SHAPE GRAMMAR IN CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURAL THEORY AND DESIGN

1995

Every architect, whose goal is to create valuable artifacts, should own a unique architectural language. This language is composed of a vocabulary and a set of grammar rules to combine them. In this study, a number of ground and first floor plans of single-family houses designed by an individual architect are analyzed. Plan lay-outs are decomposed into their components, and the composition rules are examined. Vocabulary elements, and geometric and semantic relationships among these elements are specified and a shape grammar is formed. Finally, different design possibilities are generated in terms of the defined language rules.

International Journal of Product Development, 2011

Computer-aided design systems enable the creation of digital product definitions that are widely used throughout the design process. Typically, such product definitions are created after the bulk of [shape] designing has been completed because their creation requires a detailed knowledge of the shape that is to be defined. Shape grammars have been applied in a range of domains to generate design shapes that conform to a given style early in design processes. A key challenge that restricts their implementation lies in the detection of embedded shapes, sub-shapes, which are manipulated according to shape rules to create new shapes. The automatic detection of sub-shapes is an open research question within the shape grammar community. The research reported in this paper explored the use of computer vision techniques to address this problem; the results achieved to date show real promise. An early prototype is presented and demonstrated on a designer's sketches.

This paper compares the quality of designs generated by shape grammar systems with designs created by professional architects. It describes an experiment in which evaluators rank the quality of preliminary designs for refurbishing Lisbon's Rabo-de-Bacalhau apartments, and that makes plausible that the design quality of the grammar solutions for this task is similar to that of the designs of the professional architects. It is argued that shape grammars can therefore be used as stand-alone design systems in architecture. The practical value is that shape grammar systems become alternative means to take up design challenges (such as refurbishing all of Lisbon's Rabo-de-Bacalhau apartments) that currently require too much effort of architects to be economically feasible.

Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 2015

In the past decade a certain number of studies have suggested that shape grammars and their capability for producing alternative solutions represent an adequate tool for overcoming complexities regarding urban design. In this paper we present a critical analysis of various approaches to shape grammar application in urban design. The aim of this research is to provide an insight into the current state-of-the-art developments and give a critical evaluation on the basis of the criteria of interactivity and flexibility in the approach. We identify two main concepts of grammar application in urban design and outline their characteristics. We conclude that a generic or context-independent approach to shape grammars can provide high levels of flexibility and interaction with the user. This, coupled with their ability to encode different layers of information, facilitates their use for design exploration and problem solving in an urban context.

Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, 2019

This paper correlates the use of building blocks with the shape grammar theory in the design process. The main goal is to present the potentialities of the various building blocks, which combined with Shape grammar can contribute to the creative process, particularly for the formal composition in the field of Architecture, Urbanism and Design. The methodology is based on a literature review and reflections derived from the observations of the use of the building blocks during experiments carried out in the scope of research with students of the undergraduate course in Architecture and Urbanism. Starting from the discussions proposed by George Stiny on design with Froebel's buildings gifts and from experiments with other building blocks, such as Archbricks, it is found that building blocks have their own vocabulary and rules, which can be appropriated and exploited by designers in the construction of new shape grammars.

This paper describes the application of procedural modeling methods to automati- cally derive 3D models of high visual quality for a highly detailed and quick visu- alization of complex city models. We discuss the applicability of a procedural modeling pipeline of shape grammars in urban planning to derive meaningful 3D city models. Therefore we analyze CGA shape, a novel shape grammar for the procedural modeling of CG architecture, for its usage in architectural planning processes. Our system gives rise to three exciting applications in the field of city modeling and city visualization enabling a quick decision making and iterative design workflow: modeling of master plans, evaluation of built environments and planning of urban open spaces. It is capable to produce building shells with high visual quality and geometric detail. Context sensitive shape rules allow the user to specify interactions between the entities of the hierarchical shape descriptions. Selected examples demonstrate solutions to previously noted challenges.

eCAADe proceedings, 2020

This paper focuses on the problem of lack of housing, due to fast urbanization processes and urban population growth, particularly in developing regions of the globe. The goal is to propose an alternative for planning housing settlements, using a computational-based approach, and having as a case study an existing Brazilian favela, Santa Marta. The paper proposes a strategy to bridge between the use of shape grammars from analysis to design, by performing changes on the rule level. The research includes the development of an analytical grammar that captures the physical features of the settlement and its subsequent transformation into a synthetic grammar that can generate urban configurations that keep key features of the original settlement while avoiding its flaws. The paper is focused on the grammatical transformations performed to the analytic grammar to obtain the synthetic grammar and its subsequent validation. Results show that the solutions generated by the synthetic grammar do have higher quality when compared to the case study. This strategy is proposed as a framework for the application of shape grammars in design.

Computer-Aided Design

Shape grammars are a generative formalism in which dynamic changes to shape structure plays a vital role. Such changes support ambiguity and emergence, and as a result shape grammars are often used as the basis for proposed developments in supporting shape exploration in computeraided design. However, the general implementation of shape grammars remains an unsolved problem, and a common solution is to adopt a fixed structure. This paper explores the consequences of assuming a fixed shape structure, via analysis of a simple shape grammar, often used as a benchmark problem to illustrate advances in shape grammar implementation. With reference to the combinatorics of words, it is proved that adopting a finite fixed structure limits the capability of a shape grammar. The paper concludes with a discussion exploring the implications of this result for shape grammar implementation and for design descriptions in CAD.

This paper introduces the special issue "Advances in Implemented Shape Grammars: Solutions and Applications" and frames the topic of computer implementations of shape grammars, both with a theoretical and an applied focus. This special issue focuses on the current state of the art regarding computer implementations of shape grammars and brings a discussion about how those systems can evolve in the coming years so that they can be used in real life design scenarios. This paper presents a brief state of the art of shape grammars implementation and an overview of the papers included in the current special issue categorized under technical design, interpreters and interface design, and uses cases. The paper ends with a comprehensive outlook into the future of shape grammars implementations.

International Journal of Architectural Computing, 2012

The following paper describes a shape grammar that recreates Palladian villas. A Palladian grammar was originally proposed by Stiny and Mitchell. However, this alternative grammar uses different parametric shape rules and methodology to test the hypothesis that different grammars can generate the same corpus of designs. The formalism is then implemented using a computerised design tool. The grammar includes subdivision rules that allow for a more economical formulation. A new corpus of solutions is explored and the derivation is compared with the original Palladian grammar. The project is part of wider research aimed at formulating a generic housing grammar.

Knowledge-Based Systems, 2000

This paper is concerned with the early processes of design, particularly in the context of spatial arrangements. We are interested in the strategies that a designer uses in order to achieve success and with the opportunities that might exist for computer support. The technical device that provides the focus for the work is the concept of a shape grammar. The investigation that has taken place has looked at certain opportunities that might exist for building support systems employing shape grammars and the implications that they might have for the strategic level of design. From the exploration we conclude that the use of shape grammars to expand the strategies available to a designer and to provide computational support for exploring the implications of employing given sets of design rules is promising. Moreover, we have already identi®ed a number of directions in which the research should be taken further. q

2013

The research presented further is part of the Digital Alberti research project, which aims to determine the influence of Alberti’s treatise on Architecture, De re aedificatoria, on the Portuguese Renaissance architecture, through the use of a computational framework. One of the project tasks entailed the translation of the treatise’s textual descriptions concerning the morphological, proportional and algorithmic principles of the sacred buildings into a shape grammar. Subsequently a computational model was developed, in order to proceed to the derivation of examples of the same language. This article discusses the use of analytical shape grammars to undertake an architectural analysis, as well as the fact of the source of this grammar and correspondent architectural language to be a text instead of a set of buildings and designs. It reviews the methodology to implement the shape grammar and describes the several stages of development, following the interpretation of treatise into a ...

The next city - New technologies and the future of the built environment [16th International Conference CAAD Futures 2015. Sao Paulo, July 8-10, 2015. Electronic Proceedings/ ISBN 978-85-85783-53-2] Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 8-10, 2015, pp. 467.

The following paper describes the process and results achieved with the workshop entitled ‘Re-inventing Portuguese ceramic tiles’ reflecting on design methodology and design teaching. Workshop participants were invited to rethink ceramic tile patterns developing a different process which used shape grammars as a generative system. Each participant group developed a three stage task using shape grammars principles and methodology. The preliminary results the work developed are of particular relevance in shape grammar research: firstly shape grammar formulae does not constitute an intuitive process to most creative designers which are often trained to design singular solutions for a specific problem, secondly more than one operative shape grammar can be formulated to represent the same corpus of solutions and lastly the generative potential of grammars transcends the normal capacities of the original grammarist aiding in design exploration and enlarging the corpus of feasible solutions. This paper also reflects on the impact of shape grammars as a design methodology.

Proceedings of the Symposium on Simulation for Architecture + Urban Design (SimAUD), 2019

The shape grammar formalism has offered a visual, rulebased framework for interpreting architectural languages for over forty years. However, the ability to implement grammars within a technology that allows for direct engagement with shape rules and productions so that they can be dynamically simulated, shared, understood, modified, and brought into a more active theoretical dialogue is only partially achieved. The work here asks how a new technology that allows shape rules to be implemented by drawing shapes to specify scripts instead of writing code can reinvigorate shape computation to advance formal analysis and synthesis in architectural research. More precisely, a case study to implement an analog grammar on John Portman's domestic language with a new shape grammar interpreter, the Shape Machine, is presented to take on this question. The results are illustrated as a visual catalog of sample designs generated in the software. The results suggest further insights on Portman's language of the house prompted by the machine-based specification.