Versus Habitat:Multi-agent spatial negotiation for topology-aware, large scale architectural assemblages

With the burst of automation in the AEC industry, modular design for collective living is having a reissue; as for industrial construction in the post WW2 era, the economies of a construction system trigger urban models, but an exploration of non-standard spatial models based on computational methods is still lacking. This research proposes a competition-based process for the design of large scale (urban) collective habitats as topology-aware architectural assemblages of spatial (as in including constructive elements + void) components. Two competing multi-agent systems negotiate spatial occupancy, leveraging the morphological computation capabilities of individual and combined components at increasing scales. Localized information stored in the environment by the agents is converted in architectural components, resulting in a multilevel spatial organization that transcends typical typological classification. Space syntax techniques are used to map the assemblage properties and support design inferences on spatial occupation such as potentially implementable functional programmes.