phase(x)3 is an explicitly designed collaborative process currently taking place. It involves a large group of architecture students who form a collective authorship. They interact and communicate through the exchange and the mutual reinterpretation of their 3D digital models.

In phase(x)3 the results of one design step and one author are taken as the starting point for the work in the next step by a different author. As authors can choose which model they want to work with, the whole body of works can be viewed as in an evolutionary system where only the fittest works survive.

phase(x)3 can explicitly replace single authorship with collective authorship, because all relations between works, authors and timeline are recorded in a database. This can be visualized and evaluated. phase(x)3 thus implies a new cultural model of distributed credits and copyrights,a precondition for the networked society.

phase(x)3 started in April 1999 as the last of a series of prototypes dealing with these issues. In phase(x)3, the use of dynamic visualisation of the process has been extended (see figure displaying different states of the outworld applet). The dynamic of the ongoing process can be viewed in different ways to reveal hidden aspects of the system’s growth.