Faculty of Architecture

The following article is presented as a conceptual study of the informational dynamics demanded
by the displacement process in a collective road transport network. To make feasible, we used the
information system of São Paulo’s bus network as an example, based on the comparison of concepts and
experiences collected in the field in 2016 into the West-Center-East axis of the city. To deepen the
discussion, a brief contextualization, starting from the sanction of Federal Law 12,587/12 (National Policy
on Urban Mobility) to its consequences in the institutional scenario of São Paulo. Finally, conceptual and
contextual framework is used analytically on the navigational aspects of the São Paulo’s bus mode,
understanding the informational processes and how these are served by the current infrastructure.

A popularização de serviços com base cartográfica georreferenciada, que monitoram e colaboram com deslocamentos urbanos (LBS-Location Based Services), vem alterando as experiências urbanas, singulares e coletivas, por meio de representações cartográficas virtuais e pela exibição de trajetos em tempo real com alta eficiência. Tal fenômeno se apresenta diretamente ligado ao processo de deslocamento, que se empreende em três etapas (partida, percurso e chegada) mas que encontra seu ápice durante a movimentação, quando a pessoa entra em contato com o mundo e o relaciona com as representações virtuais. Portanto, partindo de um olhar sobre a intenção da cartografia em suas origens, da constituição técnica e informacional dos territórios digitais e apresentando uma perspectiva fenomenológica da experiência do deslocamento, intentamos discutir as relações entre a tecnologias, suas representações e a experiência de um usuário, inscrito no urbano.

In Classical Greece the design and construction of buildings were interconnected, forming a single activity. With the development of knowledge and technology, this process has fragmented, giving rise to different activities, performed by various professionals, such as the architect, the engineer and the builder, leading to problems related with information exchange between them. With the research projects Tecton and Technos, we intend to reunite these activities again, seeking to simplify the building production process. In Tecton, we propose an Immersive Virtual Reality Environment to sketch and model objects in an interactive way, using hand gestures and body postures, enabling architects to change between the viewpoint of the creator and that of the user, thereby designing buildings while experiencing them at full-scale at the same time. In the future Technos project, our vision is develop detailed 3D virtual models to serve both as supporting elements for the digital fabrication of building parts and as communications elements for the assembly and construction of buildings.

The goal of the research described in this paper is to address climate change by promoting the production of renewable energy in building envelopes, which are exposed to solar radiation. It proposes an energy-based design paradigm, where energy processes shape the building form, and a digital design system for building envelopes that considers the trajectory of sunrays. The goal is to create envelopes that are efficient in harvesting solar energy, enabling them to produce the electricity that buildings consume. To operationalize the proposed digital design system, a building envelope grammar is developed and implemented in a software called LIDIA to be used by architects in design process to generate solutions with improved energy production performance. The efficiency of the resulting solutions, the effectiveness of LIDIA and, therefore, the validity of the proposed paradigm, is demonstrated with the design of envelope solutions for single family houses.

Abstract. Traditional urban plans have defi nitive design systems, without the fl exibility required to deal with the complexity and change that characterise contemporary urban societies. To provide urban plans with increased fl exibility, it is proposed a design methodology capable of producing various design solutions instead of a specifi c defi nitive design. The methodology uses shape grammars as a process for generating urban design. In this approach, design becomes a system of solutions rather than a specifi c one.
Through the analyses of a group of urban plans, a design methodology was
sketched in which rules are used to enable more fl exibility. These plans where chosen for their perceived qualities in terms of language, planning effi ciency, and latent fl exibility. As a result, a four-phased methodology was identifi ed and thus, proposed for designing urban plans. This methodology was then combined with shape grammars and tested in a design studio setting. Students were asked to use the methodology and shape grammars as auxiliary instruments in the design of a fl exible plan for a new town. In the following year, to simulate real-world conditions and oblige students to consider urban ordering and scale, work was structured differently. First, students were asked to develop a rule-based urban plan as in the previous year. Second, they were asked to conceive a detail plan for a sector of an urban plan defi ned by another group of students following its rules.
The plans were then analysed with the goal of refi ning the methodology.
Results show that shape grammars produce urban plans with non-defi nitive formal solutions, while keeping a consistent spatial language. They also provide plans with explicit and implicit fl exibility, thereby giving future designers a wider degree of freedom. Finally, they provide students with a concrete methodology for approaching urban design and foster the development of additional designing skills.

Keywords. Shape grammars, fl exible urban design.

This paper presents a shape grammar for planned urban spaces intending an implementation for generative urban design. This implementation will form part of an urban design support tool defined to formulate, generate and evaluate urban designs. The goal is to formulate urban program descriptions according to context conditions using a description grammar and generate alternative design solutions using a shape grammar. The generation is guided by several evaluation processes performed by an evaluation module. In this paper we are focusing on the definition of the generic shape grammar using an existent urban plan as a case study. The aim is to encode the design moves of the urban designer into generic grammar rules amenable for specific instantiations through the customization of rule parameters.

Abstract. Urban planning and design have a considerable impact on the economic performance of cities and on the quality of life of the population. Efficiency at this level is hampered by the lack of integrated instruments for formulating, generating, and evaluating urban plans. This chapter describes the theoretical foundations of a research project, called City Induction, aimed at the creation of a model for the development of such an instrument, departing from existing theories, which are integrated through a discursive grammar. The proposed model is composed of three sub-models: (1) a model for formulating urban programs from the analysis and interpretation of the context, based on Alexander’s pattern language; (2) a model for generating urban plans that match the program, based on Stiny’s shape and description grammars; and (3) a model for evaluating urban plans, that can be used for analyzing, comparing and ranking alternative solutions, departing from Hillier’s space syntax. A common urban space ontology guarantees the syntactic and semantic interoperability among the three sub-models. This ontology will be used to structure and codify information into a Geographic Information System (GIS), which will be the kernel for the computer implementation of the larger model. A CAD system is used to construct 3D models from contextual information stored in the GIS. In short, following Stiny and March’s design machines concept, the goal is to create an urban design machine that is able to produce flexible urban plans at the site planning level.

Keywords: urban design, ontology, pattern language, shape grammars, space syntax, GIS, CAD

The main objective of the ongoing investigation described in this paper is to produce a Corinthian capital through generative modelling and digital prototyping, and according to Leon Battista Alberti’s treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria. This investigation is part of the Digital Alberti research project, which aims to decode Alberti’s treatise through the use of new technologies.  This treatise can be interpreted as a set of instructions regarding the art of building. The instructions related to Alberti’s column system were translated into computational models, capable of generating digital instances of column elements according to the classical canons prescribed in the treatise. These instances were then digitally produced, materializing Alberti’s theory. Despite Alberti’s thoroughness, some detailing information is missing, namely for the Corinthian capital; observation and computational geometry were important for filling in the gaps. Such investigation allows determining the suitability of different modelling strategies, as well as the potential of different prototyping technologies.  Key words: Alberti, De re aedificatoria, Corinthian capital, generative modelling, digital fabrication.

This paper presents the analysis of a bottom-up design system using shape grammars. This research is part of a larger study that proposes the development of a generic grammar to improve the quality of site development in social housing plans, including the improvement of their public spaces. We show the use of shape grammars as an analytical method to study the design of Belapur social housing development, designed by Charles Correa, in 1983.