A Spatial Grammar Model for Designing Mass Customized High-rise Housing Blocks

Abstract

Emergence as a product of natural processes is a typical feature for traditional and vernacular housing settlements created by different users with their various needs. However, this feature disappears in housing production approaches for uniform and standard users due to mass production concerns. The main reason is that user needs cannot be fully transferred to design strategies due to excessive standardization. One of the main factors in this is the need for design tools and methods that effectively evaluate preferences with complex relationships. Shape grammars and spatial grammars, one of the generative design approaches, exhibit original emergence examples with their rich diversity and adaptability to different approaches. Hence, it can be seen as an alternative for solving such problems. This article presents a parametric spatial grammar model that can design high rise housing blocks with customized dwelling for each family. The compositions of these houses ground on specific spatial relationships defined by parametric rule sets. In the article, the generative design process was developed in two stages. The first stage includes the formal, syntactical, and functional relations of the spaces in a floor plan, their representation according to the rules, and generating alternative solutions. The second stage consists of the representation of the facade rules and the parametric grammar that generates the facades. In the developed spatial grammar model, user preferences are transferred to the computer through the designed interface. Dimensional properties of housing blocks are defined by a gridal system, which is determined according to user preferences and used as a starting base for spatial grammar. Plan layouts are generated on this defined grid and by sequential application of rules. In conclusion, the adaptability of spatial grammar and the rich alternatives designers can use and develop are emphasized.