Kamaoglu, Melih; (2025) Evolution and Computation in Architecture: A Critique of Bio-Digital Design. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Throughout history, nature has been a model for architects by offering diverse forms of intelligence, creativity, and problem-solving. There has been a profound interrelationship between how humans interpret nature and design buildings. Philosophers and scientists once regarded all living creatures as static, unchanging, and non-transformable beings. Following the revolutionary work of Charles Darwin, living organisms began to be understood as changing, evolving, and developing dynamic entities. After considerable debate and objection among scientists, the theory of evolution was eventually accepted as the interpretive foundation of biology. Over time, the principles underlying evolutionary mechanisms have been explained at various levels, from genetic codes to organisms and their environments. This understanding has made it possible to simulate the logic of evolution in digital environments and to use physical evolutionary processes directly as computational agents. Since the early 1990s, architects have increasingly incorporated evolution into design theories and methodologies through various computational procedures. Although there are studies that focus on the technical aspects and pragmatic applications of computational evolutionary tools in architectural design, there is still limited research on the historical and theoretical foundations of this discourse. The design arguments regarding the relationship between computation and nature, while utilising evolutionary processes in design procedures, have been barely subjected to critical review through the theoretical limits and operative principles of various types of computation. This doctoral research aims to fill this gap by instrumentalising the theory of computation to critically review the penetration of evolutionary processes into architecture theories and practices since the beginning of the 1990s. The research proposes an intellectual framework to understand and conceptualise various integrations of evolutionary processes into architectural design through computation, by shedding light on their limitations, shortcomings, and potentials.

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