953d2b99_al_Practice___Scope__Economics__Scale_and_Scope
[Augmentation] Intelligent Machines and Environments [Implications] It will take awhile for buildings to wake up and become intelligent but is is possible, now, to start making them smart. This cuts down on numerous redundant systems and eases the life within the structure. My Bay Area Studio project and the Chris Allen Building will explore these possibilities. [Scale and Scope] 
In The Age of the Spiritual Machine, Ray Kurzweil predicts that a $3,500 computer will be smarter than a human within 24 years. Long before this event, the world will be flooded with ubiquitous and ever smarter machines - all networked together. Every task - no matter how complex - if it can be defined - can be automated. Marvin Minsky in A society of Mind indicates how complex results can be accomplished by many simple Agents. The Internet, itself, will evolve like a life-form changing humans sense of time, place and self. Employing bio-mimicry, new materials will be created replacing the crude, heavy, fault-intolerant, expensive materials that make up todays palette. On the path to nano technology, the human built environment will become ever more biological in function and form. We will ship information and grow a building on site from local resources. By employing new materials, virtual techniques and fields, engineers and architects will gradually decompose solid architecture into something far more ephemeral than todays structures. Massive computing power will allow totally realistic simulation making possible building of fantastic complexity - their drawings totally automated.
Basic Architectural Practice - Scope, Economics
Scale and Scope