Galapagos: On the Logic and Limitations of Generic Solvers

A graduate in architecture and urbanism from TU Delft, David Rutten works with software company Robert McNeel & Associates (RMN). The developer of Grasshopper®, he was recently awarded the ACADIA 2012 award for innovative research. The Galapagos plug-in, which Rutten has developed for Grasshopper®, implements two generic solvers (one using a genetic algorithm and one using a simulated annealing algorithm). A generic solver will find a solution to a problem that can be expressed in a mathematical way; however, as he explains here, while these solutions may not be exact, they will be very good.     

Pachyderm Acoustical Simulation: Towards Open-Source Sound Analysis

The creator of the Pachyderm Acoustical Simulation plug-in, Arthur van der Harten is an acoustician working in the Specialist Modelling Group (SMG) at Foster + Partners. Here he describes the flexible format of this plug-in and how open-source software aided the analysis of a negative distortion in the acoustics of Hamer Hall Arts Centre in Melbourne.     

Kangaroo: Form Finding with Computational Physics

A trained architect, who works with the Specialist Modelling Group (SMG) at Foster + Partners, Daniel Piker is also the developer of the Kangaroo plug-in for Rhinoceros® and Grasshopper®. He explains how Kangaroo has been devised to simulate aspects of the behaviour of real-world materials and objects in order to modify designs in response to engineering analyses, engendering an intuitive sense of the material world.     

Firefly: Interactive Prototypes for Architectural Design

Andrew O Payne of LIFT architects and Jason Kelly Johnson of Future Cities Lab describe the Firefly plug-in for Grasshopper® they have developed, which extends geometric control beyond the virtual parametric model to the real world of machines and mechanisms. Firefly also enables communication to flow in the other direction, allowing virtual building models to be informed by, and interact with, data from the real world.     

Planning by Parameters

With increasing pressure on available land for development, planning parameters continue to intensify. Since the early 1990s, such constraints on urban sites have provided a significant focus for MRVDV's design and research. The practice has worked on the creation of interactive software that enables designers to interact with the limits and opportunities highlighted by the visualisation and evaluation of these parameters. Jeroen Zuidgeest and Sanne van der Burgh of MVRDV and Bas Kalmeyer of think tank The Why Factory describe how parametric models are now being applied, leading the way to a whole new generation of open-source planning tools.     

Weaverbird: Topological Mesh Editing for Architects

Design and computation consultant Giulio Piacentino is the developer of WeaverBird. Here he describes how the plug-in ‘gives architects more geometric control and allows them to create complex surface structures that join in orderly ways, yet in arbitrary configurations’.     

Embedding Intelligence: Architecture and Computation at Grimshaw,NY

Research and development at Grimshaw is concentrated in two groups: Design Technology (DT) and Industrial Design (ID). Seth Edwards from Grimshaw's DT group explains how these dual hubs provide an essential resource for the practice, offering expertise in complex geometry, rapid prototyping and construction. He illustrates three projects, originating in the New York office, that exemplify this approach.     

Hello Stranger: Phenomenology and Topography of the Megacity

Caroline Bos of UNStudio counters the city theme of this issue of Architectural Design with the spectre of the megacity. The very recent emergence and scale of the Asian megacity, she argues, requires a very different architectural treatment to the European or North American metropolis. It is one that should be understood through an experiential approach that brings to the fore spatial and visual relations between people, and people and things, asking, for instance, how so many strangers can be so visibly at home in public urban space.     

Symmetry As Geometry: Kuwait International Airport

Computer-aided design (CAD) software has often been associated with the limitations of Euclidean geometry. Kristoffer Josefsson , a mathematician and specialist geometer employed in the Specialist Modelling Group (SMG) at Foster + Partners, explains how the symmetry-encoded representation undertaken for Kuwait International Airport enabled the group to extend CAD tools for non-Euclidean use.     

Architecture and Dispersal

To close the issue, guest-editors Rafi Segal and Els Verbakel curated a discussion with Stan Allen, Margaret Crawford, Marcel Smets and Sarah Whiting, and put some provocative questions to them: What constitutes public space in the contemporary city? Can the public sphere still exist in the urban context? Should public space be fought for by architects and urban designers? Or, as Allen proposes, is it the landscape architects alone who have been quick to realise the potential of the empty spaces in our cities as a ripe terrain for change? Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Computational Fluid Dynamics for Architectural Design

There are many ‘compelling possibilities’ for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in architecture, as demonstrated by its successful adoption in the aerospace, automotive and product manufacturing industries. Sawako Kaijima, Roland Bouffanais, Karen Willcox and Suresh Naidu of ARCH-CFD, a research initiative at the International Design Centre established by the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), explore CFD's potential.     

Animating Architecture: Coupling High-Definition Sensing with High-Definition Actuation

Ruairi Glynn , lecturer on interactive architecture at the Bartlett School ofArchitecture, University College London (UCL), puts the pressing question: ‘What does a world of hyper-connective, high-definition sensing offer architectural design?’ Despite the pervasiveness of ubiquitous computing – the Internet of Things (IoT) – and students' ability to speculate, build and test responsive lifesize installations, could practice itself be in danger of getting left behind?     

GECO™: Architectural Design Through Environmental Feedback

In recent years there has been a disconnect between the early stages of design and the power of evolving analysis tools. Thomas Grabner and Ursula Frick , the founding directors of design research and development consultancy [uto], explain how their plug-in GECO™ creates essential connections between modelling and analysis software, providing the opportunity to restructure conceptual design.     

The Vitality of Matter and the Instrumentalisation of Life

Artists and researchers Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr of SymbioticA, based at the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia, are internationally renowned as pioneers in the field of biological arts, challenging audiences with their tissue engineering projects. Catts and Zurr discuss how synthetic biology has increasingly become ‘the new frontier for exploitation’ and why there is currently ‘a resurgence of the application of engineering logic in the fields of the life sciences’ in which life itself becomes a raw material.     

Interoperability in Sports Design

David Hines leads the parametric and advanced geometry group at Populous, the global design practice renowned for its expertise in sports facility design. Here he describes how Populous and Buro Happold created a shared model environment for the Aviva Stadium in Dublin (2010) , enabling a smooth parametric-to-BIM-to fabrication process. A watershed initiative, it provided the prerequisite stepping stone for developing a parametric bowl tool for designing stadia.     

Information Modelling as a Paradigm Shift

Building information modelling (BIM) is not just a change in software or skills sets, it requires a paradigm shift. Dennis Shelden , Chief Technology Officer of Gehry Technologies, outlines the more ‘fundamental, subtle and profound decisions’ on the road to BIM. It is necessary to fully consider not only the impacts both ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ from the conventional design phase, but also the possible creative restrictions as there is a potential trade-off that comes with the emphasis on collaborative processes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linking Structure and Parametric Geometry

The Karamba plug-in developed by Clemens Preisinger in collaboration with Bollinger + Grohmann Engineers has been developed to predict the behaviour of structures under external loads. Intended to be used by architects rather than being solely confined to an engineering setting, it enables a seamless flow of data between structural and geometric models. Preisinger here describes the program's evolution and application.     

Local Climates of the City

A specialist in urban effects on climate, particularly the heat island effect, Iain D Stewart is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Here he describes how the emergence of ‘borderless’, ‘patchwork’ and ‘polynucleated’ cities has led climatologists to develop a new classification system of urban landscapes. The system divides cities into local climate zones (LCZs) according to their surface structure, cover, fabric and metabolism.     

Distinguishing Concepts: Lexicons of Interactive Art and Architecture

Interactive design has come about as a result of the intermingling of disciplines. As a consequence, the language it uses has become blurred - borrowed or stolen with little restraint from elsewhere. Though particular terms have become ubiquitous, the original concepts that lie behind them have been lost. This means that all too frequently they are no longer knowingly used. Usman Haque sorts the wheat from the chaff and brings clarity to bear on the vocabulary and thinking behind interactivity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.