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‘Behaviour Morphe’ light mapping projection, Karlsruhe, Germany

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) collaborated with leading digital artists and computer science researchers Andy Lomas and Mubbasir Kapadia, together with musician Max Cooper to create the ‘Behaviour Morphe’ light mapping projection for the 2017 Schlosslichtspiele Festival.

The Schlosslichtspiele Festival in Karlsruhe, Germany curates a programme of dynamic mapping projections on the 170m façade of the city’s Baroque castle.

Exploring new forms of architecture, the 2017 Schlosslichtspiele connects digital spatial concepts with the 18th century masonry of the castle to explore how living spaces can be designed in the future.

ZHA’s projection showcases the latest digital spatial simulation tools the practice applies in the comprehensive analysis and planning of its architecture, and looks further ahead to concepts of spatial design of the future.

The projection on the castle’s façade reveals its interiors as digital laboratories of human behavioural simulation, demonstrating the circulation and congregation of digital actors programmed with artificial intelligence that interact with the spaces of the castle and each other.

Dynamic new virtual spaces are defined by using real-time data to interpret the virtual actors’ interactions. These digital spaces are then explored with iterative growth systems that emulate the evolutionary process of nature, demonstrating the potential of metamorphic simulations and digital morphogenetics.

As an architectural interpretation, the projection outlines ZHA’s Computational Design (ZH CODE) research group’s work in these iterative systems of development.

Max Cooper said, “ZHA's ideas and work fit well with my musical approach, being based on human/machine boundaries, and emergence of biological forms from simulated systems of behaviour. I drew on a couple of tracks which fit the visual style and the development of the piece, which goes from a playful exploration of human interactions with an architectural space to a barrage of cellular forms and audio-visual intensity.

“I spent a lot of time working on the sound design to score each tiny event and ripple of visual processing to sync with the mapping across the front of the castle.  From my perspective, the crux of the piece is in this synchronisation, bringing the sound to life through the painstaking and in-depth simulation and generative computational approaches of the visuals.”

‘Behaviour Morphe’ video

Project Team:
Architectural Design, Curation, Design Lead: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)
ZHA Principal: Patrik Schumacher
ZHA Project Director, ZHVR Group: Helmut Kinzler
ZHA CODE Director: Shajay Bhooshan
ZHA CODE Team: Filippo Nassetti, Marko Margeta, Vishu Bhooshan, Tommaso Casucci

Morphogenetic Creations: Andy Lomas (Digital Artist and Computer Science)
Crowd Simulation and Behavioural Agents: Mubbasir Kapadia (Digital Artist and Computer Science)  with Fernando Geraci and Samuel S. Sohn
Compositing and Production: DSG (Dragos Stefan, Vlad Pascanu and Alex Stoica)

Music Soundtrack:
“Voyage Through the Analogue Womb" Written and performed by Max Cooper
Published by Manners McDade Music Publishing Ltd. Courtesy of Believe Digital.
"Behaviour Morph” Written and performed by Max Cooper
Published by Manners McDade Music Publishing Ltd.
www.maxcooper.net