Alessio Erioli | Università di Bologna (original) (raw)

Papers by Alessio Erioli

CRC Press eBooks, Jun 27, 2013

ABSTRACT This paper deals with a multi-objective design/optimization grid-shell problem. Structur... more ABSTRACT This paper deals with a multi-objective design/optimization grid-shell problem. Structural behavior and light absorption/shading have been selected as fitness functions. Such performance criteria can separately lead to different and divergent optimal solutions but, if they are considered as a whole, they are expected to result in several equivalent or similar sub-optimal shapes. This multi-objective optimization problem has been performed here with the aid of a Genetic Algorithm (GA). GAs explore and search widely for suitable solutions and, in this way, they become design tools rather than solution ones. Three benchmarks were established and then a more complex application was made to an existing case study, i.e. the Esplanade in Singapore, designed by DP Architects (DPA) and Michael Wilford & Partners (MWP).

eCAADe proceedings, 2019

This thesis research deals with the architectural project from an interdisciplinary point of view... more This thesis research deals with the architectural project from an interdisciplinary point of view, integrating biomimetics, additive fabrication, computer vision, and robotics. The work focuses on the feedback interaction loop among robotic additive fabrication, a stigmergic agent-based system and the self-organizing properties of the material. The aim is to explore the morphological, constructive and expressive potentials generated by the mutual influence of computational design, construction behavioral rules, and physical material behavior (whose complexity exceeds current simulation capacity).The proposed approach leads to the creation of surface-based tectonics, enhanced with a fiberglass-coated dendritic ridge formation that integrates functional, ornamental and structural performances. The process can be extended to larger architectural scales with the creation of bespoke EPS molds via robotic hot wire cutting; the presented case study leverages the aforementioned process on ruled surfaces for the generation of translucent delimiters, used to create heterogeneous spatial organization.

The conception of the body in the post-digital age commonly accepts the idea that the boy itself ... more The conception of the body in the post-digital age commonly accepts the idea that the boy itself is no longer bound to its genetic set and a renaissance image. Man as measure of all things left way for the idea of specie within an ecosystem. The body aesthetic, no longer tied to a classicist notion, integrates more and more the concepts of prosthetics, mutation, and hybridization. We make daily use of prosthetics to fair or amplify capacities (computers, smartphones, vehicles). At the same time, the world of prosthetics and robotics has evolved to a point where the threshold between biology and mechanics has become heavily blurred: they are more and more similar to biological organs, in behavior and structure. The man-machine duality is overcome by the idea that every biological specie is a wet computer and, on the other hand, computers as we know them today are just primitive forms of a new biological specie. Aesthetics is the dimension in which the outcomes of morphogenetic systems generate patterns which interact with cultural systems, informing or affecting their evolution as well as being affected by them at once. Aesthetic experience happens when all the sense operate at their climax, it\u2019s the moment of extreme sophistication in which a cultural production system is generated and then deploys itself acting on the same relationships that individuals establish with forms themselves (attraction or repulsion, two aspects of behavioral ecology). It is in this sense that fashion is intended: as a moment of fascination in which beauty (or repulsion) acquire the status of function. Cultural evolution has produced an imaginary of bodies and machines far beyond their purely functional dimension, especially in the pop universes of cinema and comics. The Otaku world in particular has been so far the most fertile ground on which robotics, aesthetics, cultural pulses and social models have interwoven and proliferated. Reiser and Umemoto, in \u201cAtlas of Novel Tectonics\u201d, defined architecture as a \u201cmediator between matter and events\u201d. Clothes, armors, prosthetics are mediators between body and space (physical and event space); they embody spatial articulation and differentiation among body parts and the functions they perform, affecting the deployment of capacities in the system in relation to the possible contingent situations facilitating, amplifying or inhibiting degrees of freedom and/or external exchange. Moreover they respond to environmental instances, protection and communication (patterns used as language or information transmission, such as transparencies used to modulate degrees of privacy and/or seduction for mating). In the dimension of ornament elements and figures that declare their identity and belonging are used as instrument for the harmonization and articulation of the system itself beyond mere function: ornament, made of more or less figurative patterns, builds up an added layer of aesthetic sophistication; in some cultures this function is exerted directly on the skin, through tattoos. Any of these variables is influencing the others in an intensive and turbulent field which evolves in space-time and where these influences engender emergent patterns & self-organization processes. As extensions of our collective metabolism, architecture tackle and organize the same instances on the scale of a community as emergent result of individual interaction: through spatial distribution pattern articulation they choreograph fluxes of matter-energy-information as a result of the forces interacting with the milieu upon which they are based: environmental pressure, culture, patterns of social interaction, resources, etc. The introduction of the theory of complexity has significant affects even on the aesthetic and culture dimension: the relations that forge meaning aren\u2019t tied anymore to a formal repertoire made of a finite set of entities, rather forms themselves dynamically, evolving together with the effect of their own i..

This research explores an application of multi-agent systems to the generation of singlelayer bra... more This research explores an application of multi-agent systems to the generation of singlelayer branched shell structures for architectural application. The study is prompted by the structure and pattern-making capacity of climbing plants' growth behaviours, in which growth history (affected by internal local processes and environmental conditions), generates a multi-performant outcome. The digital system merges parts of the Space Colonization Algorithm (SCA) with agent-based logic, leveraging iterative local interactions to coherently embed environmental conditions and static requirements in the production of a coherent structural network on a boundary surface, which is translated in a beams-and-nodes glued laminated timber structure. The paper exposes the method and its applications to the case study of a pavilion, discussing geometric constructability's challenges and limits.

... paura ho al mio fianco delle persone fantastiche... L'unica cosa che cerco è l'amor... more ... paura ho al mio fianco delle persone fantastiche... L'unica cosa che cerco è l'amore totale, ridicolo, scomodo, spossante, che ti consuma e non ti fa pensare ad altro...Odi et Amo. Amo : Ridere + A volte piangere + L'odore del ...

Creativity in Structural Design - IASS 2018, 2018

Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 1]

Assembler is a computational tool designed for the creation and study of assemblages in architect... more Assembler is a computational tool designed for the creation and study of assemblages in architecture, interweaving mereology, combinatorial design, and decision at scale. The tool leverages the potential of automation and repeated parts to generate scalable and spatially heterogeneous assemblages, emphasizing the computational role of both parts and relations in creating emergent qualities. Assembler utilizes iterative, rule-based heuristic, enabling computation across scales via part/assemblage/environment relationhood. The design process is understood as a decision network, where the user has control over the design of parts, connections, and heuristics of the system, and the tool enacts those decisions in space and time. After a theoretical contextualization and an overview of precursors and precedents in architecture and combinatorial design, the tool logic is explained and its current status and potential developments are discussed.

Dokonal, W, Hirschberg, U and Wurzer, G (eds.), Digital Design Reconsidered - Proceedings of the 41st Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe 2023), 2023

Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 2], 2022

Creativity in Structural Design - IASS 2018, 2018

River Publishers eBooks, Sep 1, 2022

eCAADe proceedings, 2022

With the burst of automation in the AEC industry, modular design for collective living is having ... more With the burst of automation in the AEC industry, modular design for collective living is having a reissue; as for industrial construction in the post WW2 era, the economies of a construction system trigger urban models, but computational methods for design are still lacking. This research proposes a competition-based process for the design of large scale (urban) collective habitats as topology-aware architectural assemblages of spatial (as in including constructive elements + void) components. Two multi-agent systems in competitive interaction negotiate spatial occupancy, leveraging the morphological computation capabilities of individual and combined components at increasing scales. Localized information stored in the environment by the agents is converted in architectural components, resulting in a multi-level spatial organization that transcends typical typological classification. Space syntax techniques are used to map the assemblage properties and support design inferences on spatial occupation such as potentially implementable functional programmes.

A paradigm shift is occurring in design, from shaping matter to informing it (including living ma... more A paradigm shift is occurring in design, from shaping matter to informing it (including living matter, biological and non-biological). We are witnessing the rise of computation as the design medium within which to drive the organization of matter and its formation processes. Scientific research was the first to identify computation as the common field/feature in every process. Inorganic matter computes (for example, a river is a computing system that sorts out material according to density, weight, et cetera); Organisms compute, as do we in our \u201cwetware\u201d bodies; Nature (intended as a system) computes, continuously and everywhere. Paraphrasing Arthur C. Clarke, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from nature. Technology's trend is toward nature, creating increasingly complex and sophisticated systems that ultimately grow out of control through pervasiveness, miniaturization, portability and the diffusion of computation-powered devices. Not only doe...

This research explores the integration of AI in an iterative decision process for the open-ended ... more This research explores the integration of AI in an iterative decision process for the open-ended procedural generation of architectural spaces. Leveraging on state-of-the-art Deep Reinforcement Learning techniques, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is trained to perform local decisions selecting tiles in a Wave Function Collapse (WFC) algorithm, assembling discrete elements that build up a complex spatial organization, pursuing selected spatial qualities at the architectural scale

Progetti di ricucitura urbana in Ravenna, 2006

Creativity in Structural Design - IASS 2018, 2018

CRC Press eBooks, Jun 27, 2013

eCAADe proceedings, 2019

Creativity in Structural Design - IASS 2018, 2018

Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 1]

Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 2], 2022

Creativity in Structural Design - IASS 2018, 2018

River Publishers eBooks, Sep 1, 2022

eCAADe proceedings, 2022

Progetti di ricucitura urbana in Ravenna, 2006

Creativity in Structural Design - IASS 2018, 2018

Agile Design - Advanced Architectural Cultures

A contemporary view of human condition challenges its confinement in the boundaries of a body and... more A contemporary view of human condition challenges its confinement in the boundaries of a body and a mind as entities, which have reciprocal connections but are considered separated from their milieu (the set of environmental, cultural and edaphic conditions). First of all it questions their purity and integrity: our own body is itself an environment that hosts several lifeforms (populations of virus and bacteria, which have their own ways to communicate and organize themselves); it’s being perpetually changed as its constituent cells are replaced periodically; moreover it also exchanges continuously energy, matter and information through its outmost frontier.
We are inextricably connected with our environment on all levels of complexity; in each of these, information exchange is continuous (from the horizontal – specie to specie - exchange of genetic material up to sophisticated transmission of values). Ever since our ancestors, we used technology (which pre-dates our humanness) as a mean of environmental interaction, we took advantage of it to engineer nature in order to enlarge our ecological niche; this implies also improving our capacity to manage a higher level of complexity and sophistication in the architecture of information, which changed our physical body (see for example how the development of cooking food triggered the development of a bigger brain) and influenced mutually the way we inform our architectures, both in the morphological and spatial organization and in their use as a medium and storage for our cultural products (including social organization).
Technology then isn’t an added feature that implicitly subjugates or undermines human condition, rather a symbiotic dimension that is inextricable from it: our environmental adaptation strategy is to build systems, but when one becomes the use of a system, it becomes part of the system. Technology is co-evolving with humanity, blurring the boundary that an outdated yet popular idea (still linked to the image of industrial prosthetic additions deforming an originally pure body) set between the biological world and technology itself: the same idea of “artificial” is disrupting as the notion of “growing” and “breeding” new products are gradually substituting the one of “making”, the typical mark of man up to the industrial age. The notion of machine in its philosophical meaning of an assemblage able of self-organization and self-reproduction processes provides a better description of the upcoming generation of systems we will interact with.
The continuous and mutual interaction between technology and our metabolic functions resulted in their outsourcing: part of our body thermal regulation is delegated to our artifacts (clothes, architecture) and part of our mnemonic functions are delegated to storage systems (books, paintings, computers, the city itself). It is precisely this ability to build symbiotic systems to enhance our ability to manage complexity that becomes an essential quality of human condition. Contemporary technology is establishing a pervasive and ubiquitous connection between an active space of information (whether physically embedded or coded) and our metabolic functions, moving from an idea of human as a body+mind whole to that of a system of relations: it is the set of relations between these systems that engenders an ontology of human condition as a dynamically interconnected system with its environment at large, an interdependent part of it. Humanity and technology are catalysts of their own co-evolution.
Architecture is partaking in the orchestration of those systems of connections; steering away from the mere concept of a rigid protection and mitigation it should become a more sensible mediator for interconnected relationships in a complex field of environmental and cultural pressures, as well as a new dynamic subject itself, using form as agency for environmental adaptation and construction of meaning. Its potential to promote the engendering of diversity and novelty can be exploited in its full potential only through computation (information processing), more precisely computing systems (organic-inorganic) endowed with autonomous agency, which are able to tease out emergent properties by building hierarchies of relations at several levels of complexity.
Humanities are as well partaking, as all disciplines share network of connections and soft spots where they merge with others, they too are affecting technology and being affected at the same time. To recognize this symbiotic condition and exploit its potential is what could generate open landscapes of desires for the human condition to explore.

This article would like to offer an overview on the interrelations among intentionality, technolo... more This article would like to offer an overview on the interrelations among intentionality, technology, and computation (with particular reference to their impact on the disciplines of architecture and design), as well as some theoretical and operational pointers to expose their nature in rethinking the design process. Algorithms and computation are not pure abstract impositions or exclusive domain of mathematics and computer science, intentionality and authorship are not an exclusive of humans, and technology cannot be neither reduced to a passive toolset nor demonized as an evil deity-they entertain more intricate mutual relations, upon which this article hopes to shed some light.