Emergent Bus Shelter

Founded in 1999 by Tom Wiscombe, Emergent Architecture is a studio dedicated to researching issues of globalism, technology, and materiality through built form. Their approach is informed by contemporary models of biology and business rather than by the arts. Similar to a complex adaptive system in nature (CAS), this urban shelter system consists of a set of component parts which interact in a way to produce emergent effects, in this case, structural effects. The system is defined by a branching algorithm, where members grow according to a rule system governing extrusion length and angle. At night, the glass structures glow internally, creating a pattern of changing light and color across the city.