From Point Cloud to Shape Grammar to Grammatical Transformations (original) (raw)
Related papers
A Grammar for Portuguese Historical Urban Design
2010
This paper suggests that Portuguese historical cities were based on a structured knowledge-based process from where it's possible to retrieve not only a generative parametric urban grammar but also to construct a computational model capable to generate Portuguese planimetric proportionate and symmetrical urban grammar. The grammar is described graphically and discursively, followed by the introduction of a 2D shape grammars interpreter UrbanGENE. The 2D shape grammar interpreter will allow the user to interact with the genetic and generative principles of Portuguese historical urban design from 16th to 18th century and additionally be deployed in urban history teaching and learning.
Nexus Network Journal, 2011
This paper is part of ongoing research to explore (a) descriptive and generative potentials of shape grammars to unveil the order of urban morphological complexity underlying Portuguese treatises, and (b) the knowledge embedded in Portuguese urban cartographic representations produced from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries for purposes of architecture and military engineering. The shape grammar made it possible to infer the grammatical rules of composition based only on the written descriptions provided by the Portuguese treatises, as well as to decode the geometry of ideal urban plans and built cities. This paper suggests that these historical cities, both built and ideal were based on a structured knowledge-based process from where it is possible not only to retrieve a generative parametric urban grammar but also to construct a computational model, UrbanGENE, capable of iteratively generating Portuguese planimetric proportional and symmetrical urban systems. The paper suggests that the knowledge and computational tools achieved could be successfully deployed in the teaching and learning of architectural history.
Digital temples: a shape grammar to generate sacred buildings according to Alberti’s theory
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 ...
Digital Temples: a Shape Grammar to generate sacred building according to Alberti's theory
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 possibility 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 ...
Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 2018
This paper shows the way Leon Battista Alberti treatise De Re Aedificatoria column systematization shape grammar was built, and how the longitudinal elevation of the nave of the Sant'Andrea church was designed, evidencing some steps involved in the grammar construction process, its derivation, and the partial outputs gained from the grammar evaluation. The goal of this grammar is to infer Alberti's treatise rules through a computational approach evidencing its algorithmic nature, illustrating it, and understanding the De Re Aedificatoria rules that may be applied in the generation of some parts of buildings such as the Sant'Andrea church, showing a complementary method to archaeological, bibliographical, historical ones, among others, that have been used to understand the built environment. The rules provided by the grammar may be applied to an initial insertion point to produce a complete column and to a pre-existing plan or section element of a building generating its ...
Analysis of shape grammar application as a tool for urban design
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.
An Urban Grammar for Praia: Towards Generic Shape Grammars for Urban Design
Computation: The New Realm of Architectural Design …, 2009
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.
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.
Inferring a shape grammar: Translating designer's knowledge
Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 2014
This article focuses on a shape grammar, the rabo-de-bacalhau housing style, that was developed to enable the adaptation of existing houses to new requirements and most particular on the process of inference of the grammar. In the article we describe the process undertaken to develop the grammar and what the achievements of the transformation grammar are regarding the possibilities of a mass customization of a dwelling's rehabilitation work. The goal of this article is to describe and discuss how the designer's knowledge was encoded into shape rules. The process used to extract the architect's knowledge and to incorporate it into the transformation grammar enable us to abstract the designer's actions and to define a sequence of actions that can define a possible strategy of design. The proposed design methodology generates dwelling layouts that are legal because they follow the grammar language and adequate because they meet the a priori user and design requirements.