Nothing happens in living Nature that does not bear some relation to the whole. The empirical evidence may seem quite isolated, we may view our experiments as mere isolated facts, but this is not to say that they are, in fact, isolated. The question is: how can we find the connection between these phenomena, these events?...
Above all we must remember that nothing that exists or comes into being, lasts or passes, can be thought of as entirely isolated, entirely unadulterated. One thing is always permeated, accompanied, covered, or enveloped by another; it produces effects and endures them. And when so many things work through one another, where are we to find what governs and what serves, what leads the way and what follows?
Johamm Wolfgang von Goethe, 1792
Architecture is a combination of, arts, sciences and events, which are human driven. This research topic combines the human existence with biology, math’s, theology and digital design with nature and the living beings that surround us, having always as the baseline, the role of the contemporary architect and the parameters that he have to observe and perceive, in order to produce his / her architectural design. Simultaneously, according to Goethe who says, that nothing happens in living nature that does not bear some relation to the whole, the contemporary and future architect acts collectively, through a multi disciplinary environment. Thus, he / she becomes a unit, which is affected and affects the neighboring units. In that context, the architect combines, personal expression through a collective approach. The multi disciplinary environment is his / her laboratory, in which digital and analog activities take place. The laboratory could be potentially and topologically expanded, since it consists from nodes that may be situated on the Internet, on the cell phone or even in the PC. The final network is a transaction space, where the collective design process takes place. The nodes aggregation depends from its spatial organization and vice versa. Their actions changes, according to space and bidirectionally, the space changes according to the produced collective activity. The laboratory is the transaction space of its nodes. Simultaneously the bulk storage of data creates a database, where each unit gives and takes information. That bidirectional negotiation, which evolves within the group, is the transaction.
The contemporary and future architecture, is produced within this transaction space, from the multi disciplinary activity, which functions, based on the ‘swarm intelligence’, similar to birds swarm and in real time. The swarm has potentially two concepts: either spatial, the concept of aggregation, or social, the concept of communication and interaction. Swarm. Masses. Concentration. Collectiveness. Interaction. Communication. These definitions may implement in various fields and they may interpret phenomena which seem accidental. The implementations vary not only in scale, but also in social, local, scientific and spatial level.People communicate with people. Buildings communicate with buildings. People communicate with buildings. Building components communicate with other building components. Everyone are members of the swarm.
Thus, swarm intelligence, according to our research title, is an interactive process. Focusing on the contemporary and future architect, his / her swarm intelligence could be the process of receiving the urban data, globally. According to biology, ecology, and art, (which may precede architecture), and every data that satisfy the specific problem, the architect, we could say, that he / she could act and interact with the urban complex and the human emotions, through his / her mission and according to the rules. The aggregation and the continuity, which an architect could create through the combination of random data (according to Goethe), could lead to the development of a new model, a new game, in which not only the architect can participate, but also the user, based on the programmable rules. Programmable spatial variables and continuity are the fundamental rules of the game. Simultaneously, the game interacts with its neighbors, like the nodes of the swarm, changing the whole. The buildings and the urban space as a whole, change continually, according to the data flow. The habitant, of this interactive environment, reschedule continually the properties of his / her area of influence, when at the same time the urban complex responds within an interactive system of relations.