Parametric design: a review and some experiences

Abstract

During the last few years there has been an extraordinary development of computer-aided tools intended to present or communicate the results of architectural projects. But there has not been a comparable progress in the development of tools intended to assist design to generate architectural forms in an easy and interactive way. Even worse, architects who use the powerful means provided by computers as a direct tool to create architectural forms are still an exception. Architecture continues to be produced by traditional means using the computer as little more than a drafting tool. The main reasons that may explain this situation can be identified rather easily, although there will be significant differences of opinion. In my opinion, it is a mistake trying to advance too rapidly and, for instance, proposing integrated design methods using expert systems and artificial intelligence while no adequate tools to generate and modify simple 3D-models are available. The modeling tools we have at the present moment are unsatisfactory. Their principal limitation is the lack of appropriate instruments to modify interactively the model once it has been created. This is a fundamental aspect in any design activity, where the designer is constantly going forward and backwards, re-elaborating once and again some particular aspect of the model, or its general layout, or even coming back to a previous solution that had been temporarily abandoned. This paper presents a general summary of the actual situation and recent developments that may be incorporated to architectural design tools in a near future, together with some critical remarks about their relevance to architecture.