Generative design
Assignment 1
Last updated
Assignment 1
Last updated
The idea of generative design starts from circa 1970’s, when for the first time designers afforded experimenting with computers. Prior, they were prohibitively expensive and only available for military, industrial and scientific applications. The concept back then was aligned with the notion of rule-based computer-generated geometry and graphics. In a sense, the kind of understanding and skills developed in this session: we used symbolic rules for sequence transformations and exploited the power of expression propagation to generate computational geometries.
Imagine the excitement of being to able to draw so much faster and precise than what was ever previously possible by hand! What kind of designs could only be achieved with this medium? What are exactly those design they could have never been feasible at any point the past? How could we gain control of computation processes and express ideas with them, given that computing is a super exact and a rigid medium while our ideas soft and flexible? How could we deal with the fact that most outputs generated by generative processes make absolutely no sense? In other words, how do we choose from the vast range of all possible designs the very best ones? How do we even being to catalogue and peruse all variations possible given that with more than two-three parameters we cannot even visualize results? How to we manage the complexity of data and representations that rapidly escalate given the ease of producing them?
A fascinating result from those early days of design-computing was the realization that our cognitive affordances are rapidly overwhelmed when complexity goes beyond a certain threshold and our sensory aptitudes, ie. our visual processing capabilities, allow us to detect patterns in chaos. This effect is called “emergence”; you can think about it as the point where the whole becomes bigger than the sum of its parts. It is perhaps the point were computing ends and design begins.
Create a generative design using the techniques developed aiming to produce something that cannot be recreated using conventional media. The theme of this assignment is “beyond human aptitude”.
As this may be your first design assignment, we offer some guidance to minimize the sense of loss in freedom. Design assignments are unlike other subjects in that there is no single right answer. In addition, to goals being open-ended, the means required to get there are also under-determined.
The aim of this is not to assess your degree of compliance against a predetermined benchmarks or to verify how faithfully you can execute pre-set instructions; this is best left for computers. Instead, it is to motivate you to interpret an abstract thematic creatively, in your own personal way, to experiment with concepts and practice the techniques presented.
To approach such assignments you need to impose your own rules (thoughts that instigate generation) and constraints (thoughts that restrain everything being equal), otherwise it is highly difficult to avoid getting lost unable to reach as concrete result.
A general recommendation is to approach the subject from a hands-on incremental perspective instead of attempting to come up with a grand design idea in advance. This is because you do not have yet developed the skills to follow through such top-down path; it is equivalent of trying to write a novel in a new language. Instead, build progressively upon positive results of small experiments. Below are some suggested ways of thinking about the assignment. This is not a checklist of requirements!
Core aspects you may explore are the hyper-accuracy, hyper-density, hyper-volume of information the computation can achieve with ease compared to traditional media. Define this “hyper” term however you wish.
Consider how increasing the number of iterations of a generative process can rapidly lead to incomprehensible and/or chaotic outcomes. Find designs that balance between total chaos and order.
Map some of your outputs by varying one input parameter at the time. You may then create a composite picture, such as a larger 2D map that captures variations across pair-wise combinations of inputs.
Detect extreme or exceptional conditions by using input values you may not have assumed as even valid. The goal is to stretch your system to detect unforeseen cases.
Try bounding your generative design processes with constraints. For example, track the number of step performed, the length of curves produced, distances among points plotted and terminate the process i.e. the number of columns expanded, when a predetermined energy or budget value is exhausted.
Given one or more constraints try to find the most interesting design possible either qualitatively / visually or express a quantitative metric such as maximize a self-defined reward value.
Submit a deck of 5 slides documenting the design process and outcomes achieved. Use the linked template below. Additional, information is contained in the template.
Submit your powerpoint to Edimensions. The Edimensions link will be made available on 27th September. The deadline is as follows (variable deadline is due to assignment being handed out on different days depending on cohort)
October 3rd (Thursday) 6pm for SC03, SC05, SC09
October 4th (Friday) 6pm for SC01, SC04, SC06, SC07, SC08, SC10, SC11
October 5th (Saturday) 6pm for SC02
