Cumincad : CUMINCAD Papers : Search Results

CumInCAD is a Cumulative Index about publications in Computer Aided Architectural Design
supported by the sibling associations ACADIA, CAADRIA, eCAADe, SIGraDi, ASCAAD and CAAD futures

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_id	f02b
authors	Mitchell, W.
year	1999
title	E-topia: urban life, Jim –but not as we know it
source	MIT press
summary	The global digital network is not just a delivery system for email, Web pages, and digital television. It is a whole new urban infrastructure--one that will change the forms of our cities as dramatically as railroads, highways, electric power supply, and telephone networks did in the past. In this lucid, invigorating book, William J. Mitchell examines this new infrastructure and its implications for our future daily lives. Picking up where his best-selling City of Bits left off, Mitchell argues that we must extend the definitions of architecture and urban design to encompass virtual places as well as physical ones, and interconnection by means of telecommunication links as well as by pedestrian circulation and mechanized transportation systems. He proposes strategies for the creation of cities that not only will be sustainable but will make economic, social, and cultural sense in an electronically interconnected and global world. The new settlement patterns of the twenty-first century will be characterized by live/work dwellings, 24-hour pedestrian-scale neighborhoods rich in social relationships, and vigorous local community life, complemented by far-flung configurations of electronic meeting places and decentralized production, marketing, and distribution systems. Neither digiphile nor digiphobe, Mitchell advocates the creation of e-topias--cities that work smarter, not harder.
series	other
last changed	2003/04/23 15:14

_id	ga9906
id	ga9906
authors	Caglioti, Giuseppe
year	1999
title	Ambiguity in Art and Science
source	International Conference on Generative Art
summary	Ambiguity can be defined as the coexistence and/or coalescence of two incompatible aspects in the same reality. Ambiguity manifests itself * in pathologic processes occurring in matter, e.g. at the critical state of the solid ¬ ® liquid phase transformation. * during the process of measurement of quantum structures: a process formally very similar to the process of perception. * Systematically, in our mind, during the process of perception - especially during visual perception of paintings or acoustic perception of music.Therefore ambiguity is an intrinsic feature of the process of perception and an intriguing step in the way toward the formation of thought. Ambiguity is continuosly experienced in our mind: every act of perception culminates into the critical state of a dynamic instability of the interiorized image, where the incoherent heap of sensory stimuli merges into coherent visual or auditive thinking. In turn, since perception is essential for life, we should look at ambiguity not so much as to a fastidious travel companion, but rather as to a fixed course toward perception itself, scientific thought and aesthetic emotion: ambiguity is a permanent cultural value.
series	other
email
more	http://www.generativeart.com/
last changed	2003/08/07 17:25

_id	ga0015
id	ga0015
authors	Daru, R., Vreedenburgh, E. and Scha, R.
year	2000
title	Architectural Innovation as an evolutionary process
source	International Conference on Generative Art
summary	Traditionally in art and architectural history, innovation is treated as a history of ideas of individuals (pioneers), movements and schools. The monograph is in that context one of the most used forms of scientific exercise. History of architecture is then mostly seen as a succession of dominant architectural paradigms imposed by great architectural creators fighting at the beginning against mainstream establishment until they themselves come to be recognised. However, there have been attempts to place architectural innovation and creativity in an evolutionary perspective. Charles Jencks for example, has described the evolution of architectural and art movements according to a diagram inspired by ecological models. Philip Steadman, in his book "The Evolution of Designs. Biological analogy in architecture and the applied arts" (1979), sketches the history of various biological analogies and their impact on architectural theory: the organic, classificatory, anatomical, ecological and Darwinian or evolutionary analogies. This last analogy "explains the design of useful objects and buildings, particularly in primitive society and in the craft tradition, in terms of a sequence of repeated copyings (corresponding to inheritance), with small changes made at each stage ('variations'), which are then subjected to a testing process when the object is put into use ('selection')." However, Steadman has confined his study to a literature survey as the basis of a history of ideas. Since this pioneering work, new developments like Dawkins' concept of memes allow further steps in the field of cultural evolution of architectural innovation. The application of the concept of memes to architectural design has been put forward in a preceding "Generative Art" conference (Daru, 1999), showing its application in a pilot study on the analysis of projects of and by architectural students. This first empirical study is now followed by a study of 'real life' architectural practice. The case taken has a double implication for the evolutionary analogy. It takes a specific architectural innovative concept as a 'meme' and develops the analysis of the trajectory of this meme in the individual context of the designer and at large. At the same time, the architect involved (Eric Vreedenburgh, Archipel Ontwerpers) is knowledgeable about the theory of memetic evolution and is applying a computer tool (called 'Artificial') together with Remko Scha, the authoring computer scientist of the program who collaborates frequently with artists and architects. This case study (the penthouse in Dutch town planning and the application of 'Artificial') shall be discussed in the paper as presented. The theoretical and methodological problems of various models of diffusion of memes shall be discussed and a preliminary model shall be presented as a framework to account for not only Darwinian but also Lamarckian processes, and for individual as well as collective transmission, consumption and creative transformation of memes.
keywords	evolutionary design, architectural innovation, memetic diffusion, CAAD, penthouses, Dutch design, creativity, Darwinian and Lamarckian processes
series	other
more	http://www.generativeart.com/
last changed	2003/08/07 17:25

_id	ga0026
id	ga0026
authors	Ransen, Owen F.
year	2000
title	Possible Futures in Computer Art Generation
source	International Conference on Generative Art
summary	Years of trying to create an "Image Idea Generator" program have convinced me that the perfect solution would be to have an artificial artistic person, a design slave. This paper describes how I came to that conclusion, realistic alternatives, and briefly, how it could possibly happen. 1. The history of Repligator and Gliftic 1.1 Repligator In 1996 I had the idea of creating an “image idea generator”. I wanted something which would create images out of nothing, but guided by the user. The biggest conceptual problem I had was “out of nothing”. What does that mean? So I put aside that problem and forced the user to give the program a starting image. This program eventually turned into Repligator, commercially described as an “easy to use graphical effects program”, but actually, to my mind, an Image Idea Generator. The first release came out in October 1997. In December 1998 I described Repligator V4 [1] and how I thought it could be developed away from simply being an effects program. In July 1999 Repligator V4 won the Shareware Industry Awards Foundation prize for "Best Graphics Program of 1999". Prize winners are never told why they won, but I am sure that it was because of two things: 1) Easy of use 2) Ease of experimentation "Ease of experimentation" means that Repligator does in fact come up with new graphics ideas. Once you have input your original image you can generate new versions of that image simply by pushing a single key. Repligator is currently at version 6, but, apart from adding many new effects and a few new features, is basically the same program as version 4. Following on from the ideas in [1] I started to develop Gliftic, which is closer to my original thoughts of an image idea generator which "starts from nothing". The Gliftic model of images was that they are composed of three components: 1. Layout or form, for example the outline of a mandala is a form. 2. Color scheme, for example colors selected from autumn leaves from an oak tree. 3. Interpretation, for example Van Gogh would paint a mandala with oak tree colors in a different way to Andy Warhol. There is a Van Gogh interpretation and an Andy Warhol interpretation. Further I wanted to be able to genetically breed images, for example crossing two layouts to produce a child layout. And the same with interpretations and color schemes. If I could achieve this then the program would be very powerful. 1.2 Getting to Gliftic Programming has an amazing way of crystalising ideas. If you want to put an idea into practice via a computer program you really have to understand the idea not only globally, but just as importantly, in detail. You have to make hard design decisions, there can be no vagueness, and so implementing what I had decribed above turned out to be a considerable challenge. I soon found out that the hardest thing to do would be the breeding of forms. What are the "genes" of a form? What are the genes of a circle, say, and how do they compare to the genes of the outline of the UK? I wanted the genotype representation (inside the computer program's data) to be directly linked to the phenotype representation (on the computer screen). This seemed to be the best way of making sure that bred-forms would bare some visual relationship to their parents. I also wanted symmetry to be preserved. For example if two symmetrical objects were bred then their children should be symmetrical. I decided to represent shapes as simply closed polygonal shapes, and the "genes" of these shapes were simply the list of points defining the polygon. Thus a circle would have to be represented by a regular polygon of, say, 100 sides. The outline of the UK could easily be represented as a list of points every 10 Kilometers along the coast line. Now for the important question: what do you get when you cross a circle with the outline of the UK? I tried various ways of combining the "genes" (i.e. coordinates) of the shapes, but none of them really ended up producing interesting shapes. And of the methods I used, many of them, applied over several "generations" simply resulted in amorphous blobs, with no distinct family characteristics. Or rather maybe I should say that no single method of breeding shapes gave decent results for all types of images. Figure 1 shows an example of breeding a mandala with 6 regular polygons: Figure 1 Mandala bred with array of regular polygons I did not try out all my ideas, and maybe in the future I will return to the problem, but it was clear to me that it is a non-trivial problem. And if the breeding of shapes is a non-trivial problem, then what about the breeding of interpretations? I abandoned the genetic (breeding) model of generating designs but retained the idea of the three components (form, color scheme, interpretation). 1.3 Gliftic today Gliftic Version 1.0 was released in May 2000. It allows the user to change a form, a color scheme and an interpretation. The user can experiment with combining different components together and can thus home in on an personally pleasing image. Just as in Repligator, pushing the F7 key make the program choose all the options. Unlike Repligator however the user can also easily experiment with the form (only) by pushing F4, the color scheme (only) by pushing F5 and the interpretation (only) by pushing F6. Figures 2, 3 and 4 show some example images created by Gliftic. Figure 2 Mandala interpreted with arabesques Figure 3 Trellis interpreted with "graphic ivy" Figure 4 Regular dots interpreted as "sparks" 1.4 Forms in Gliftic V1 Forms are simply collections of graphics primitives (points, lines, ellipses and polygons). The program generates these collections according to the user's instructions. Currently the forms are: Mandala, Regular Polygon, Random Dots, Random Sticks, Random Shapes, Grid Of Polygons, Trellis, Flying Leap, Sticks And Waves, Spoked Wheel, Biological Growth, Chequer Squares, Regular Dots, Single Line, Paisley, Random Circles, Chevrons. 1.5 Color Schemes in Gliftic V1 When combining a form with an interpretation (described later) the program needs to know what colors it can use. The range of colors is called a color scheme. Gliftic has three color scheme types: 1. Random colors: Colors for the various parts of the image are chosen purely at random. 2. Hue Saturation Value (HSV) colors: The user can choose the main hue (e.g. red or yellow), the saturation (purity) of the color scheme and the value (brightness/darkness) . The user also has to choose how much variation is allowed in the color scheme. A wide variation allows the various colors of the final image to depart a long way from the HSV settings. A smaller variation results in the final image using almost a single color. 3. Colors chosen from an image: The user can choose an image (for example a JPG file of a famous painting, or a digital photograph he took while on holiday in Greece) and Gliftic will select colors from that image. Only colors from the selected image will appear in the output image. 1.6 Interpretations in Gliftic V1 Interpretation in Gliftic is best decribed with a few examples. A pure geometric line could be interpreted as: 1) the branch of a tree 2) a long thin arabesque 3) a sequence of disks 4) a chain, 5) a row of diamonds. An pure geometric ellipse could be interpreted as 1) a lake, 2) a planet, 3) an eye. Gliftic V1 has the following interpretations: Standard, Circles, Flying Leap, Graphic Ivy, Diamond Bar, Sparkz, Ess Disk, Ribbons, George Haite, Arabesque, ZigZag. 1.7 Applications of Gliftic Currently Gliftic is mostly used for creating WEB graphics, often backgrounds as it has an option to enable "tiling" of the generated images. There is also a possibility that it will be used in the custom textile business sometime within the next year or two. The real application of Gliftic is that of generating new graphics ideas, and I suspect that, like Repligator, many users will only understand this later. 2. The future of Gliftic, 3 possibilties Completing Gliftic V1 gave me the experience to understand what problems and opportunities there will be in future development of the program. Here I divide my many ideas into three oversimplified possibilities, and the real result may be a mix of two or all three of them. 2.1 Continue the current development "linearly" Gliftic could grow simply by the addition of more forms and interpretations. In fact I am sure that initially it will grow like this. However this limits the possibilities to what is inside the program itself. These limits can be mitigated by allowing the user to add forms (as vector files). The user can already add color schemes (as images). The biggest problem with leaving the program in its current state is that there is no easy way to add interpretations. 2.2 Allow the artist to program Gliftic It would be interesting to add a language to Gliftic which allows the user to program his own form generators and interpreters. In this way Gliftic becomes a "platform" for the development of dynamic graphics styles by the artist. The advantage of not having to deal with the complexities of Windows programming could attract the more adventurous artists and designers. The choice of programming language of course needs to take into account the fact that the "programmer" is probably not be an expert computer scientist. I have seen how LISP (an not exactly easy artificial intelligence language) has become very popular among non programming users of AutoCAD. If, to complete a job which you do manually and repeatedly, you can write a LISP macro of only 5 lines, then you may be tempted to learn enough LISP to write those 5 lines. Imagine also the ability to publish (and/or sell) "style generators". An artist could develop a particular interpretation function, it creates images of a given character which others find appealing. The interpretation (which runs inside Gliftic as a routine) could be offered to interior designers (for example) to unify carpets, wallpaper, furniture coverings for single projects. As Adrian Ward [3] says on his WEB site: "Programming is no less an artform than painting is a technical process." Learning a computer language to create a single image is overkill and impractical. Learning a computer language to create your own artistic style which generates an infinite series of images in that style may well be attractive. 2.3 Add an artificial conciousness to Gliftic This is a wild science fiction idea which comes into my head regularly. Gliftic manages to surprise the users with the images it makes, but, currently, is limited by what gets programmed into it or by pure chance. How about adding a real artifical conciousness to the program? Creating an intelligent artificial designer? According to Igor Aleksander [1] conciousness is required for programs (computers) to really become usefully intelligent. Aleksander thinks that "the line has been drawn under the philosophical discussion of conciousness, and the way is open to sound scientific investigation". Without going into the details, and with great over-simplification, there are roughly two sorts of artificial intelligence: 1) Programmed intelligence, where, to all intents and purposes, the programmer is the "intelligence". The program may perform well (but often, in practice, doesn't) and any learning which is done is simply statistical and pre-programmed. There is no way that this type of program could become concious. 2) Neural network intelligence, where the programs are based roughly on a simple model of the brain, and the network learns how to do specific tasks. It is this sort of program which, according to Aleksander, could, in the future, become concious, and thus usefully intelligent. What could the advantages of an artificial artist be? 1) There would be no need for programming. Presumbably the human artist would dialog with the artificial artist, directing its development. 2) The artificial artist could be used as an apprentice, doing the "drudge" work of art, which needs intelligence, but is, anyway, monotonous for the human artist. 3) The human artist imagines "concepts", the artificial artist makes them concrete. 4) An concious artificial artist may come up with ideas of its own. Is this science fiction? Arthur C. Clarke's 1st Law: "If a famous scientist says that something can be done, then he is in all probability correct. If a famous scientist says that something cannot be done, then he is in all probability wrong". Arthur C Clarke's 2nd Law: "Only by trying to go beyond the current limits can you find out what the real limits are." One of Bertrand Russell's 10 commandments: "Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric" 3. References 1. "From Ramon Llull to Image Idea Generation". Ransen, Owen. Proceedings of the 1998 Milan First International Conference on Generative Art. 2. "How To Build A Mind" Aleksander, Igor. Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1999 3. "How I Drew One of My Pictures: or, The Authorship of Generative Art" by Adrian Ward and Geof Cox. Proceedings of the 1999 Milan 2nd International Conference on Generative Art.
series	other
email
more	http://www.generativeart.com/
last changed	2003/08/07 17:25

_id	avocaad_2001_16
id	avocaad_2001_16
authors	Yu-Ying Chang, Yu-Tung Liu, Chien-Hui Wong
year	2001
title	Some Phenomena of Spatial Characteristics of Cyberspace
source	AVOCAAD - ADDED VALUE OF COMPUTER AIDED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, Nys Koenraad, Provoost Tom, Verbeke Johan, Verleye Johan (Eds.), (2001) Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst - Departement Architectuur Sint-Lucas, Campus Brussel, ISBN 80-76101-05-1
summary	"Space," which has long been an important concept in architecture (Bloomer & Moore, 1977; Mitchell, 1995, 1999), has attracted interest of researchers from various academic disciplines in recent years (Agnew, 1993; Benko & Strohmayer, 1996; Chang, 1999; Foucault, 1982; Gould, 1998). Researchers from disciplines such as anthropology, geography, sociology, philosophy, and linguistics regard it as the basis of the discussion of various theories in social sciences and humanities (Chen, 1999). On the other hand, since the invention of Internet, Internet users have been experiencing a new and magic "world." According to the definitions in traditional architecture theories, "space" is generated whenever people define a finite void by some physical elements (Zevi, 1985). However, although Internet is a virtual, immense, invisible and intangible world, navigating in it, we can still sense the very presence of ourselves and others in a wonderland. This sense could be testified by our naming of Internet as Cyberspace -- an exotic kind of space. Therefore, as people nowadays rely more and more on the Internet in their daily life, and as more and more architectural scholars and designers begin to invest their efforts in the design of virtual places online (e.g., Maher, 1999; Li & Maher, 2000), we cannot help but ask whether there are indeed sensible spaces in Internet. And if yes, these spaces exist in terms of what forms and created by what ways?To join the current interdisciplinary discussion on the issue of space, and to obtain new definition as well as insightful understanding of "space", this study explores the spatial phenomena in Internet. We hope that our findings would ultimately be also useful for contemporary architectural designers and scholars in their designs in the real world.As a preliminary exploration, the main objective of this study is to discover the elements involved in the creation/construction of Internet spaces and to examine the relationship between human participants and Internet spaces. In addition, this study also attempts to investigate whether participants from different academic disciplines define or experience Internet spaces in different ways, and to find what spatial elements of Internet they emphasize the most.In order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the spatial phenomena in Internet and to overcome the subjectivity of the members of the research team, the research design of this study was divided into two stages. At the first stage, we conducted literature review to study existing theories of space (which are based on observations and investigations of the physical world). At the second stage of this study, we recruited 8 Internet regular users to approach this topic from different point of views, and to see whether people with different academic training would define and experience Internet spaces differently.The results of this study reveal that the relationship between human participants and Internet spaces is different from that between human participants and physical spaces. In the physical world, physical elements of space must be established first; it then begins to be regarded as a place after interaction between/among human participants or interaction between human participants and the physical environment. In contrast, in Internet, a sense of place is first created through human interactions (or activities), Internet participants then begin to sense the existence of a space. Therefore, it seems that, among the many spatial elements of Internet we found, "interaction/reciprocity" Ñ either between/among human participants or between human participants and the computer interface Ð seems to be the most crucial element.In addition, another interesting result of this study is that verbal (linguistic) elements could provoke a sense of space in a degree higher than 2D visual representation and no less than 3D visual simulations. Nevertheless, verbal and 3D visual elements seem to work in different ways in terms of cognitive behaviors: Verbal elements provoke visual imagery and other sensory perceptions by "imagining" and then excite personal experiences of space; visual elements, on the other hand, provoke and excite visual experiences of space directly by "mapping".Finally, it was found that participants with different academic training did experience and define space differently. For example, when experiencing and analyzing Internet spaces, architecture designers, the creators of the physical world, emphasize the design of circulation and orientation, while participants with linguistics training focus more on subtle language usage. Visual designers tend to analyze the graphical elements of virtual spaces based on traditional painting theories; industrial designers, on the other hand, tend to treat these spaces as industrial products, emphasizing concept of user-center and the control of the computer interface.The findings of this study seem to add new information to our understanding of virtual space. It would be interesting for future studies to investigate how this information influences architectural designers in their real-world practices in this digital age. In addition, to obtain a fuller picture of Internet space, further research is needed to study the same issue by examining more Internet participants who have no formal linguistics and graphical training.
series	AVOCAAD
email
last changed	2005/09/09 10:48

_id	5fee
authors	Corso Pereira, Gilberto
year	1999
title	Visualizacao de Informacoes Urbanas atraves de Multimidia (Visualization of Urban Information by Means of Multimedia)
source	III Congreso Iberoamericano de Grafico Digital [SIGRADI Conference Proceedings] Montevideo (Uruguay) September 29th - October 1st 1999, pp. 239-243
summary	Visualization is a tool that can aid understanding of phenomenon, process and spatial structures. Another important function is communication, in urban applications case, between planners, technicians, administrators, researchers and citizens. Recent technological development applied to visualization area increments analyze and interpretation capacity. The word visualization used here, is related with the use of computation for data exploration in a visual form, helping comprehension. It is a process of transformation of raw data in images, in information and visual communication. GIS and cartography precede computers. In it development GIS benefited from information technologies development and in this process emphasis goes from treatment of great amount of data to analyze of that data. Computer graphics make possible process and present visually great volume of data, thing that was not possible by conventional methods. Digital data are the key for the plain utilization of potential already available with geoprocessing technologies. Information that interest urban planners came from several sources and information technologies beside integration and manipulation permit visual analyze of spatial data in diverse aspects, from witch the most evident but not less effective a map, tool that let us correlate a great variety of qualitative and quantitative data, for organization, interpretation, presentation and communication. In digital cartographic basic elements of cartographic science were preserved, but through new products, each one execute one of the roles that traditional map plays in different ways. Database replace paper map as way of geographical information storage and cartographic visualization replaces a second role - understanding and explanation - that was satisfied by printed maps. Salvador is one of the most important brazilians metropolis. The project that we discuss have as targets construction of salvador database to permit understanding of urban space through use of thematic cartography. Several steps of project include data acquisition, database formation using data conversion and results visualization through interactive, hypermedia and thematic cartography.
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:49

_id	ga9922
id	ga9922
authors	Annunziato, M. and Pierucci, P.
year	1999
title	The Art of Emergence
source	International Conference on Generative Art
summary	Since several years, the term emergence is mentioned in the paradigm of chaos and complexity. Following this approach, complex system constituted by multitude of individual develop global behavioral properties on the base of local chaotic interactions (self-organization). These theories, developed in scientific and philosophical milieus are rapidly spreading as a "way of thinking" in the several fields of cognitive activities. According to this "way of thinking" it is possible revise some fundamental themes as the economic systems, the cultural systems, the scientific paths, the communication nets under a new approach where nothing is pre-determined, but the global evolution is determined by specific mechanisms of interaction and fundamental events (bifurcation). With a jump in scale of the life, also other basic concepts related to the individuals as intelligence, consciousness, psyche can be revised as self-organizing phenomena. Such a conceptual fertility has been the base for the revision of the artistic activities as flexible instruments for the investigation of imaginary worlds, metaphor of related real worlds. In this sense we claim to the artist a role of "researcher". Through the free exploration of new concepts, he can evoke qualities, configurations and hypothesis which have an esthetical and expressive value and in the most significant cases, they can induce nucleation of cultural and scientific bifurcation. Our vision of the art-science relation is of cooperative type instead of the conflict of the past decades. In this paper we describe some of the most significant realized artworks in order to make explicit the concepts and basic themes. One of the fundamental topics is the way to generate and think to the artwork. Our characterization is to see the artwork not as a static finished product, but as an instance or a dynamic sequence of instances of a creative process which continuously evolves. In this sense, the attention is focused on the "generative idea" which constitutes the envelop of the artworks generable by the process. In this approach the role of technology (computers, synthesizers) is fundamental to create the dimension of the generative environment. Another characterizing aspect of our artworks is derived by the previous approach and specifically related to the interactive installations. The classical relation between artist, artwork and observers is viewed as an unidirectional flux of messages from the artist to the observer through the artwork. In our approach artist, artwork and observer are autonomous entities provided with own personality which jointly intervene to determine the creative paths. The artist which generate the environment in not longer the "owner" of the artwork; simply he dialectically bring the generative environment (provided by a certain degree of autonomy) towards cultural and creative "void" spaces (not still discovered). The observers start from these platforms to generate other creative paths, sometimes absolutely unexpected , developing their new dialectical relations with the artwork itself. The results derived by these positions characterize the expressive elements of the artworks (images, sequences and sounds) as the outcomes of emergent behavior or dynamics both in the sense of esthetical shapes emergent from fertile generative environments, either in terms of emergent relations between artist, artwork and observer, either in terms of concepts which emerge by the metaphor of artificial worlds to produce imaginary hypothesis for the real worlds.
series	other
more	http://www.generativeart.com/
last changed	2003/08/07 17:25

_id	7546
authors	Coyne, R.
year	1999
title	Technoromanticism - digital narrative, holism, and the romance of the real
source	MIT Press
summary	It's no secret that contemporary culture romanticizes digital technologies. In books, articles, and movies about virtual community, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, artificial life, and other wonders of the digital age, breathless anticipation of vast and thrilling changes has become a running theme. But as Richard Coyne makes clear in Technoromanticism: Digital Narrative, Holism, and the Romance of the Real, a dense but rewarding piece of academic criticism, we also get romantic about the new technologies in a more rigorous sense of the word. Whether heralding an electronic return to village communalism or celebrating cyberspace as a realm of pure mind, today's utopian thinking about the digital, Coyne argues, essentially replays the 18th- and 19th-century cultural movement called Romanticism, with its powerful yearnings for transcendence and wholeness. And this apparently is not a good thing. Romanticism, like the more sober Enlightenment rationalism against which it rebelled, has outlived its usefulness as a way of understanding the world, Coyne argues. And so he spends the duration of the book bombarding both the romantic and the rationalist tendencies in cyberculture with every weapon in the arsenal of 20th-century critical theory: poststructuralism, Freudianism, postmodern pragmatism, Heideggerian phenomenology, surrealism--Coyne uses each in turn to whack away at conventional wisdoms about digital tech. Whether the conventional wisdoms remain standing at the end is an open question, but Coyne's tour of the contemporary intellectual landscape is a tour de force, and never before has digital technology's place in that landscape been mapped so thoroughly. --
series	other
email
last changed	2003/04/23 15:14

_id	ga9928
id	ga9928
authors	Goulthorpe
year	1999
title	Hyposurface: from Autoplastic to Alloplastic Space
source	International Conference on Generative Art
summary	By way of immediate qualification to an essay which attempts to orient current technical developments in relation to a series of dECOi projects, I would suggest that the greatest liberation offered by new technology in architecture is not its formal potential as much as the patterns of creativity and practice it engenders. For increasingly in the projects presented here dECOi operates as an extended network of technical expertise: Mark Burry and his research team at Deakin University in Australia as architects and parametric/ programmatic designers; Peter Wood in New Zealand as programmer; Alex Scott in London as mathematician; Chris Glasow in London as systems engineer; and the engineers (structural/services) of David Glover’s team at Ove Arup in London. This reflects how we’re working in a new technical environment - a new form of practice, in a sense - a loose and light network which deploys highly specialist technical skill to suit a particular project. By way of a second disclaimer, I would suggest that the rapid technological development we're witnessing, which we struggle to comprehend given the sheer pace of change that overwhelms us, is somehow of a different order than previous technological revolutions. For the shift from an industrial society to a society of mass communication, which is the essential transformation taking place in the present, seems to be a subliminal and almost inexpressive technological transition - is formless, in a sense - which begs the question of how it may be expressed in form. If one holds that architecture is somehow the crystallization of cultural change in concrete form, one suspects that in the present there is no simple physical equivalent for the burst of communication technologies that colour contemporary life. But I think that one might effectively raise a series of questions apropos technology by briefly looking at 3 or 4 of our current projects, and which suggest a range of possibilities fostered by new technology. By way of a third doubt, we might qualify in advance the apparent optimism of architects for CAD technology by thinking back to Thomas More and his island ‘Utopia’, which marks in some way the advent of Modern rationalism. This was, if not quite a technological utopia, certainly a metaphysical one, More’s vision typically deductive, prognostic, causal. But which by the time of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis is a technological utopia availing itself of all the possibilities put at humanity’s disposal by the known machines of the time. There’s a sort of implicit sanction within these two accounts which lies in their nature as reality optimized by rational DESIGN as if the very ethos of design were sponsored by Modern rationalist thought and its utopian leanings. The faintly euphoric ‘technological’ discourse of architecture at present - a sort of Neue Bauhaus - then seems curiously misplaced historically given the 20th century’s general anti-, dis-, or counter-utopian discourse. But even this seems to have finally run its course, dissolving into the electronic heterotopia of the present with its diverse opportunities of irony and distortion (as it’s been said) as a liberating potential.1 This would seem to mark the dissolution of design ethos into non-causal process(ing), which begs the question of ‘design’ itself: who 'designs' anymore? Or rather, has 'design' not become uncoupled from its rational, deterministic, tradition? The utopianism that attatches to technological discourse in the present seems blind to the counter-finality of technology's own accomplishments - that transparency has, as it were, by its own more and more perfect fulfillment, failed by its own success. For what we seem to have inherited is not the warped utopia depicted in countless visions of a singular and tyrranical technology (such as that in Orwell's 1984), but a rich and diverse heterotopia which has opened the possibility of countless channels of local dialect competing directly with the channels of power. Undoubtedly such multiplicitous and global connectivity has sent creative thought in multiple directions…
series	other
more	http://www.generativeart.com/
last changed	2003/08/07 17:25

_id	7ad1
authors	Giordano, Rubén F. and Tosello, María Elena
year	1999
title	Laberinto: Una Biblioteca para la Virtualidad. Reflexiones y Acontecimientos en el Cyberespacio (Labyrinth: A Library for Virtuality. Reflections and Events in Cyberspace)
source	III Congreso Iberoamericano de Grafico Digital [SIGRADI Conference Proceedings] Montevideo (Uruguay) September 29th - October 1st 1999, pp. 83-86
summary	This project investigates in the limits of the word like only means of structuring of the thought, before the appearance of new paradigms: the multimedias and the ciber-space that have transformed so much the language written as the architectural one causing unpublished situations: 1.) The transformation of a concrete container to other virtual. 2.) The transformation of the design object, of one static material to another that is a process. 3.) The transformation in the traditional ways of thinking (reversible as the formal logic of the mathematics) to new imaginarys epistemologicals. // These non alone events have caused changes in the forms of to know and to communicate the reality but rather the same one suffers a dilation process. We present for their exploration, a road synthesized in some hypotheses that were elaborated with reason of the International Competition of ACADIA 1998: 1.) The new communication systems (cibercomunication) they generate a new territory that should be colonized. This territory this conformed by objects related by infinite bonds (hipertext). 2.) The topographical form is not lineal and sequential, this it is multidirectional and multiradial. The phenomenon of the blow-up and the dilation are the mechanisms with those that the new objects are generated. 3.) These related fields generate interstitial empty spaces where it appears the desire. The interstice like existential space.
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:52

_id	ga9902
id	ga9902
authors	Soddu, Celestino
year	1999
title	Recognizability of designer imprinting in Generative artwork
source	International Conference on Generative Art
summary	Design lives within two fundamental stages, the creative and the evolutionary. The first is that of producing the idea: this approach is built activating a logical jump between the existing and possible worlds that represent our wishes and thoughts. A design idea is the identification of a set of possibilities that goes beyond specific "solutions" but identifies the sense or the attainable quality. The field involved in this design stage is "how" the world may be transformed, not what the possible scenario may be. The second is the evolutionary stage, that of the development of the idea. This approach runs inside paths of refinement and increases in complexity of the projects. It involves the management of the project to reach the desired quality.Generative design is founded on the possibility to clearly separate the creative and the evolutionary stages of the idea. And the first is reserved for man (because creative processes, being activated from subjective interpretations and being abduptive paths and not deductive, inductive or analytical ones, can not be emulated by machines) and the second may be carried out using artificial devices able to emulate logical procedures. The emulation of evolutionary logics is useful for a very simple reason: for getting the best operative design control on complexity. Designers know very well that the quality of a project depends, very importantly, on the time spent designing. If the time is limited, the project can not evolve enough to attain the desired quality. If the available time is increased, the project acquires a higher quality due to the possibility of crossing various parallel evolutionary paths, to develop these and to verify their relative potential running through the cycle idea/evolution more times and in progress. (scheme1) This is not all. In a time-limited design activity, the architect is pressed into facing the formalization of performance requirements in terms of answering directly specific questions. He is pressed into analytically systematizing the requirements before him to quickly work on the evolution of the project. The design solution can be effective but absolutely not flexible. If the real need of the user is, even slightly, different to the hypothesized requirement, the quality of the project, as its ability to respond to needs, breaks down. Projects approached in this way, which we could call "analytical", are quickly obsolete, being tied up to the flow of fashion. A more "creative" approach, where we don't try to accelerate (therby simplifying) the design development path "deducting" from the requirements the formalization choices but we develop our idea using the requirements and the constraints as opportunities of increasing the complexity of the idea, enriching the design development path to reach a higher quality, needs, without doubt, more time. As well as being, of course, a creative and non-analytical approach. This design approach, which is "the" design path, is a voyage of discovery that is comparable to that of scientific research. The fundamental structure is the idea as a "not deducted" hypothesis concerning a quality and recognizability of attainable artwork, according to the architect's "subjective" point of view. The needs and the constraints, identified as fields of possible development of the project, are opportunities for the idea to develop and acquire a specific identity and complexity. Once possible scenarios of a project are formed, the same requirements and constraints will take part, as "verification of congruity", of the increase in quality. Then the cycle, once more, will be run again to reach more satisfactory results. It is, without doubt, an approach that requires time.
series	other
email
more	http://www.generativeart.com/
last changed	2003/08/07 17:25

_id	e719
authors	Achten, Henri and Turksma, Arthur
year	1999
title	Virtual Reality in Early Design: the Design Studio Experiences
source	AVOCAAD Second International Conference [AVOCAAD Conference Proceedings / ISBN 90-76101-02-07] Brussels (Belgium) 8-10 April 1999, pp. 327-335
summary	The Design Systems group of the Eindhoven University of Technology started a new kind of design studio teaching. With the use of high-end equipment, students use Virtual Reality from the very start of the design process. Virtual Reality technology up to now was primarily used for giving presentations. We use the same technology in the design process itself by means of reducing the time span in which one gets results in Virtual Reality. The method is based on a very brief cycle of modelling in AutoCAD, assigning materials in 3DStudio Viz, and then making a walkthrough in Virtual Reality in a standard landscape. Due to this cycle, which takes about 15 seconds, the student gets immediate feedback on design decisions which facilitates evaluation of the design in three dimensions much faster than usual. Usually the learning curve of this kind of software is quite steep, but with the use of templates the number of required steps to achieve results is reduced significantly. In this way, the potential of Virtual Reality is not only explored in research projects, but also in education. This paper discusses the general set-up of the design studio and shows how, via short workshops, students acquire knowledge of the cycle in a short time. The paper focuses on the added value of using Virtual Reality technology in this manner: improved spatial reasoning, translation from two-dimensional to three-dimensional representations, and VR feedback on design decisions. It discusses the needs for new design representations in this design environment, and shows how fast feedback in Virtual Reality can improve the spatial design at an early stage of the design process.
series	AVOCAAD
email
last changed	2005/09/09 10:48

_id	ad51
authors	Chastain, Th., Kalay, Y.E. and Peri, Ch.
year	1999
title	Square Peg in a Round Hole or Horseless Carriage? Reflections on the Use of Computing in Architecture
source	Media and Design Process [ACADIA ‘99 / ISBN 1-880250-08-X] Salt Lake City 29-31 October 1999, pp. 4-15
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.acadia.1999.004
summary	We start with two paradigms that have been used to describe the relationship of computation methods and tools to the production of architecture. The first is that of forcing a square peg into a round hole — implying that the use of a tool is mis-directed, or at least poorly fits the processes that have traditionally been part of an architectural design practice. In doing so, the design practice suffers from the use of new technology. The other paradigm describes a state of transformation in relation-ship to new technology as a horseless carriage in which the process is described in obsolete and ‘backward’ terms. The impli-cation is that there is a lack of appreciation for the emerging potentials of technology to change our relationship with the task. The paper demonstrates these two paradigms through the invention of drawings in the 14th century, which helped to define the profession of Architecture. It then goes on to argue that modern computational tools follow the same paradigms, and like draw-ings, stand to bring profound changes to the profession of architecture as we know it.
series	ACADIA
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:55

_id	9b63
authors	De Mesa, A., Quilez, J. and Regot, J.
year	1999
title	Sunlight Energy Graphic and Analytic Control in 3D Modelling
source	Architectural Computing from Turing to 2000 [eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-9523687-5-7] Liverpool (UK) 15-17 September 1999, pp. 733-738
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.1999.733
summary	Linking solar positions with architecture is a traditional idea, but the use of graphical tools to control sunlight in urban surroundings or buildings is relatively recent. A three-dimensional working environment like the computer offers a new dimension to verify the relationships between the sun and the architecture. This paper shows a new way to calculate the incidence of solar energy in architectural environments using computer 3D modelling. The addition of virtual space visualisation to the analytic computation brings a new tool that simplifies the technical study of sunlight. We have developed several programs based upon the three-dimensional construction of the solar vault and the obstructing objects for a defined position. The first one draws the solar vault for a defined range of dates according to latitude, that is the basis of the energetic calculation. The second program computes the obstruction, i.e. the solar regions that are obstructed by any object. Finally, the third one, allow us to define an orientation to compute the energy that arrives to the analysed positioning. The last program returns the result of calculation in several ways: it shows the amount of energy through colours and makes a list of solar hours according to its energy.
keywords	Sunlight, Energy, 3D modelling
series	eCAADe
last changed	2022/06/07 07:56

_id	b578
authors	Kawasumi, Norihiro and Yamaguchi, Shigeyuki
year	1999
title	A Study of Design Information System for Network Collaboration
source	CAADRIA '99 [Proceedings of The Fourth Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia / ISBN 7-5439-1233-3] Shanghai (China) 5-7 May 1999, pp. 191-199
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.caadria.1999.191
summary	In this paper, we discuss about the architectural design collaboration and information management based on the worldwide network. Internet and WWW are rapidly infiltrating through the architectural schools in the world, so it is easy to communicate and share the design information with web homepage and e-mail. But, a set of homepage and e-mail is not sufficient for easy and smooth design. Because of the data management method and system for network collaboration is not yet well organized nor well developed. In this paper, we report the results of two Virtual Design Studio projects that we have experienced and intend to analyze the problems to exchange and share the design information on the web. Then we propose the collaborative design system environment and evaluate it from the result of the experimental third Virtual Design Studio project that we have executed.
series	CAADRIA
more	http://archigraf.archi.kit.ac.jp/
last changed	2022/06/07 07:52

_id	4fa1
authors	Lee, E., Ida, Y., Woo, S. and Sasada, T.
year	1999
title	Environmental Design Using Fractals in Computer Graphics
source	Architectural Computing from Turing to 2000 [eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-9523687-5-7] Liverpool (UK) 15-17 September 1999, pp. 533-538
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.1999.533
summary	Computer graphics have developed efficient techniques for visualisation of the real world. Many of the algorithms have a physical basis, such as computational models for the light and the shadow, models of real objects (buildings, mountains, roads and so on) and the simulation of natural phenomenon. Now computer graphics techniques provide the virtual world with a perception of three dimensions. The concept of the virtual world and its technology have been expanding and intensifying in recent years. Almost everything in the real world has been simulated in virtual world. When it comes to a terrain model, what we need is labour and time. But now it is possible to simulate terrain like the real world using fractals in computer graphics with a very small program and small data set. This study aims to show how to build a real world impression in the virtual world. In this paper the authors suggest a landscape design method and show the results of its application.
keywords	Fractals, Polygon-Reduction, Computer Graphics, Virtual World, Collaboration
series	eCAADe
last changed	2022/06/07 07:51

_id	5c07
authors	Lee, H.-L., Liu, Y.-T., Chen, S.-C., Tang, S.-K. and Huang, C.-P., Huang, C.-H., Chang, Y.-L., Chang, K.-W. and Chen, K.-Y.
year	2002
title	A Comparative study of protocol analysis for - Spatiality of a Text-based Cyberspace
source	Connecting the Real and the Virtual - design e-ducation [20th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-9541183-0-8] Warsaw (Poland) 18-20 September 2002, pp. 262-266
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.2002.262
summary	Graduate Institute of Architecture, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, 30050, TAIWAN The adaptation of the word cyberspace (Gibson, 1984) following the emergence of the World Wide Web Internet not only succinctly revolutionized the correlation of time and space but also poised to challenge how we view the existing spatial concept. This research tries to use protocol analysis to examine text-based cyberspace, such as bulletin board, chart rooms and so forth, and the objective of this research is to realize the spatiality of cyberspace through the cognitive point of view, and to compare the differences of the definitions and perception ways of spatiality between people with general domain and in design fields. Finally, we validate the existence of cyberspace, where the process not only allows further categorization of spatial elements concluded from the earlier study, but discover that varied backgrounds can affect how a user defines and perceives cyberspace (Strate, 1999).
series	eCAADe
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:51

_id	caadria2005_b_4b_d
id	caadria2005_b_4b_d
authors	Martin Tamke
year	2005
title	Baking Light: Global Illumination in VR Environments as architectural design tool
source	CAADRIA 2005 [Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia / ISBN 89-7141-648-3] New Delhi (India) 28-30 April 2005, vol. 2, pp. 214-228
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.caadria.2005.214
summary	As proven in the past, immersive Virtual Environments can be helpful in the process of architectural design (Achten et al. 1999). But still years later, these systems are not common in the architectural design process, neither in architectural education nor in professional work. The reasons might be the high price of e.g. CAVEs, the lack of intuitive navigation and design tools in those environments, the absence of useful and easy to handle design workflows, and the quality constraints of real-time display of 3D models. A great potential for VR in the architectural workflow is the review of design decisions: Display quality, comfortable navigation and realistic illumination are crucial ingredients here. Light is one of the principal elements in architectural design, so design reviews must enable the architect to judge the quality of his design in this respect. Realistic light simulations, e.g. via radiosity algorithms, are no longer the domain of high-end graphic workstations. Today's off-the-shelf hardware and 3D-software provide the architect with high-quality tools to simulate physically correct light distributions. But the quality and impression of light is hard to judge from looking at still renderings. In collaboration with the Institute of Computer Graphics at our university we have established a series of regular design reviews in their immersive virtual environment. This paper describes the workflow that has emerged from this collaboration, the tools that were developed and used, and our practical experiences with global-light-simulations. We share results which we think are helpful to others, and we highlight areas where further research is necessary.
series	CAADRIA
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:59

_id	d2b4
authors	Maver, Tom and Petric, Jelena
year	1999
title	Media in Mediation: Prospects for Computer Assisted Design Participation
source	Media and Design Process [ACADIA ‘99 / ISBN 1-880250-08-X] Salt Lake City 29-31 October 1999, pp. 138-147
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.acadia.1999.138
summary	One of the most consistent, powerful and philosophical ideas which has run like a silk thread through the short and erratic history of the development of computer aided architectural design is that of user participation in the design decision-making process. It is not an idea with which the architectural profession is particularly comfortable but it is, the authors claim, one which is central to the professional ethic and, therefore, to its ultimate survival. Design decision-making is, if addressed properly, a hugely, complex multi-variety, multi-person process on which precious little serious research has been focused. In the late 1960's the Design Methods Group in the USA and the Design Research Society in the UK formulated paper-based models of the design process and anticipated, in some regards with un-nerving accuracy, the way in which the application of information technologies would impinge beneficially on the process of design decision-making and, therefore, on the quality of the built environment. One concept expressed at that time was as follows: (•) the application of computers to the modeling and prediction of the cost and performance behavior of alternative design solutions allows subjective value judgements to be better informed and more explicitly audited, and that (•) such subjective value judgements should be made by those most affected by them, i.e. the future owners and users of buildings. // This paper is devoted to the critical re-examination of this concept, on the seminal research and development which has kept the notion alive over 30 years, and, most importantly in the context of the theme of ACADIA 1999, how the current advances in multimedia, virtual reality and internet access are not yet making its ubiquitous adoption inevitable: in short, a plea for Media in Mediation.
series	ACADIA
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:58

_id	473d
authors	Maver, Tom and Petric, Jelena
year	1999
title	Virtual Heritage: Is There a Future for the Past?
source	III Congreso Iberoamericano de Grafico Digital [SIGRADI Conference Proceedings] Montevideo (Uruguay) September 29th - October 1st 1999, pp. 482-487
summary	This paper attempts an overview of the contribution which emerging information technologies - viz CAD, Multimedia, Virtual Reality and the Internet - can make to the presentation, understanding and preservation of the rich architectural heritage which exists (pro-term) in almost every cultural context. In the UK, the growing interest in sites such as Stonehenge has, through the threat of greater physical presence, increasingly kept the public at bay - a curious paradox which Virtual Reality (VR) has the potential to address. Virtual Reality (-an overly used and underly understood term-) is an information technology which can provide a convincing experience of environments which: i) exist, but are too remote, costly or hazardous, to visit. ii) don't yet exist but are planned, such as architectural designs or urban plans. iii) never will exist, other than in the imagination. iv) existed in the past and are now threatened or already lost. // This paper has its focus on the latter category, i.e. what is now becoming known as Virtual Heritage (VH), but it puts VH in the context of the broader spectrum of simulated experiences of past, present and future environments of cultural significance. The paper draws largely on the work of ABACUS, the Architecture and Building Aids Computer Unit, Strathclyde. The examples of the application of IT to VH include: i) a virtual reality experience of Historic Scotland's premier historical site: Skara Brae, the most complete neolithic settlement in Northern Europe. ii) a multimedia CD-ROM featuring some 50 of the most wonderful interiors of Glasgow's architectural treasures. iii) a computer based archive of rare and normally inaccessible 17C and 18C drawings of Scottish buildings from three seminal sources. iv) a massive 3-D model of Glasgow (some 10,000 buildings located on the hilly terrain of the city), which is now accessible on the Internet. // The paper concludes with conjectures based on the examples given of how emerging information technologies can help secure a future for the past.
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:55

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