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Melih Kamaoğlu

Image by Melih Kamaoglu
Research

Subject 

The idea of evolution in digital architecture: A critique of bio-digital design 

First and second supervisors

Abstract

Throughout history, nature has proved to be a model for architects by demonstrating various types of intelligence, creativity, and solution. For this reason, there has been a thorough interrelationship between how humans make sense of nature and design buildings. Philosophers and scientists generally considered all living creatures static, unchanging and non-transformable beings. After Charles Darwin's revolutionary work, living organisms have started to be comprehended as changing, evolving, and developing dynamic entities. Evolution theory has been accepted as the interpretive power of biology after several discussions and objections among scientists. In time, the working principles of evolutionary mechanisms have begun to be explained from genetic code to organism and environmental level. Afterwards, simulating nature's evolutionary logic in the digital interface has become achievable with computational systems' advancements. Ultimately, architects have begun to utilise the idea of evolution in design theories and methodologies through computational procedures since the beginning of the 1990s.  

Although there are studies about technical information and pragmatic utilisation of computational evolutionary tools in architectural design, there is still little research on the historical, theoretical and philosophical foundations of the discourse, reflecting on the critical role of computation as an interface between evolution and architectural design. The design arguments of architects regarding the relationship between computation and nature while utilising evolutionary processes in design procedures have been barely subjected to critical review through theoretical limits and operative principles of various computation types. This doctoral research aims to fill this gap by instrumentalising the philosophy and theory of computation for the critical review of the penetration of evolutionary processes in digital 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. 

Biography

Melih Kamaoğlu is an architectural theorist and historian. He is pursuing his PhD in Architecture and Digital Theory at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. His primary research interests are architectural theory/history, computation theory, evolution theory and philosophy of nature. His doctoral research is funded by the Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Education. 

Melih received his BArch in 2017 and MArch in 2020 from Karadeniz Technical University. He was a visiting researcher at Yale University between September and December 2023. He worked as a research and teaching assistant at Eskişehir Technical University between 2018 and 2020, where he was a tutor for undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including Basic Design, Introduction to Architectural Design, and Architectural Design Studio. He also has worked as a Senior Postgraduate Teaching Assistant at Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) since 2021.  

Publications

Funding

Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Education 

Image: The idea of evolution in digital architecture at the intersection of evolution theory and computation (Melih Kamaoğlu)