| authors |
Gardner, Brian M. |
| year |
1998 |
| title |
The Grid Sketcher: An AutoCAD Based Tool for Conceptual Design Processes |
| source |
Digital Design Studios: Do Computers Make a Difference? [ACADIA Conference Proceedings / ISBN 1-880250-07-1] Québec City (Canada) October 22-25, 1998, pp. 222-237 |
| doi |
https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.acadia.1998.222
|
| summary |
Sketching with pencil and paper is reminiscent of the varied, rich, and loosely defined formal processes associated with
conceptual design. Architects actively engage such creative paradigms in their exploration and development of conceptual design
solutions. The Grid Sketcher, as a conceptual sketching tool,
presents one possible computer implementation for enhancing
and supporting these processes. It effectively demonstrates the
facility with which current technology and the computing environment can enhance and simulate sketching intents and expectations.
One pervasive and troubling undercurrent, however, is the
conceptual barrier between the variable processes of human
thought and those indigenous to computing. Typically with respect to design, the position taken is that the two are virtually void
of any fundamental commonality. A designer’s thoughts are intuitive, at times irrational, and rarely follow consistently identifiable
patterns. Conversely, computing requires predictability in just these
endeavors. Computing is strictly an algorithmic process while
thought is not always so predictable. Given these dichotomous
relationships, the computing environment, as commonly defined,
cannot reasonably expect to mimic the typically human domain
of creative design. In this context, this thesis accentuates the
computer’s role as a form generator as opposed to a form evaluator. The computer, under the influence of certain contextual parameters can, however, provide the designer with a rich and
elegant set of forms that respond through algorithmics to the
designer’s creative intents.
The software presented in this thesis is written in AutoLISP
and exploits AutoCAD’s capacious 3D environment. Designs
and productions respond to a bounded framework where user
selected parametric variables of size, scale, proportion, and proximity, all which reflect contextual issues, determine the characteristics of a unit form. Designer selected growth algorithms then
arbitrate the spatial relationships between the unit forms and their
propagation through the developing design.
While the Sketcher implements only the GRID as an organizational discipline, many other paradigms are possible. Within
this grid structure a robust set of editing features, supported by the
computer’s inherent speed, allows the designer to analyze successive productions while refining ever more complex solutions.
Through creative manipulation of these algorithmic structures ideas
eventually coalesce to formalize images that represent a given
design problem’s solution set.
|
| series |
ACADIA |
| email |
|
| references |
Content-type: text/plain
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| last changed |
2022/06/07 07:51 |
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