ABSTRACT
Designed granular materials establish a radically new paradigm in architectural design and construction: Departing from the notion that the geometry of a spatial structure can be predefined by its designer, they embark on the unknown territory of self-organizational and emergent behavior as design drivers. This shift in design thinking is embedded in the nature of these material systems: Granular materials, which are by definition consisting of large numbers of particles in loose contact, can assume both solid and liquid states. By virtue of this property, designed granular materials can be discussed with respect to self-organization as well as emergence. In a designed granular material, the particles are defined in their materiality and geometry which additionally allows affecting the behavior of the overall granular material and thus its self-organizational or emergent behavior. Projects conducted in research and teaching point the way in the deployment and exploration of these two aspects. While novel design methods of observation, interaction and approximation need to be established, the core challenge is a shift in design thinking towards an architecture of emergent enclosures which ultimately allow the spontaneous formation of spatial structures either by its inhabitants or by a computationally driven machine.
