#architecture machine

Nicholas Negroponte with the Architecture Machine Group, Seek, (1969-1970)

 Negroponte’s piece consisted of a Plexiglass encased, computer-controlled  environment full of small blocks and inhabited by gerbils, who continuously changed the position of the blocks. Following instructions programmed by Negroponte the robotic arm automatically rearranged the blocks in a specific pattern.  Once the arrangement was disrupted, a computer-controlled robotic arm rebuilt the block configurations in a manner its programmers believed followed the gerbil's objectives. The designers, however, did not successfully anticipate the reactions of the animals, who often outwitted the computer and created total disarray. The exhibit was also referred to as "Blocksworld".

   (The following is from “Life in a Computerized Environment”, Electronics Australia, September 1972)

 Can a computer be programmed to respond intelligently to unexpected events? A toy-block "city" was the stage for an experimental contest between a simple computer system named SEEK and a small colony of gerbils. The computer's instructions were to keep the "city" in order, but the playful gerbils would not co-operate.
The experiment was set up as a New York art museum exhibit concerned with the interaction between people and machines by the Architecture Machine Group of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The group is working on computer systems which can aid architects in solving design problems; not just to solve engineering problems, but to interact with the architect and discuss urban design problems with him.
The computerized environment exhibit was an attempt at showing the problems encountered when living things, such as the gerbils in this case, interact with a machine which is an integral part of their environment. Gerbils are small, furry, mouse-like animals often kept as house pets. They are very active and jump around like small kangaroos.
The gerbils were placed in a large glass cage in which was a 3-dimensional "city" built from metal toy blocks. Ranging over the cage was the sensing and manipulating arm of the computer.
Within the computer's core memory was a 3-dimensional plan for the environment in which the animals were living, and it was charged with the responsibility of keeping the original plan intact if possible. But its most important role was to sense and manage unexpected events in that environment under the control of its program. It could stack, align and sort the metal blocks with the aid of a small electromagnet and seven pressure-sensing inputs at the end of its roving arm.
Unknown to SEEK, the little animals were continually bumping into blocks, disrupting constructions and toppling towers. The result was a continually changing mismatch between 3-dimensional reality and the model residing in the core memory of the computer. SEEK's role was to deal with these inconsistencies.
In the process, SEEK did show inklings of responsive behavior because its reactions were based on probabilities and it was programmed to either correct or amplify (not both) the dislocations caused by the gerbils.
What's the point of all this? Admittedly SEEK is trivial and simple, but it does go beyond the current situation where machines cannot respond to the unpredictable nature of people (or animals). The Architecture Machine Group, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, is seriously trying to bring urban design back the ordinary man. They believe that if they can design a computer system which can communicate with an architect untrained in computer programming, they can eventually create a system which can perhaps make every man his own architect. They have already achieved a major advance with a system named URBAN, which converses with architects about urban design problems using basic 10ft cubes as building blocks. Each person who uses the system builds up a memory bank of his own vocabulary and definitions of the words he uses in his particular field of architecture.
Each operator starts completely untrained in the operation of the system, which teaches the operator as it learns his vocabulary.
The group believes that, as homes become wired for video phones and computer terminals, the individual will be able to "chat" with the architecture system about the design of his future home. They are experimenting with the Bell Telephone Company's PICTUREPHONE system at present because it is a good approximation of the future home computer terminal.”