In the 1950s and 1960s, a group of architects found themselves confronted with increasingly complex design problems. The development of modern science and the advent of the information age allowed architecture to use the tools and concepts of computer and information science to solve problems and to construct a design 'methodology'. In my opinion, Negroponte's approach is more instructive because he clearly identifies himself as an 'anti-architect'.
He uses cybernetics as a basis for what he considers to be a more workable design methodology.
Performing a purposeful act, such as picking up a book on the table, is not a simple one-way process in which neurons in the brain send instructions to muscles that must act in order to achieve the desired goal. In contrast, in any 'system' (a combination of components that work together to perform a specific goal), at each stage, information is fed back to the central nervous system to initiate the next action known as the 'state of system' . This process continues until the initial desired goal is reached. This feature is associated with both biological and some man-made machines and is known as 'feedback'.
When I say that any system is in control, I mean that it is ultra-stable: capable of adapting smoothly to unpredicted changes. It has within its structure a proper deployment of requisite variety--Stafford Beer
The concept of "cybernetics" was created by Norbert Wiener for the study of control and communication systems. Cybernetics and feedback are integrated concepts in the sense that we can conclude that any given system with the ability to generate and study constant feedback is using cybernetics methods to enable it to adapt to unpredictable change.
The budding concept of interactive art began with the artist's goal of sharing their former position of authority not only with the viewer, but also with the machine.
Marcell Duchamp's Rotary Glass Plates of the 1920s were the first step towards interactive art.19
In the 1970s, Nickolas Negroponte spoke of aspects of the designer-machine dialogue that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the fields of architecture and urbanism and several of its by-products, such as: 'flexible' , 'adaptive', 'reactive', 'responsive' and "manipulative" [architectural style or approach]. His project 'SEEK' is a manifesto exhibition/installation that pioneers the concept of digital assemblage in architecture. He considers the boundaries between two types of interaction; one passive and 'manipulative', i.e. 'moved as opposed to move', and the other The other is responsive, where the environment plays an active role in the computational process. Negroponte went far beyond the simple feedback loops found in traditional control systems. His responsive architecture moves in the direction of artificial intelligence, as it has intentional and contextualised cognition and the ability to dynamically change its goals.
"Seek", 1970 by Nicholas Negroponte with the Architecture Machine Group , M.I.T.
Experiments like this remind me if humans living in this city are as full of uncontrollable elements as these gerbils? Does this mean that humans disrupt existing conditions in terms of urban design and thus need a regulatory mechanism to deal with human behaviour?
The uncertainty of humans (or some kind of creature) is amplified through this experiment, which seems to me to be a kind of shock to the theory of the computer world. This experiment in my view throws up a question - can machines serve humans better? Can machines take on the duties of humans, the work of architects?
In his book Soft Architecture Machines, Negroponte proposes a model of architecture without an architect. He argues that architecture machines go beyond some aids in the design of buildings. Instead, in his view, they are architecture in their own right. Intelligent machines or cognitive physical environments that respond to the immediate needs and desires of their inhabitants.
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