Emergent Urbanism: Theo Jansen

26/08/2010

Theo Jansen - Walking city

theo from play people on Vimeo.

Since 1990 Theo Jansen has been occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. Eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.

2 comments:

Ollie Palmer6 September 2010 at 12:37
Theo Jansen is an ideal starting point for Braitenburg...http://bit.ly/abrGPn
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Emergent Urbanism7 September 2010 at 18:55
thanks for the comment oli! will have a look into Braitenburg ... will investigate!
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Agenda

The term ‘emergence’ has become ubiquitous within architectural and urban design due to the increasing integration of design and computation. We now understand urbanism as a complex system, existing in many composite parts which operate simultaneously to achieve ‘successful’ formal and behavioural interrelationships; subsequently we demand new methods for conceiving and controlling urban space.

We are concerned with brand-driven urban developments, privatised corporate initiatives, total surveillance technologies and viral ‘policy driven’ urban strategies that pose profound and disturbing trajectories for our contemporary urban environment. We seek ‘bottom-up’ design systems, performance-based spatial ecologies and ‘emergent’ urban morphologies as a means of re-generating failing urban environments.

We explore computational design methodologies including parametric modeling, generative design and interactive design systems through studio workshops, questioning how such technologies and novel methodologies can successfully impact the design and operation of urban systems - environmentally, economically and socially. We examine complex dynamic systems and latent networks that underpin urban structures; focusing on the spatial and performative implications of ‘encoded’ design systems and calling into question the use of collaborative, democratic and open source control as a means of shaping urban experience.

The design studio is an experimental research laboratory for the analysis, modelling and prototyping of emergent, performative structures.