Emergent Technologies and Design

The Emergent Technologies and Design programme is open to graduates in architecture and engineering who wish to develop the skills and knowledge of architectural design science, situated in new production paradigms.

We investigate new synergies of architecture and ecology through the critical intersection of computational design and fabrication. Our focus is on exploring the experiential and social potentials of new material and spatial configurations for architectural and ecological urban designs, situated in the dynamic contexts of emerging biomes. The programme is designed to stimulate critical thinking through experience of research-driven design projects that are developed in an intellectually rigorous and creative studio environment. Our projects are pursued by multiple iterations through hypothesis, material and computational experimentation, robotic fabrication and evaluation; reflected upon in verbal presentations and group discussions, and documented in analytical and scientifically structured papers.

Design research is central to the agendas of Emergent Technologies and Design. The programme proceeds from the fundamental premise of a shared understanding, between staff, students, researchers and collaborators across the world, that nature and artifice are strongly coupled; that the cultural production of artefacts and systems exists as part of the environment of other active systems and that they are subject to change. We also share the understanding that causality of change is complex and multi-scalar and that the dynamics of change are perturbed and accelerated by human activities - we share a concern for the consequences of those changes to society and the natural world. Design processes in this domain are developed through iterative computational processes of serial experimentation and analysis, generative propositions and simulations. The programme is structured to provide skills and knowledge of a coherent set of linked and convergent discourses, methodologies and concerns that cross multiple disciplines in the Studio, and the opportunity to further develop those skills and deepen knowledge in the Dissertation.