Getting complexity organised: Using self-organisation in architectural construction

The increasing number of the so called “non-standard” designs in architecture, enabled by the development of digital tools of design, analysis, and fabrication, poses new questions for the engineering part of the building process. The number of explicit design decisions required to define the constructive details of a non-repetitive structure can be overwhelming. This paper illustrates three design examples that use methods from the field of artificial-life to reduce the design decisions and organise complex non-regular structures: the design of a “forest of columns” for the Groningen Stadsbalkon, the construction of an adaptive quad-mesh for a CAAD Swissbau Pavilion, and the optimisation of a large irregular roof structure.