Presentation November 2008 on Systems Architecture, the methodological and conceptual background to Living Architecture & Protocell Architecture

1. Systems Architecture Dr Rachel Armstrong Teaching Fellow, AVATAR Research Group, The Bartlett School of Architecture

19. Universe as information

20. “ Life is a fundamental property of the universe” Christian De Deuve

21. “ Chemistry has this computational nature embedded In it, which it inherited from the underlying computation That’s going on in quantum mechanics in general.” Seth Lloyd

22. "... the Anthropic Principle says that the seemingly arbitrary and unrelated constants in physics have one strange thing in common, these are precisely the values you need if you want to have a universe capable of producing life.” Patrick Glynn

32. Origin, Daniel Lee

41. Experimentation that indulges in the messiness And ambiguity of everyday life …Archigram

57. Artificial Life Form, Karl Sims

65. Bacteria

66. Bacteria can be thought of as a super-organism According to James Shapiro and Martin Dworkin

67. Powerful inter-cellular communications systems

68. Bacterial behaviour is coordinated

69. Billions of organisms can mobilize to a food source

70. Quorum sensing and easy genetic programming exploited for the purposes of Bacterial Computing

75. Slime Mould

76. “ In the Dallas suburb of Garland, an Unidentified Growing Object [big as a platter, foamy and creamy and pale yellow] terrorized Mrs Marie Harris’ back yard for three weeks until it died of sunstroke and nicotine poisoning.” Newsweek, June 11, 1973

77. Can move at speeds of up to 2cms per hour

78. Saprophytic, feed on decaying matter and bacteria

79. In poor conditions they form spores

81. Green Algae

82. Bryopsis, is made of a single giant cell of up to 30 cms

83. ‘ Dustbin’ metabolism, can assimilate nano-particles

86. Harlequin Tissue Culture Residency at SymbioticA

97. Protocells Photograph courtesy of Martin Hanczyc

98. Spontaneous self organization Photograph courtesy of Martin Hanczyc

99. Morphological simplicity but hugely complex chemistry consisting of numerous phases Photograph courtesy of Martin Hanczyc

100. Capable of complex behaviour, movement and primitive sensation Photograph courtesy of Martin Hanczyc

101. Giant protocells can divide to produce inert daughter cells Photograph courtesy of Martin Hanczyc

130. Spillerian Perspective “ Cell biology is the new cyberspace and nanotechnology. Once we fully understand the exact nature of how our world makes us and, indeed, how it sometimes kills us, we will be able to make true architectures of ecological connectability.” Spiller’s Bits: Complex Systems Architecture, 2008