Digital Form Generation of Heritages in Historical District Based on Plan Typology and Shape Grammar: Case Study on Kulangsu Islet

Abstract

Architectural heritage in historic districts, as a complex type of heritage, encompasses both the uniqueness of the building itself and also shows cultural and regional characteristics as a group, especially for the heritage site that contains multi-culture features. The digitalization research of this type of heritage often focuses on the digital archiving and modeling of heritages but rarely considers the combination of culture analysis and digitalization. This paper develops a digital form generation method for the heritages in historical districts by means of typological plan analysis, the Shape Grammar method, and Grasshopper software. Based on the case study of the modern Western-style house on Kulangsu, a world heritage site and historical district, this paper include three results: (1) dividing the layout plans of Kulangsu modern Western-style houses into three types, that is, native prototypes, foreign prototypes, and mixed prototypes, with 39 sub-types in total; (2) establishing shape grammar for the layout plans of Kulangsu modern Western-style houses with shape grammar sets and “S, L, R, I” expression rules; (3) creating a digital form generation method based on shape grammar result by Grasshopper software, including function cluster creation, function cluster connection and final model generation. This paper presents an example of quantitative analysis of heritage culture and a rapid modeling method of heritage, providing a reference for the construction of a heritage culture database and digital heritage management in historic districts.