How bugs build

I have a feature in New Scientist on insect architecture and what we can learn from it, pegged to a very interesting conference that took place in Venice last September. My feature started its life at nigh on twice the length (as many sadly do), and looked at some of the algorithmic architecture discussed at the workshop. I’m going to put a pdf of this long version on my website shortly (it’ll be under the ‘Patterns’ papers).

There's a book in the pipeline from the conference participants (and others), probably to be called Collective Architecture. This lovely image, by the way – a plaster cast of the labyrinth inside a termite nest – was taken by Rupert Soar, mentioned in the article.