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Generative Design & Digital Architectural Practice

The architecture industry tends to be slow to adopt new technologies as they are increasingly changing the way we do architecture. As information becomes a driver for decision making, we are at an exciting period for harnessing the computer and algorithms in design.

The way we design and build as always harnessed technology to save time, money, and offload the busywork in the practice of architecture. Technology is no longer simply updates to tools that provide efficiency though, we are in a moment where our tools have capabilities beyond that of our own. 

As we designers continue to engage with our tools, we are finding ourselves designing not form but processes that yield form. We no longer define the rules for how a building is to be constructed but are in a position of compliance with the code and certification parameters placed on our work. 

Generative design is an opportunity to rethink process and find new ways to design our build environment and try our hands at an new, complex, approach to ideation in a world where optimization is synonymous with beauty.

This website is relatively new and some of the articles are not yet posted. Please mind the dust as I transition content and projects over.

Thanks!

 


Photo Credit and Caption: Inside of the Stadshal in Ghent (photo by Sean Wittmeyer)

Cite this page:

Wittmeyer, S. (2023, 16 January). Generative Design & Digital Architectural Practice. Retrieved from https://seanwittmeyer.com/theme/generativedesign

Generative Design & Digital Architectural Practice was updated January 16th, 2023.

Spacematrix

On urban density as a tool for planning and designThis revised edition of Meta Berghauser Pont and Per Haupt's 2010 volume attempts to analyze the connections between density, urban form and performance--a prerequisite for understanding and successfully predicting the effects of specific designs and planning proposals.

POROCITY

PoroCity - Opening up Solidity is a manifesto for the introduction of the public realm into the private sphere of our cities. The book provides the tools to make urban porosity socially, environmentally and economically valuable. The book will officially be launched on 6 November, 17:45 at Delft University of Technology and will be available for sale from nai010 booksellers www.nai010.com.

Digital Workflows in Architecture

Anwender aus Praxis und Lehre beschreiben den heutigen Stand der Möglichkeiten, Nutzungen und Erfahrungen mit dem Einsatz digitaler Techniken in der Architektur. Die gesamten Prozesse von Planung, Entwurf und Realisierung entwickeln sich in diesen Jahren zu einem übergreifenden Workflow. Die Grundlage dafür bildet die Informationstechnologie, in deren Rahmen sämtliche Vorgänge integriert werden.

Generative Design

Generative design, once known only to insiders as a revolutionary method of creating artwork, models, and animations with programmed algorithms, has in recent years become a popular tool for designers.

Deep Learning

An accessible introduction to the artificial intelligence technology that enables computer vision, speech recognition, machine translation, and driverless cars. Deep learning is an artificial intelligence technology that enables computer vision, speech recognition in mobile phones, machine translation, AI games, driverless cars, and other applications.

Barba - The Why Factory

How might nanotechnology--the manipulation of matter at the level of atoms and molecules--change buildings and cities in the future? The authors of Barba have imagined one possible future, shaped by a miraculous nanomaterial of the same name, which can be steered and altered in real time, changing its shape and size at will.

AAD, Algorithms-aided Design

The book "Algorithms-Aided Design" presents design methods based on the use of Grasshopper®, a visual algorithm editor tightly integrated with Rhinoceros®, the 3D modeling software by McNeel & Associates allowing users to explore accurate freeform shapes. The book provides computational techniques to develop and control complex geometries, covering parametric modeling, digital fabrication techniques, form-finding strategies, environmental analysis and structural optimization.

Housing design : a manual

Housing design : a manual. [Bernard Leupen; Harald Mooij; Rudy Uytenhaak] -- This manual sheds light on every aspect of designing housing. The organization of the living space and the residential building is dealt with systematically, from the breadth, depth, stacking, access ...

Facade Construction Manual

In recent years, facades have become more important in architectural practice and in public perception. As well as functioning as a protective shell and visible 'face' and supplying heat and electricity, a building's exterior interacts directly with the surrounding public space.

Small, medium, large, extra-large : Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau

This extraordinary, massive, and mind-boggling 1,300-page book combines essays, manifestos, diaries, fairy tales, travelogues, a cycle of meditations on the contemporary city--and complex illustration--with work produced by Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture over the past twenty years. This almost overwhelming accumulation of words and images illuminates the condition of architecture today--its splendors and miseries--exploring and revealing the corrosive effects of politics, context, the economy, and globalization. In some ways, this is the "Medium is the Message" of 1990s architectural discourse: guaranteed to be hugely influential in the coming decades, but grossly misunderstood by those who have not read it. The core arguments it makes about metropolitan architecture--accepting complexity and lack of centralized control--are similar to those of Kevin Kelly's Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World.

Map GAN Training

As part of my residency with @natlibscot and @CreateInf I've been training GANs on the library's digitised map collections. Here are some latent space interpolations that demo the first model...

Primer Understanding Generative AI Generative AI is nothing new in computer science circles however 2022 saw the proliferation of high quality tools designed for mass audiences. Meet the next pivotal technology. Keep reading... →
Primer What is a Smart City? "Smart cities are places where information technology is wielded to address problems" - Anthony Townsend Keep reading... →