EMERGENT, an internationally recognized design office operating at the forefront of digital design since 1999. The office's work is driven by models of biology and computation as well as by contemporary design sensibilities. EMERGENT's work stands out in terms of its synthesis of form, pattern, color, and technology. In particular, EMERGENT is known for its ability to blend aesthetic and engineering issues into singular, irreducible constructions.
EMERGENT's work questions the dialectic of excess and efficiency in architecture, in favor of a more complex understanding of both through biological thinking. The cyclical process of mutation and selection in nature provides a model for making architecture which is ecological in the broadest sense of the word. This feedback logic is lived in the office through ‘messy computation’, which involves custom digital workflows designed to deal with heterogeneous inputs, anomalies, and performance criteria. Our interest is, however, not in promoting particular design techniques, but rather in the formal, spatial, and atmospheric effects produced at the back end.
EMERGENT has developed an international reputation through competitions entries, exhibitions of work at major institutions, and publications in over 250 books and magazines in 50 countries. ICON Magazine, in its May 2009 issue, named Principal Tom Wiscombe one of the “top 20 architects in the world who are making the future and transforming the way we work”.
