Generative
Design. A swimmer in a natural sea
frame
Celestino
Soddu
Professor
of Architectural Design at Master in Building Engineering
Director
of Generative Design Lab, Dept. of Architecture and
Planning
Politecnico
di Milano University.
Celestino.soddu@polimi.it website:
www.soddu.it
Abstract
Generative
Design is a logical synthesis of a creative process using transformation rules
(algorithms). It can be realized designing a program able to simulate this
process and to generate outputs as 3dmodels of architecture, cities, objects. As
all creative processes it involves subjectivity in the definition of how the
process runs and how the transforming rules are created and organized into a
system.
As
in all creative processes two main factors are involved: the unpredictability of
external factors linked to each design occasion, like the environmental context
and client’s requests, and the subjectivity of designers when they interpret
these external factors.
Being
a logical synthesis of this complex dynamical system, Generative Approach can be
successful used in teaching architectural design as subjectivity-oriented
approach.
Morphogenetic
Meta-Project versus Project
Generative
Design could be represented like a morphogenetic meta-project, an organized idea
of “how to run” a design process. In sixties of last century meta-projects were
the structure of organization of incoming projects. They were constructed with
the aim of identifying the best structure to answer to “objective” functional
needs. It was not possible to full develop this kind of approach because
functional needs, extended to practice functions but also to symbolic and
aesthetical functions, are strongly related to the subjectivity of customers and
to the subjectivity of designers.
Generative
Design is a meta-project with two fundamental extension:
1.
it involves subjectivities going more in deep into complexity of (architectural,
town environment, industrial objects…) designed artificial systems.
Perspective
versus Axonometric
It’s
like moving from axonometric to perspective view. Adding subjectivity you can move from
the axonometric representation, “objective” because free from subjective views
but limited by the dimension of the sheet, to the perspective view that, using
subjective points of view, can represent the infinite in one sheet and,
following that, the increasing complexity of represented
systems.
2.
it can run the design process a lot of times, being sensible to little
variations of inputs (similar to the different feel of the designer in different
moments) and it can generate a sequence of endless results, all different but
all related to the designer idea.
Anamorphic
versus Axiomatic
It’s
like moving from normal perspectives view into anamorphic perspective views.
Each different point of view transform the anamorphic representation into
unpredictable scenarios. Looking at each of these outputs we can discover one of
the possible representation of the idea.
Process
versus Output
Generative
Design, as subjective operative meta-project, can be used to design a kind of
artificial objects, an artificial DNA of a species of objects because is
oriented to set up a process and not only to reach one result. More, it defines
and renders explicit all the steps of a “normal” design process, from the first
sketch to the final executive project. And, in this way, it’s a wonderful
support for teaching (architectural and industrial)
design.
Idea
versus Solution
If
you are a designer and someone ask you: “which is your idea, which kind of forms
are you thinking to” or “which character do you love for your architectures” or
“ which kind of impact do you prefer to have when you enter in a unknown city”,
you can explain it using words but you cannot show it if not using a generative
approach because it represents an idea and not peculiar solution of problems.
Each idea can be developed with multiple solution but each solution is not
exhaustive of the idea.
Synthesis
versus Simplification
Interpretation
versus Analysis
The
reason is that you cannot use drawings, forms or images able to explain your
thought in an exhaustive way because you have to perform a synthesis of all your
beloved forms, including possible unknown forms that could fit your needs. You
cannot simplify.
More,
answering to all these questions, you have to explain the complex system of
relationships and possible interfaces that a town environment must have for
linking your needs and your interpretation of unpredictable user’s needs.
Generative
design is not an analytical process but a synthesis process. The core of each
generative project is the synthesis, using algorithms, of own subjective
approach to context and to own subjective cultural, technological and functional
references. In brief, generative design performs own modus of approaching the
transformation of existent worlds into possible environments more closed to own
idea of quality.
Following
that, In generative design processes, but also in all creative processes, the
subjective interpretations of existing world are the main creative
acts.
Subjectivity
versus Objectivity
Imitation
versus Copy
The
role of subjectivity is really important in design activity. Without
subjectivity we loose the main stimulus for evolving our functional scheme into
a project, and we lose the possibility to use our cultural, symbolical,
aesthetical, technological references because these references can be used only
if we have our interpretation of them. If not we can do only
copies.
Variations
versus Optimisation
In
last century we experienced a design approach focused on optimisation. It came
by the need to identify “the best” and realize it with industrial assemblage
chains. This approach belongs to the concept that all people are equal, all
people need the same equal product. This approach is not more accepted and it’s
known that we can realize a product with the best performances but with
different form. These differences fit the need of personalization of products,
fit the need of customers to find his own product, fit the need of each person
to find out a product, a house, a car, a square, a city, an environment that fit
his needs and that is the mirror of his identity and uniqueness. The
subjectivity of designers fit the subjectivity of
customers.
The
possibility to manage variations is inside the quality of a design process. Generative projects face directly this
need generating unpredictable, but recognizable outputs.
Identification
versus Homologation
Because
the recognizability of outputs is the explication of the architect’s (or
artist’s) imprinting. But it’s also a function that each customer appreciates
when looking for something facing his own subjectivity. We can recognize a print
of Piranesi, also if we never have
seen it before, because we recognize the style or, we can say, the DNA of his
drawing process, his stratified interpretations of surrounding environment that
makes unique his drawings.
Recognisable
versus Anonymous
In
the some way we need to identify our home when we go home, to identify our city
and to love the link between its unique character and our way to look at the
future.
Generation
versus Cloning
Generative
Design realize a species and not only single outputs. It’s like in Nature.
Generation is strongly different from cloning, like art craft is different from
assemblage chain. But now an industrial production of all different objects is
technically possible using the existing industrial equipment and generative
projects. More, variations, as in nature, enhance the recognizability and
peculiarity of each idea facing, in the meantime, the need of personalization of
each customer. In this era, when someone
tries to clone, like in the
last century industries, the natural events, we like to rediscover, in the
artificial world, the uniqueness of generation, like in
Nature.
Unpredictability
versus Repetition
The
unpredictability of variations of natural objects, like a rose or a cat, enhance
the rose and cat concept, the identity of these species, like the
unpredictability of a each variation of Bach enhance the identity of his music
and our ability to identify and appreciate it. On the contrary, repetition
destroys identity. A compound of
all equal houses has less identity (and is less fascinating) of a compound where
all the houses are different but each one follows a recognizable common idea of
quality. Variations as mirror of
the subjectivity of each inhabitant.
Random
of requests versus Random of outputs
The
use of random factors is important in constructing this process as software. It
follows two different approaches. Random as possibility to create unpredictable
requests, constrains, needs as occasions to improve the complexity of the
process and testing the recognizability of the idea in all generated events, or
random as generator of casual forms. The difference is, substantially, the
recognizability of the artist/architect/designer
imprinting.
Teaching
How versus Teaching What
I
am teaching architectural design from 30 years and, after having developed my
first generative software in 1987 and published the related book in 1989
(C.Soddu, Citta’ Aleatorie (Random
Cities), Masson Publisher), It was me clear that, as my Argenia Generative
Software worked simulating the design processes and generating architectural
outputs able to fit different occasions and client’s needs, so I would have been
able to use Argenia as model for investigating about designing process. It is,
in fact, an effective logical synthesis of normal design processes.
So
I used it as base of an operative and effective teaching structure for Design
Studio Labs in architecture, environmental and industrial
design.
Outputs
of students were soon really encouraging because based on discussions about
“how” develop their work and not about “what” they are designing, giving tools
for managing their work without discussing about their partial and temporary
results but looking at them as a first step of a transforming process. This
teaching approach enhanced their subjectivity and the possibility to use at the
best their own cultural references. In other words they succeed in using all
their previous learning work by interpreting these references as transforming
codes. But this aspect created also some difficulties. We can synthesize these
difficulties as belonging to the student’s denial to render explicit his
subjectivity, his cultural peculiarity, also if only in the field of design
approach. The common request of some students (but only in the first steps of
the learning path) was the request of a more “objective” teaching process were
each student can work “analytically” for reaching a surely acceptable result.
But design process is not an analytical process. If teacher don’t talk about
subjective approach (as done by design teaching in the last century for
ideological problems) he misses the possibility to enter in deep into discussion
on design processes.
It
was also difficult to clear to the students that the assessment of their
projects developed in the Design Studio Labs is done
valuating:
1.
the congruence between the aims indicated by each student at the beginning of
their work and the structure of the transforming rules that they designed during
this experience.
2.
the progressive transformation path in terms of increasing-complexity difference
between the initial sketch and the final drawings.
3.
The possibility to manage again, in different design occasions, the same reached
quality. This point is the main point because it demonstrates the increasing
professionalism of the student.
Teaching
structure. A subjective oriented design approach for teaching
design.
Transforming
versus Forming
The
steps for running a generative approach in teaching design
are:
1.
Each student is required to identify the character of his idea by interpreting
his references into transforming rules. First the student can list a sequence of
characters using words, like adjectives. Each student is required to identify 3
adjectives for describing his design aim. (3 and not less or more because it’s
interesting to make synthesis and to be not too much axiomatic. The choice of
three adjective was used, the first time, by E,Colabella that experienced in her
courses the same logical process). Students have to identify some references as
representation of each character.
2.
Second step is identifying the different design moments, when the designer have
to choose how to fit the incoming functional, aesthetical and symbolical
requests. These moments can be identified like:
How
to fold an element
How
to divide an element into different parts
How
the element ends
How
the element lean on
How
make holes into elements
How
…
3.
the third step is the more creative one and each student is required to explain
and use his design subjectivity.
Each personal reference can be interpreted as transforming rule applied
to each different design moment. The request is: how I can transform the
previous step of my project into an incoming one fitting a concrete request and
reaching, in the meantime, the identified character? For example, if the student
have to open a door into a wall, to divide a wall into parts, to shape how his
building can end, and so on, how he will manage these incoming transformations
using his own references? He will identify previously a sequence of transforming
rules that could be applied to the project in progress for fitting different
requests. The result of this creative work is a set of rules that could be
considered like designer’s subjective DNA. The reference to DNA is correct
because these rules, when used, bring the project to be transformed in progress
fitting two main questions: the increasing functionality of the project
referring to the client’s requests and the increasing identity and
recognizability of the project by fitting the characters representing the designer’s
imprinting.
4.
the subsequent step, that is the fist one directly linked to the starting a
particular project, is to set up a paradigm of organization able to support the
transforming path increasing its peculiarity and its functionality. The main
difficulty regarding this stap is to design an open system, really adaptive but,
in the same time, really characterised.
5.
Now we have the two engines: the paradigm of organization and the set of
transforming rules. It’s time to run the generative process using the rules in
front of each incoming request, This action will generate a scenario. That is
only one of the possible results. This work is exactly the same of normal design
activity. But the structure is really clear: these scenarios are generated using
predefined transforming rules (focused on defined characters) into a peculiar
field of relations designed for representing the project functions. The
interesting question is that this design path is clear and understandable by
each student that can open a discussion with the teacher referring to his
peculiar interest and references. Also if the students, as normally happens,
don’t use a software to manage this path but run the process with “normal”
tools.
6.
The last moment is the possibility to generate variations. Using the defined
rules in different moments of the evolving design history, each student
discovers that he can reach his own aim with different results. More, students
discover that variations are a good representation of their idea that cannot be
represented by only one result. And they discover that they can manage the
reached quality of their project also in other incoming projects, because the
transforming rules that they have designed are useful to be used again reaching
the same character and imprinting. They have discovered how to manage their
professional identity and recognizability when managing their incoming
projects.
7.
In practice, each student have done his subjective meta-project that represent
his identity as architect.
Using
this approach, finally, teachers and students can discuss about design process,
about how each designer can go ahead with his ideas, following his specific
means, needs and aims and not only discussing on the (final)
output.
Layering
versus Permutation
One
of the interesting quality of generative approach is that students learn how to
manage the complexity using layering of different transforming rules. As it’s
known, complexity cannot be reached in only one step. The quality of
architectures and cities spring up from history, from the personal history of a
design path when the designer fill the project with different feelings of
different moments (the more interesting example is that architects, when they
need to go ahead with a project that don’t seems to grow, turn the drawings to
the opposite site for having a different view of their work, for finding out a
unpredictable point of view) and, regarding cities, from the history of
different cultural moments.
More,
the generative approach using transformations instead of solutions give a
further possibility: a good work for a team of different people with different
field of interest. If each partner of a design team gives his contribution with
a solution, it’s really difficult to put together all the contributions into a
final output. Forms/solutions cannot be stratified but only permutated. But if
each partner gives his contribution with a transforming rule it’s easy to run,
one after the other, each rule. At the end each partner will find, in the final
result, the representation and attainment of his own idea.
This
teaching approach was experienced by around two thousands of students of
Politecnico di Milano, Faculty of Architecture, Industrial Design and
Engineering in the courses held by me and by Enrica Colabella starting from
1989. In 1992 E.Colabella and me wrote the book “ Il progetto ambientale di
morfogenesi” (the Morphogenetic Environmental Project) published by Esculapio
Progetto-Leonardo Editor, Bologna, explaining this teaching approach. In the
meantime more then one hundred of master thesis with my and E.C. supervision
were made using this approach. All the student’s experience were, staring from
1995, posted in the website www.generativedesign.com.
The
main results, as confirmed by students that are now running their professional
activity, are:
1.
they are facilitated to increase in progress the quality of their projects
because they know how to reach, in each subsequent project, the quality already
reached in the previous ones.
2.
they succeed in realizing their projects in less time, because they use the
experienced transforming codes. In this way they can find time for increasing
their transforming rules taking advantage from the peculiar requests of each
project.
Philosophy
versus technology
The
generative design approach is not a technology but a philosophy. It identifies a
particular approach to understand, design and manage the incoming complexity of
artificial systems, cities, architectures, environment, objects. It can be
easily transformed in technological tools because it uses transforming rules
that can be easily written in algorithms.
Rules
versus Forms
Organizing
versus Choosing
The
creativity is focused on logical processes and not on results, on organizing the
system and not on choosing solutions. Choosing the emergent event using random
forms could bring to shape a good result but, in this case, the quality is not
repeatable.
Impervious
versus Flat
Occasion
versus Obstacle
The
client requests, the constrains, the difficulties of a project are welcome. Each
new request open the possibility to increase the final quality. Complexity is
considered as the ability to answer to the different, sometimes contradictory,
unpredictable needs of users.
Organic
versus Minimalist
The
design process is similar to processes in Nature. It uses something like
artificial DNA performed like a set of transformation rules. The aim is a
natural organic architecture able to answer to unpredictable requests through
complexity, as natural events. On the opposite side we could find minimalism if
we consider it as an attempt to fit
different needs with something that looks like an
optimisation.
The
design approach is focused on transforming and not on forming. This
approach is considered related to
the real approach experienced by designers. The generative philosophy of design
can be synthesized by:
Proportions
versus Grids
Dynamic
versus Static
Parameter
versus Measure
The
design approach focused on transforming and not on forming have a long history
in Renaissance. The attention, experienced in the past industrial era, to
modules and to grids change into a new, but traditional, attention to
proportions and parametric definitions because they are more closed to the
management of dynamical evolutions. Modules and fixed measures are not more
useful for managing the industrial production that uses numerical control
equipments and robots.
Permeable
versus Waterproof
Improving
versus Substituting
Facilitation
versus Hindering
And
versus Or
Transformed
versus New
Memory
versus Lost
Palpable
versus Untouchable
Contaminate
versus Pure
Perfectible
versus Perfect
The
quality of a design process can be valuated through complexity, that is not
complication but synthesis of different and contradictory abilities. This
complexity can be reached through layering of different inputs, needs,
references, feelings. And the project in progress have to be read, to be
improved, transformed, contaminated without loosing his character and identity.
But enlarging its own memory. This is possible only if the identity is managed
by the modus of running the process and not by the used
forms.
Works
of my students at their Master Thesis (www.generativedesign.com):
Interpretation
of a tree from Van Gogh and generation of 3D trees. Emilio
Molinaro 1996
Interpretation
of “Le Carceri” by GB Piranesi and construction of subjective 3D model.
Enrico
Mazzei 1996
Transformation
of 3D car models following identified codes. Luigi
Martinetti 1997
Interpretation
of sections and geometries and design of Gaudi’ codes for generating endless
“Gaudi’” buildings. Matteo
Codignola 2000.
Construction
of generative transformation rules of Manhattan identity. Four steps of
evolution. Mariateresa
Capodici, Marco Melino
1996
References
(for
more references www.soddu.it)
Books:
C.Soddu,
‘L’immagine non euclidea’ (the not Euclidean image), Gangemi publisher,
1987
C.Soddu,
‘Citta’ Aleatorie’, (unpredictable cities), Masson Publisher.
1989
E.Colabella,
C.Soddu, ‘Il progetto ambientale di morfogenesi’, (the environmental design of
morphogenesis), Progetto Leonardo Publisher 1992
C. Soddu,
“Milan, Visionary Variations”, Gangemi publisher, Rome 2005
Articles:
C.Soddu,
‘Simulation tools for the learning approach to dynamic evolution of town shape,
architecture and industrial design’, in ‘Proceedings. International Conference
on computer aided learning”, published by Press Polytecniques et Universitaries
Romandes. Lausanne 1991.
C. Soddu, "From
Forming to Transforming", proceedings of Generative Art Conference, Milan, Alea
Design Publisher, December 2000
C.Soddu,
“Recognizability of the idea: the evolutionary process of Argenia” in P.Bentley
& D. Corne (edited by), "Creative Evolutionary Systems", Morgan Kaufmann
Publisher, San Francisco US, 2001
C.Soddu,
“New Naturality: a Generative approach to Art and Design”, Leonardo Magazine 35,
MIT press, July 2002
C. Soddu,
"Generative Design / Visionary Variations - Morphogenetic processes for Complex
Future Identities" in the book Organic Aesthetics and generative methods in
Architectural design" edited by P. Van Looke & Y. Joye in
Communication&Cognition, Vol 36, Number 3/4, Ghent, Belgium 2004
C.Soddu,
E.Colabella, "A Univesal Mother Tongue", Leonardo Electronic Almanac Vol.13, Number 8, August
2005
Websites: