Algorithmic urbanist

These were all drawn by a computer, using code by Jared Tarbell.


The above image – called Substrate – is only one stage in a long algorithmic process. The various versions morph through different, oddly city-like fractal patterns, forming boulevards, squares, medinas – and reminding me of central Fes.
A few intermediary steps:


And some square ones:


All of which leaves me to wonder if the Artificially Intelligent city of the future will constantly reprogram itself, forming new wards and clusters where there had only been streets before – only to back-track, erupting fungus-like in bursts of self-assembled geometry. Weird overlaps and elisions. Symmetrical superslums.
Alternatively, you could create a videogame that reprograms itself as it's played – forming new and unique levels, none of which ever repeats itself – and the maps you try to make... look like these.
Meanwhile, Tarbell's algorithms also produce more organic forms:


[Note: It's worth clicking on the sand dollars and scrolling down].

So if algorithms ever broke into a genetic lab – what might crawl out the next day?
Finally, there's this beautifully tangled, gravitationally avant-garde quasi-planet, like someting out of a sci-fi novelist's wet dream. An anti-earth re-seamed together forming monstrous rings and topographies:


And there's more on Tarbell's website.

(Via Drawn – with huge thanks to Brent Kissel!).