While reading the “In the Library of Form” chapter from “Out of Control” my curiosity level rose too high that I had to stop reading and switch to Google to find one of these evolutionary art programs, and starting my own search through Borges library of shapes. I downloaded Andrew Rowbottom’s program “Form”, which is rather old (required PC is 386 with 2MB of RAM), but easy to use and works well. After a few hours of search through the universe of shapes, I wanted to share with you one of my “greatest” findings: a multi-storey version of Montreal’s casino, evolved out of these useless shapes. Maybe I should submit my model to loto-quebec… they’ve been talking about expending the casino for a while :).
From: 
To: 
And if they ask for the details of the blueprint it is simple as that:
// MTL’s multi-story casino blueprint
a_spine=box < -87.0838 , -680.583 , 892.81 > stack -39.4158 in 1.6423% grow -581.552 twist -32767;
tweeny_bit = sphere ( 409.017 ) stack -36.4661;
tweeny_bit & [a_spine] stack -628.25 in 20.5538% twist -2123.08;
end;
Ok enough playing… now it’s time to get back to the reading…
That’s cool. It would be interesting to be able to input the blueprints of existing structures into a system and have the system generate an “evolved” design. In other words, ask the computer what should come next, based on what’s already there. This principle could be applied to many other things too, not just buildings.