Collective ecology is an investigation focused on addressing the intensifying metabolic demands of growing urban populations by approaching the city as a dynamic complex system. It places emphasis on the feedbacks and critical thresholds of its ecological processes, climatic conditions and cultural modalities to drive the emergence of novel morphologies, social organizations and metabolic processes within a larger collective system.

Nicolas Cabargas
Andrew Haas
Miguel Rus

East west pedestrian streets demonstrate high levels of solar exposure, limiting their widths to expand. North-south pedestrian streets however are able to increase, while still providing sufficient shading conditions. An algorithm evaluates street orientation within the network and adjusts their widths accordingly to better accommodate or discourage solar access. These changes allow for both increased public space and better environmental conditions throughout the entire urban system.

Nicolas Cabargas
Andrew Haas
Miguel Rus

Through investigating the necessary requirements of localised natural water treatment processes throughout the system, several implementation methodologies will explore the potential viability of the system.
Exploring the relationships between built area and constructed wetlands will develop an understanding of the
impacts natural water treatment systems have at ground level and within buildings as they expand vertically.

Nicolas Cabargas
Andrew Haas
Miguel Rus

The logic of constructed wetland integration within the building is further explored through a systematic approach to their organisation. Utilisation of cellular automaton will establish ratios between built (households units) and unbuilt (wetland units) cells through rules for patterning their aggregation.

Nicolas Cabargas
Andrew Haas
Miguel Rus

To better analyse the dispersal of buildings throughout the spectrum of results, graphs were developed, each representing an initial start state for the cellular automaton. Within each graph of an initial state, the resulting buildings created from each of the cellular automata rules were plotted. Analysis of the solar conditions demonstrated high levels of exposure for wetlands located on the southern portions of the building, with early no direct sunlight exposure within areas on the northern end.

Nicolas Cabargas
Andrew Haas
Miguel Rus

These case studies, as both single and double story buildings, demonstrate the importance building placement and enclosure has in damping average sunlight hours on courtyard surfaces. This varying level of solar exposure, however, offers the opportunity to explore further the placement of plant species dependent on their ability to handling sunlight. These results will help inform organizational strategies and building geometries within further experiments for the development of an urban system.

Nicolas Cabargas
Andrew Haas
Miguel Rus

The growth strategy begins with the placement of a cell on the site from which to start from. Its cell type is randomly chosen and additional cells begin to connect based on preferential attachment rules. This procedure disperses population densities based levels found in surrounding neighbours, allowing for a gradual transition between areas of low and high density. The probability of the selection of a cell type for placement on the site is controlled through a weighted probability algorithm, adjusting the ratios between cell types on the site in order to achieve an overall desired population level.

Nicolas Cabargas
Andrew Haas
Miguel Rus

These public wetlands are usable parks that also act as water puri cation systems for neighbouring built morphologies. Therefore, their incorporation within the urban system should be within the most integrated parts
of the site to minimise water  ow distances throughout the system.

From this connected network, betweenness centrality is applied to identify the most integrated and traversed nodes within the site.

Nicolas Cabargas
Andrew Haas
Miguel Rus

Results from the tests showed that the arrangement of different sizes of geometries not only had better influence on the flow of water but also had less pressure exerted on the geometries in the last row. The impact of the water was dramatically reduced by smaller geometries in the front row. This kind of aggregation system not only allows for differentiation between sizes but also gives the possibility of treating geometries differently due to pressure distribution.

Mehnaj Tabassum
Viral Doshi

The initial geometry was derived through solely looking at the environmental pressures that exist on site, in terms of both wind and water. In order to implement this form as a replacement strategy for existing villages, programmatic social drivers needed to be established. The most necessary building types were looked at, to result in the programmes of breakwater, housing, rainwater collector and a public building. Within this narrow range of types, differential weighting was placed on three factors: the external environment, internal usage and function.

Mehnaj Tabassum
Viral Doshi

The typologies were developed in accordance with the material system and each typology was checked for its curvature. Thus the generation of typology not only depended on programmatic and environmental drivers but equal weight was also given to the material limitation.

Mehnaj Tabassum
Viral Doshi

Once the cluster relationship has been determined, such that every housing point as access to fresh water supply, relaxation as a process was undertaken. This process was to ensure the distance between housing points and freshwater supply points was maintained a certain distance to allow for access in flooded situations. The minimum distance was established based on the size of the typologies and the maximum distance was based on a comfortable distance to travel in a harsh climatic condition.

RC-Rainwater Typology

Mehnaj Tabassum
Viral Doshi

The selected branching distribution was modified considering the programme distribution and the organisation of the clusters. By establishing a water network for movement of water during the seasonal flooding phase, it was possible to capture certain amount of water which could be used for both agriculture and aquaculture purpose.

Mehnaj Tabassum
Viral Doshi

Network disruption is one of the biggest arising out of inundation phase of the flooding. One of the reasons for failure of current cyclone shelters is because of network disruption. In order to deal with the issue of network disruption during the inundation phase, two modes of connectivity were imagined for two levels of flood.

Mehnaj Tabassum
Viral Doshi

The aim of the process is to create three typologies of blocks with different quality and density attributes. A number of test generations are experimented to calibrate the system to yield typologies that are considerably different. To achieve this, differential weighting is applied to the parameters in order to generate three different typologies

Yunfu Yi
Abhinav Champaneri

The aim of this experiment is to understand and analyse the effect on the quality criteria of semi-public spaces when the blocks are imposed with non-uniform scaling. All the criteria are considered, however the open space ratio, enclosure factor and floor area ratio are not affected by this operation.

Yunfu Yi
Abhinav Champaneri

The generation system is based on flexibility to select blocks and arrange them synchronously with the given rule set. An evolutionary solver is introduced to evaluate the condition of adjacent facades. The diagram demonstrates four blocks that needs to be aggregated. These operations are aimed at improving spatial quality by maintaining the sky view factor of each semi-public space so that the impact on overall quality during aggregation is minimum.

Yunfu Yi
Abhinav Champaneri

Clusters in the catalogue contain variation in density, quality with well distributed semi-public spaces at elevated levels within them. The modified clusters have a population varying from 500 people/ ha in cluster 1 to 1000 people/ha in cluster 3. These clusters form a design catalogue with variable density and quality configurations that can be aggregated to develop a larger urban scenario.

Yunfu Yi
Abhinav Champaneri

The process of cluster generation was able to achieve an evolutionary urban morphology consisting of varied streetscapes that provide different spatial experiences and shaded pocket spaces.
The sectional study enforces this point where similar blocks were able to generate variety of spaces, it also showed a very even distribution of semi-public spaces within the built form. The elevated network was not only able to integrate the semi-public spaces but was also able to make the spaces more accessible. The generated catalogue consisting of clusters that show noticeable variation in spaces, density and quality can be used for designing of urban patches with different requirements.

Yunfu Yi
Abhinav Champaneri

The block reorganisation takes into account the generic aspects as well as those specific to Mumbai. To aid the process connectivity analysis is carried out in the aggregated geometry. The possible route systems are analysed on these patterns using the logics mentioned above. The blocks are consequently rearranged to derive a simplified and minimalistic version of the network system which encompasses the properties mentioned as the design ambition. The primary routes form a direct connectivity to the existing road systems and lead into the central core. The local level public spaces connect to primary or secondary routes through tertiary routes and the informal ground network system is made part of the main network.

Yunfu Yi
Abhinav Champaneri

The attempt focuses on the development of an evolutionary urban design model, which accommodates demographic pressures of density while retaining its spatial identity based on former settlements. Organizational aspects like spatial hierarchy and open space distribution are referenced from the local settings to be embedded into the new urban morphology.

Yunfu Yi
Abhinav Champaneri

Synchronicity addresses the phenomenon of decline in spatial attributes in developing countries due to rapid urbanisation. The ambition is to establish a design system that reinterprets spatial logics and spatial identity associated with socio-cultural life into quantifiable parameters, and incorporates them with high density urban development. This would not only add social relevance but also create location specific architectural identity.

Yunfu Yi
Abhinav Champaneri