I’ve got a huge interest in anthropic growth – namely growth enabled by humanity – and the rules behind its development. More importantly, we can now see a new materialist framework being contoured by philosophers like Manuel DeLanda together with Adrian Bejan and Constructal Theory, framework which encompasses both natural and anthropic growth and development under the same paradigm. The world is no longer split into Nature and Culture – Modernity’s dichotomy is being erased by rules and principles which guide both, making the distinction irrelevant.

Anyway, the main reason for this post is not to blabber about modernity and its dissolution (maybe that will come in the future in the writings section), but to share with you a processing implementation of RRT (Rapidly-exploring Random Trees) which is repurposed to grossly simulate growth through the perspective of Constructal Theory.

If you have a given surface (or volume) consisting of a population and the main goal of that population is to reach, or flow towards a specific point in the given surface, the most efficient structure, imposing the least flow resistance, is a dendritic one as shown in the video below.

In the case of a city (or the built environment), the main difference between it and a tree is that it does not have a single attractor, and flow is not linear in one direction. A city is composed of many attractors of different forces, each generating a different type of traffic flow which can be described as having different velocities, therefore requiring different flow resistances. For example, the average traveling speed in a medieval city was low, therefore the highly tortuous street network. As travel velocity increased, so the need for less flow resistance, which ultimately resulted in the Manhattan Grid. In this way you can differentiate between layers and layers of infrastructure. The video below shows how the networks of five different attractors merge with each other. Flow resistance is slowly decreased as the simulation progresses.

Finally, here’s a zipped processing sketch which contains a basic implementation of Constructal Theory generating infrastructure (based on this sketch). Of course, this can be enhanced further by limiting growth to certain angle variations and a host of other tricks which would more accurately simulate infrastructural growth. Each infrastructure type has different needs and limitations which can be transformed into parameters for this sketch.

You can play with an online version here!

Enjoy, and share alike. I am sharing out of goodwill, please do the same and do not abuse. Everything here is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Licence if not specified otherwise.

Recently I’ve tutored a Processing workshop for the Hyperbody department at the TU Delft. I’ve decided to share the sketches with the open world – who knows, maybe someone will find them useful. There’s quite a few variations included – clustering, attractors, collision avoidance, etc. Read below for the download link and some screens of some of the sketches.

2d and 3d clustering:

Swarms interacting:

Attractors and structures:

Collision avoidance:

Here’s a .zip file containing everything – including some Grasshopper sketches which allow for some basic interchange between Rhino and Processing via standard text files.

C:Strip is best described by an attempt to translate the environmental qualities of the proposed site into a meaningful architectural geometry that can accomodate and maximize the performance of an adaptive and fluctuating programme which focuses on producing and distributing information through the use of informal societal behaviour.

The developement and subsequent use of different computational techniques allowed for the collage of the several dimensions of environmental and programmatic datascape into a finite three dimensional architectural object. The developement and subsequent use of different computational techniques allowed for the collapse of the several dimensions of environmental and programmatic datascape into an finite three dimensional architectural object. Thus, the windspeed and solar insolation grid was processed with the help of Ecotect. The visibility analysis, crucial for our later functional distribution was explored in DepthMap. The traffic density was elaborated using an elaborate circulation analysis programmed in Processing/Java, whose starting parameters were informed by local observations of pedestrian and bycicle flows in different key points of the site.


The detailed programme description underwent a series of evolutionary changes which were based on the interpretation of the given assignement in relation with existing conditions and as well as a macro-analysis at an urban level and subsequent scale detailing of the aforementioned process. Thus, we shifted from an information distribution centric set of functions to a leisure-oriented setup which would favour not only the spread of data, but would actually become an place for the creation of new information through informal social mechanics.

The project evolved into two systems which cater to two different requirements: the areas which required adaption are empowered by a flexible system of interlocking umbrellas which can fold and unfold individually and comprise energy harvesting systems such as greywater extraction and photovoltaics, based on locally sensed conditions; the areas which emerged as having no need for physical adaption are hosted inside a cracked landscape with punctuated apertures whose geometry result from the ventilation and lighting conditions required by the program underneath. Videos by Patrick Bedarf:



By thus splitting the process into two individual parts, we were able to maintain the local topological qualities of the site while at the same time we enhanced them without disrupting the existing local circulation flows and visual parameters.

Definition file (.ghx).

Referenced assembly (.dll).

Please note that the referenced assembly is based entirely on code from luvtechno.net.

We started out on this by analyzing the area and its surroundings from the point of view of circulation (more on how we did this). How would people move around? The conclusions from this study where integrated later on in the project.

Next we took on the task of (re)creating the landscape – modify the terrain in a functional yet unobtrusive way. Formal concepts revolved around radiolaria, foam, water, waves etc. Luckily we had a working circle packing applet in processing ready (which was used for this). From here on, it was quite straightforward: expand the circles to smooth spherical caps and smartly transform them into urban furniture.

The interstitial space that remained between the”bubbles” is packed with wood alongside the routes we discovered to be ideal using the circulation study. The rest is English lawn pure green smartly-cut grass.

This project is a collaboration between Veronica and me.

Tools we used include:
Processing was VERY important early on in the design process – we used it for the circulation study as well as for the early circle packing experiments (size, density, spread etc).

Rhino and RhinoScript: RhinoScript is great – we used it extensively (create spherical caps based on the generating circle’s radius, expand circles, contract circles, import circles which the processing applet generated, etc.). Rhino was used for everything else – 3D modelling and, of course, making valid STL files for the 3D printer and also exporting the right things for the laser printer.

Laser cutting was done here (as always).

3D wax models were kindly made for us by mazarom (at the moment the only 3D printing service in Bucharest). If you need a complicated model, don’t hesitate to contact them!

Plotting the final presentation was done at studio spot. They don’t have a webiste…

Using processing to make a circulation study in a public area. It’s for the current school project. More details later.

I’ve used Shiffman‘s boids sketch as a start, and gradually started building up with some attractors, Point Obstacles (which are attractors with negative pull basically), and Linear Obstacles (which were a little bit tricky, but this helped out a lot). Also very inspirational were kokkugia‘s experiments.

When it’s nice and propper, I will  add some details and upload the code/sketch.