Neil Leach, “Swarm Urbanism,” Architectural Design 79, issue 4 (2009), pp. 56-63.
Neil Leach applies the concept of swarm theory to urbanism in search of a future computational method
Neil Leach, “Swarm Urbanism,” Architectural Design 79, issue 4 (2009), pp. 56-63.
Neil Leach applies the concept of swarm theory to urbanism in search of a future computational method that may act predictively according to the dynamic urban system. Leach, a prolific theorist in the realm of computation, formats this article as a review of theories on urban behavior that may contribute to a new digital modeling system.
Significant to the discussion on swarm theory is the concept of emergence. In accordance with Steven Johnson’s Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Cities, and Software, Leach offers a definition as it relates to the city:
The city operates as a dynamic, adaptive system, based on interactions with neighbors, informal feedback loops, pattern recognition, and indirect control... Like any other population composed of a large number of smaller discrete elements, such as colonies of ants, flocks of birds, networks of neurons or even the global economy, it displays a bottom-up collective intelligence tha