The Anthropomorphism of Intelligence

Abstract

T A D 5 : 2 E D IT O R IA L The call for papers for this issue embraced the broad nature of intelligence, its multiple frameworks and its impact on fabrication, representation, and construction. The breadth of Intelligence was confirmed by the range of papers received, several of them examining systems that deal with the intersection of humans and machines, in physical and virtual realities. Research involving conventional and machine learning shared in this issue represents the interplay of intelligence with architecture and design throughout the design process into post occupancy. The essays display a shared interest in the potential of digital operations and intelligent systems—aiming at improving, understanding, and creating better environments. The enumeration of terms, such as intelligent buildings and cities, smart materials, and autonomous agents is a direct projection of human anthropomorphic tendencies into our actions and outputs. Human perception, awareness, use patterns, and their feedback loop back into the built environment, personifying and individualizing systems. This issue of INTELLIGENCE is reflective of these tendencies and this dichotomy. The work demonstrates that our tools, technologies, and, ultimately, the environment we design, become a responsive and autonomous partner in our lives. This is evident in the contribution by Jeffrey Huang, Mikhael Johanes, Frederick Chando Kim, Christina Doumpioti, and GeorgChristoph Holz, connecting machine learning creativity (generative adversarial networks— GAN) with human verbal narration utilizing natural language processing (NLP). These authors go beyond data analysis and synthesize these generative qualities into computer-based creativity. This partnership is particularly encouraging since it not only provides opportunity for cultural contextualization of GANs but also enables, perhaps, the most human characteristic—creativity—into a broader spectrum of the physical matter. A similar conceptual interest in humans interfacing with the built environment is present in Eugene Han’s research integrating eye tracking with visual simultaneous localization and mapping (VSLAM) techniques to capture and understand an individual’s gaze within spatial environments at various scales. The presented framework not only transforms the established approach from screen-base to spatial analysis but also allows for less scripted and more spontaneous explorations of environments without predefined boundaries. Designing with humans in mind, particularly those more vulnerable, is the focus of the contribution by Yomna El-Ghazouly and Ahmed El Antably. The framework proposed by the authors utilizes digital human models (DHMs) to validate and design spaces that consider individual human characteristics including disabilities. This method demonstrates the promise of moving beyond often generalized ADA requirements and designs to create spaces that fit individual situations. Material-based research by Vasiliki Fragkia, Isak Worre Foged, and Anke Pasold combines computer vision (CV), machine learning, and predictive (data-driven) fabrication of behaviorallyand geometrically-complex natural materials with graded properties. Using algae and wood case studies, the research demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed predictive information modeling (PIM) framework in addressing material awareness and uncertainty, multi-scale data integration, and cyclical fabrication workflows. An affordance-based design evaluation process is used by Fauzan Alfi Agirachman and Michihiko Shinozaki, who compare the evaluation of design studio projects through a combination of affordances and virtual reality (VR) tools to assessment through nonvirtual reality (NVR) media. The findings document the important role the selection of media plays in how affordances are perceived, suggesting strengths and weaknesses that can inform future evaluation frameworks. Research around intelligence—artificial and human—discussed in this INTELLIGENCE issue revolves around dynamic processes; it questions established design approaches and combines work in progress with promises of more results in the near future. Pushing the boundaries of evaluation and prediction, work addressing intelligence might be naturally prone to involving anthropomorphism in search of deep and productive relationships with our places and technology. The Anthropomorphism of Intelligence