering attention as potential alternatives for certain fossil-based materials. In addition, their...

Study of extended cellular automata dynamics resutling from an implementation of the 'beehive rule' on various lattices with topological irregularities.

The living mycelium networks are capable of efficient sensorial fusion over very large areas and distributed decision making. The information processing in the mycelium networks is implemented via propagation of electrical and chemical signals en pair with morphological changes in the mycelium structure. These information processing mechanisms are...

Fungal electronics is a family of living electronic devices made of mycelium bound composites or pure mycelium. Fungal electronic devices are capable of changing their impedance and generating spikes of electrical potential in response to external control parameters. Fungal electronics can be embedded into fungal materials and wearables or used as...

Fungal electronics is a family of living electronic devices made of mycelium bound composites or pure mycelium. Fungal electronic devices are capable of changing their impedance and generating spikes of electrical potential in response to external control parameters. Fungal electronics can be embedded into fungal materials and wearables or used as...

Mycelium Based Composites (MBC) exhibit many properties that make them promising alternatives for less sustainable materials. However, there is no unified approach to their testing. We hypothesise that the two-phase particulate composite model and use of ASTM D1037 could provide a basis for systematisation. An experimental series of MBC were produc...

Mycelium networks are promising substrates for designing unconventional computing devices providing rich topologies and geometries where signals propagate and interact. Fulfilling our long-term objectives of prototyping electrical analog computers from living mycelium networks, including networks hybridised with nanoparticles, we explore the possib...

Mycelium networks are promising substrates for designing unconventional computing devices providing rich topologies and geometries where signals propagate and interact. Fulfilling our long-term objectives of prototyping electrical analog computers from living mycelium networks, including networks hybridised with nanoparticles, we explore the possib...

A key challenge in soft robotics is how to design self-supported large-scale soft robots. In order to address this we have created a braided manipulator. The manipulator consists of a biaxially braided cylinder made from twelve glass-fiber enforced rods. The manipulator measures 1.38m in height in its equilibrium state and has a diameter of 8.5cm a...

With an estimated 3.8 million species, fungi are amongst the most numerous creatures in the world. They started, shaped and maintained Earth ecosystems. Fungi also act as forest internet allowing trees to communicate with each other and with microbial populations. Fungi can sense everything humans can sense. Fungi demonstrate a high degree of proto...

In this paper, we present a speculative design concept for a mycelium-based living bio-hybrid architectural system. The system combines inoculated lignocellulosic substrates with soil-based 3d printed structures that function as growth scaffolds, material boundaries and spatial organisers. The primary objective of the system is to exploit mycelium...

CITA Complex Modelling investigates the infrastructures of architectural design models. By questioning the tools for integrating information across the expanded digital design chain, the book asks how to support feedback between different scales of design engagement moving from material design, across design, simulation and analysis to specificatio...

In this paper, we present a novel, speculative design approach for a bio-hybrid architectural system. The Living Weaves system seeks to harness the material accumulation capacity of climbing plants and steer this growth into an interlaced configuration with a diagrid scaffold to produce a structural Kagome weave. The concept is described through a...

As one of the primary consumers of environmental resource, the building industry faces unprecedented challenges in needing to reduce the environmental impact of current consumption practices. This applies to both the construction of the built environment and resource consumption during its occupation and use. Where incremental improvements to curre...

Biohybrid robotics takes an engineering approach to the expansion and exploitation of biological behaviors for application to automated tasks. Here we identify the construction of living buildings and infrastructure as a high-potential application domain for biohybrid robotics, and review technological advances relevant to its future development. C...

Robot systems are actively researched for manipulation of natural plants, typically restricted to agricultural automation activities such as harvest, irrigation, and mechanical weed control. Extending this research, we introduce here a novel methodology to manipulate the directional growth of plants via their natural mechanisms for signaling and ho...

Video and full text available here: https://dx.doi.org/10.3791/59835-v

This paper introduces a novel hybrid construction concept, namely Sparse Concrete Reinforcement In Meshworks (SCRIM), that intersects robot-based 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) and textile reinforcement meshes to produce lightweight elements. In contrast to existing 3DCP approaches, which often stack material vertically, the SCRIM approach permits ful...

Plant growth is a self-organized process incorporating distributed sensing, internal communication and morphology dynamics. We develop a distributed mechatronic system that autonomously interacts with natural climbing plants, steering their behaviours to grow user-defined shapes and patterns. Investigating this bio-hybrid system paves the way towar...

This paper introduces a novel hybrid construction concept, namely Sparse Concrete Reinforcement In Meshworks (SCRIM), that intersects robot-based 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) and textile reinforcement meshes to produce lightweight elements. In contrast to existing 3DCP approaches, which often stack material vertically, the SCRIM approach permits ful...

Cutting patterns for architectural membranes are generally characterised by rational approaches to surface discretisation and minimisation of geometric deviation between discrete elements that comprise the membrane. In this paper, we present an alternative approach for cutting pattern generation to those described in the literature. Our method empl...

Bio-hybrid systems---close couplings of natural organisms with technology---are high potential and still underexplored. In existing work, robots have mostly influenced group behaviors of animals. We explore the possibilities of mixing robots with natural plants, merging useful attributes. Significant synergies arise by combining the plants' ability...

Geometries designed with carefully controlled heat absorption and heat transfer profiles often elude designers because of the complexity of thermodynamic phenomena and their associated discipline-specific numerical models. This project examines the behavior and design of geometries associated with non-isolated thermodynamic systems by constructing...

Self-organizing construction is an emerging subdomain for on-site construction robots. This not only presents new challenges for robotics, but due to the stochasticity involved in such systems, impacts the modeling and prediction of resulting built structures. Self-organizing models have been explored by architects for generative design and for opt...

Multiscale design and analysis models promise a robust, multimethod, multidisciplinary approach, but at present have limited application during the architectural design process. To explore the use of multiscale models in architecture, we develop a calibrated modeling and simulation platform for the design and analysis of a prototypical envelope mad...

Natural plants are exemplars of adaptation through self-organisation and collective decision making. As such, they provide a rich source of inspiration for adaptive mechanisms in artificial systems. Plant growth - a structure development mechanism of continuous material accumulation that expresses encoded morphological features through environmenta...

From the hand-crafted to the highly engineered, braided structures have demonstrated broad versatility across scales, materials, and performance types, leading to their use in a plethora of application domains. Despite this prevalence, braided structures have seen little exploration within a contemporary architectural context. Within the flora robo...

This paper presents design workflows for the representation, analysis and fabrication of braided structures. The workflows employ a braid pattern and simulation method which extends the state-of-the-art in the following ways: by supporting the braid design of both pre-determined target shapes and exploratory, generative, or evolved designs; by inco...

Mixing societies of natural and artificial systems can provide interesting and potentially fruitful research targets. Here we mix robotic setups and natural plants in order to steer the motion behavior of plants while growing. The robotic setup uses a camera to observe the plant and uses a pair of light sources to trigger phototropic response, stee...

Approaches from complex systems science can support design decision-making by extracting important information about key dependencies from large, unstructured data sources. This paper presents an initial case study applying such approaches to city structure, by characterising low-level features and aggregate properties of artifact morphology in urb...

This paper will discuss the role of simulation in extended architectural design modelling. As a framing paper, the aim is to present and discuss the role of integrated design simulation and feedback between design and simulation in a series of projects under the Complex Modelling framework. Complex Modelling examining how methods from the parallel...

We develop appropriate architectural representations (modeling methods, simulation and systems of notation) that integrate models of robot mechanics and its control with relevant biological models (e.g., projection of growth, leaf-cover and structural strength models) to support the design, envisioning and evaluation of architectural flora robotica...

This paper reports upon a speculative architectural design project. The project explores a hybrid construction method in which computationally designed 3D printed scaffolds are embellished by the self-organised construction of social insects – specifically bees. The resulting boundaries and spaces are intended to be co-occupied, supporting activiti...

Self-organized construction with continuous, structured building material, as opposed to modular units, offers new challenges to the robot-based construction process and lends the opportunity for increased flexibility in constructed artifact properties, such as shape and deformation. As an example investigation, we look at continuous filaments orga...

Architecture that is responsive, adaptive, or interactive can contain active architectural elements or robotic sensor-actuator systems. The consideration of architectural robotic elements that utilize distributed control and distributed communication allows for self-organization, emergence, and evolution on site in real-time. The potential complexi...

Strategies for optimisation in design normatively assume an artefact end-point, disallowing continuous architecture that engages living systems, dynamic behaviour, and complex systems. In our Flora Robotica investigations of symbiotic plant-robot bio-hybrids, we require computational tools and strategies that help us evaluate designed behaviours, r...

CITAstudio yearbook. CITAstudio: Computation in Architecture is a two year International Master's Programme at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture. With a focus on digital design and material fabrication the programme questions how computation is changing our spatial, representational and material cultures. Through hands-...

This paper reports upon a speculative architectural design project. The project explores a hybrid construction method in which computationally designed 3D printed scaffolds are embellished by the self-organised construction of social insects – specifically bees. The resulting boundaries and spaces are intended to be co-occupied, supporting activiti...

Besides the life-as-it-could-be driver of artificial life research there is also the concept of extending natural life by creating hybrids or mixed societies that are built from natural and artificial components. In this paper we motivate and present the research program of the project flora robotica. Our objective is to develop and to investigate...

CITA works documents over 40 projects, events and research collaborations conducted between 2005 and 2014 by the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA). Through individual project descriptions accompanied by photographic documentation and design drawings, CITA works provides readers with insights into our design-led practice-bas...

This contribution concerns itself with the design and realisation of architectures that operate with material dynamics. It presents this concern as a counter to the consideration of movement in architecture as something conceptualised from the position of the observer. The contribution draws upon research from the Centre for Information Technology...

Concerns with sustainability are providing an increasingly powerful impetus towards the investigation of dynamic and adaptive architectures. This presents an increased overlap with the discipline of Robotics making collaboration between the two fields interesting and potentially fruitful. This paper presents cross-disciplinary work-in-progress that...

Investigating ways of integrating material performance as a design parameter, four presented projects employ the ability to model force and flow to parameterize and calculate material properties. According to Beylerian and Ritter material performance is today regarded as one of the richest sources of innovation. By understanding materials not as st...

The research project that induced the Dermoid (Fig.1) installation investigates the making of digital tools by which architects and engineers can work intelligently with material performance. Working with wood as a material, we were especially interested how the bend and flex of wood, can become an active parameter in the digital design process. Tr...

This paper describes the development of a design and prototype production system for novel structural use of networked small components of wood deploying elastic and plastic bending. The design process engaged with a significant number of different overlapping and interrelated design criteria and parameters, a high level of complexity, custom compo...

This essay discusses models. It examines what models are, the roles models perform and suggests various intentions that underlie their construction and use. It discusses how models act as a conversational partner, and how they support various forms of conversation within the conversational activity of design. Three distinctions are drawn through...

A monograph by sixteen*(makers) that catalogues, discusses and reflects through five critical essays upon the design, fabrication and construction of a folded steel shelter for Kielder forest, Northumberland, UK

One of five critical essays discussing and reflecting upon the design, fabrication and construction of a folded steel structure for Kielder forest, Northumberland, UK

This article reports upon recent and initial explorations by the author in the hydroforming of steel. The material processes involved and the resulting artefacts are reflected upon, providing a ground from which to speculate about implications for architecture as both artefact and practice. The particular hydroforming procedure employed bears close...

The relationship between representation and the represented is examined here through the notion of persistent modelling. This notion is not novel to the activity of architectural design if it is considered as describing a continued active and iterative engagement with design concerns – an evident characteristic of architectural practice. But the p...

This introduction to 'Persistent Modelling – an extended role for architectural representation' identifies how the book probes the relationship between representation and the represented, in an architectural context. It discusses how the book presents an examination and discussion of historical, familiar contemporary and, perhaps, not so familiar e...

TheResponsive Acoustic Surfacesworkshop project described here sought new understandings about the interaction between geometry and sound in the arena of sound scattering.This paper reports on the challenges associated with modelling, simulating, fabricating and measuring this phenomenon using both physical and digital models at three distinct scal...

This thesis grounds itself upon two implicitly time-based assumptions: 1. Change is inevitable 2. Design is an iterative process Herbert Simon posits design as an engine of change. He states that design activity is the devising of ‘courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones’ [Simon, 1996, p.111]. Applied against a t...

Purpose This paper aims to explore the relationship between modelling and design from a cybernetic perspective. Design/methodology/approach Cybernetic understandings of the notions “modelling” and “design” are developed initially. The derived understandings are used to define an outline specification for a speculative design project based on an an...

The Art and Architecture Partnership, known for commissioning public works such as Softroom's Belvedere and James Turrell's Skyspace, has recently awarded its first architectural residency at Kielder to sixteen*(makers). Here, Phil Ayres introduces initial questions for an evolutionary design process that the practice has begun to explore and will...

Questions/aims/objectives: the research focuses on how understandings of growth and adaptation may drive the design, manufacture and performance of built environments, involving the interdependent design practices of representation and making. Contexts: the research occupies the increasingly connected worlds of digital and analogue design. The majo...

Blusher explores spatial and temporal relationships between occupants and environments, investigating: (1) Variability and adaptability in responsive assemblies. (2) Occupant behaviour in relation to alternate configurations. (3) How a system acts upon rather than simply responds to occupant behaviour. Contexts: the majority of related research (na...

This paper presents results from a wider study into pro viding displacement ventilation in urban areas by taking air into buildings from the top without the use of fans. Results from large scale experimental work are given. These results indicate that ventilation airflows can be induced using gravity chillers and heaters in conditions where this ty...

The ability for a structure (biological or artificial) to redefine and modify itself in relation to its environment is known as adaptation (Holland 1992). Systems that exhibit adaptation possess attributes of behaviour, sensing, memory, and mechanisms of feedback allowing them to exploit available resources in order to better situate themselves wit...