GH_chapter_01.txt
Chapter_1_Algorithmic Modelling
Chapter_1_Algorithmic Modelling
If we look at architecture as an object represented in the space, we always deal with geometry and abit of math to understand and design this object.
In the History of architecture, different architectural styles have presented multiple types of geometry and logic of articulation and each period have found a way to deal with its geometrical problems and questions.
Since computers started to help architects, simulate the space and geometrical articulations,
it became an integral tool in the design process.
Computational Geometry became an interesting subject to study and combination of programming algorithms with geometry yielded algorithmic geometries known as Generative Algorithm.
Although 3D softwares helped to simulate almost any space visualized,
it is the Generative Algorithm notion that brings the current possibilities of design,
like ‘parametric design’ in the realm of architecture.
Architects started to use free form curves and surfaces to design and investigate spaces beyond the limitations of the conventional geometries of the “Euclidian space”.
It was the combination of Architecture and Digital that brought ‘Blobs’ on the table and then push it further.
Although the progress of the computation is extremely fast,
architecture has been tried to keep track with this digital fast pace progress.
Contemporary architecture after the age of “Blob” seems to be even more complex.
Architectural design is being affected by the potentials of algorithmic computational geometries with multiple hierarchies and high level of complexity.
Designing and modelling free‐form surfaces and curves as building elements which are associated with different components
and have multiple patterns is notan easy job to do with traditional methods.
This is the time of algorithms and scripts which areforward pushing the limits.
It is obvious that even to think about a complex geometry,
we need appropriate tools, especially softwares, which are capable of simulating these geometries and controlling their properties.
As the result architects feel interested to use Swarms or Cellular Automata or Genetic Algorithms to
generate algorithmic designs and go beyond the current pallet of available forms and spaces.
The horizon is a full catalogue of complexity and multiplicity that combines creativity and ambition together.
Fig.1.1. Parametric Modelling for Evolutionary Computation and Genetic Algorithm,
Mohamad khabazi, Emergence Seminar, AA, conducted by Michael Weinstock, fall 2008.
A step even forward, now embedding the properties of material systems in design algorithms seemsto be more possible in this parametric notion.
Looking forward material effects and their responsesto the hosting environment in the design phase,
now the inherent potentials of the components and systems should be applied to the parametric models of the design.
So not only these generative algorithms does not dealing only with form generation,
but also there is a great potential to embed the logic of material systems in them.
“The underlying logic of the parametric design can be instrumentalised here as an alternative design method,
one in which the geometric rigour of parametric modelling can be deployed first to integrate manufacturing
constraints, assembly logics and material characteristics in the definition of simple components,
and then to proliferate the components into larger systems and assemblies.
This approach employs the exploration of parametric variables to understand the behaviour of such a system and then uses this understanding to strategise the system’s response to environmental conditions and external forces” (Hensel, Menges, 2008).
To work with the complex objects, usually a design process starts from a very simple first level and then other layers being added to it;
complex forms are comprised of different hierarchies, each associated with its logics and details.
These levels are also interconnected and their members affect each other and in that sense this method called ‘Associative’.
Generally speaking, Associative modelling relates to a method in which elements of design being built gradually in multiple hierarchies and at each level,
some parameters of these elements being extracted to be the generator for other elements in the next level and this goes on,
step by step to produce the whole geometry.
So basically the end point of one curve could be the center point of another circle and any change in the curve would change the circle accordingly. Basically this method of design deals with the huge amount of data and calculations and runs through the flow of algorithms.
Instead of drawing objects, Generative Algorithmic modelling usually starts with numbers,
mathematics and calculations as the base data to generate objects.
Even starting with objects, it extracts parametric data of that object to move on.
Any object of design has infinite positions inside,
and these positions could be used as the base data for the next step and provide more possibilitiesto grow the design.
The process called ‘Algorithmic’ because of this possibility that each object in the algorithm generated by previously prepared data as input and has output for other steps of the algorithm as well.
The point is that all these geometries are easily adjustable after the process.
The designer always has access to the elements of the design product from the start point up to details.
Actually, since the design product is the result of an algorithm,
the inputs of the algorithm could be changed and the result would also be updated accordingly.
In conventional methods we used to modify models and designs on paper and model the final product digitally,
to avoid changes which was so time‐ consuming.
Any change in the design affected the other geometries and it was dreadful to fix the problems occurred to the other elements connected
with the changed element and all those items should be re‐adjusted, re‐scaled, and re‐orientated if not happened to re‐draw.
It is now possible to digitally sketch the model and generate hundreds of variations of the project by adjusting some very basic geometrical parameters.
It is now possible to embed the properties of material systems,
Fabrication constraints and assembly logics in parameters.
It is now even possible to respond to the environment and be associative in larger sense.
“… Parametric design enables the recognition of patterns of geometric behaviour and related performative capacities and tendencies of the system.
In continued feedback with the external environment,
these behavioural tendencies can then inform the ontogenetic development of one specific system through the parametric differentiation of its sub‐locations” (Hensel, Menges, 2008).
Fig.1.2. A. form‐finding in membranes and minimal surfaces, physical model,
B. membrane’s movement modelled with Grasshopper, Mohamad Khabazi, EmTech Core‐Studio,
AA, Conducted by Michael Hensel and Achim Menges, fall 2008.
Grasshopper is a platform in Rhino to deal with this Generative Algorithms and Associative modelling.
The following chapters are designed in order to combine geometrical subjects with algorithms and to address some design issues in architecture in an ‘Algorithmic’method. |
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