“This hybrid use tower located between Melbourne’s docklands and the city, questions contemporary digital form making through the creation of an evolutionary methodology for design. The process operates directly on form, the first part generative and a second, morphological. The “starting topologies” are grown from a custom made program called skyScratcher, which necessarily fulfils the programmatic requirements of each building type. Whilst growing, these entities are programmed with desires – Commercial space is attracted to the city side of the building, and hotel and apartment spaces are attracted to optimal views. Their topological complexity is controlled by the speed at which the system grows as well as the strength of their individual cohesion. These “starting topologies” are then inserted into minimal surface energy optimisation software to negotiate their final positions and forms – an ecology of micro interactions produce the macro outcomes, which cannot be drawn or modelled in a conventional way. In this way of making, form is understood as having certain relationships and characteristics but is never explicitly described geometrically. This process offers a way of digitally crafting form through the characteristics, properties and energies of surface; as such surface becomes loaded with ‘intent’. This offers a significant departure from contemporary digital architectural form making, which typically avoids directly operating on form in favour of emergent pattern making. ”

Highly Evolved, 2004, Kokkugia