Exploiting lattice structures in shape grammar implementations

The ability to work with ambiguity and compute new designs based on both defined and emergent shapes are unique advantages of shape grammars. Realizing these benefits in design practice requires the implementation of general purpose shape grammar interpreters that support: (a) the detection of arbitrary subshapes in arbitrary shapes and (b) the application of shape rules that use these subshapes to create new shapes. The complexity of currently available interpreters results from their combination of shape computation (for subshape detection and the application of rules) with computational geometry (for the geometric operations need to generate new shapes). This paper proposes a shape grammar implementation method for three-dimensional circular arcs represented as rational quadratic Bézier curves based on lattice theory that reduces this complexity by separating steps in a shape computation process from the geometrical operations associated with specific grammars and shapes. The method is demonstrated through application to two well-known shape grammars: Stiny's triangles grammar and Jowers and Earl's trefoil grammar. A prototype computer implementation of an interpreter kernel has been built and its application to both grammars is presented. The use of Bézier curves in three dimensions opens the possibility to extend shape grammar implementations to cover the wider range of applications that are needed before practical implementations for use in real life product design and development processes become feasible

Application of shape grammar theory to underground rail station design and passenger evacuation

This paper outlines the development of a computer design environment that generates station ‘reference’ plans for analysis by designers at the project feasibility stage. The developed program uses the theoretical concept of shape grammar, based upon principles of recognition and replacement of a particular shape to enable the generation of station layouts. The developed novel shape grammar rules produce multiple plans of accurately sized infrastructure faster than by traditional means. A finite set of station infrastructure elements and a finite set of connection possibilities for them, directed by regulations and the logical processes of station usage, allows for increasingly complex composite shapes to be automatically produced, some of which are credible station layouts at ‘reference’ block plan level. The proposed method of generating shape grammar plans is aligned to London Underground standards, in particular to the Station Planning Standards and Guidelines 5th edition (SPSG5 2007) and the BS-7974 fire safety engineering process. Quantitative testing is via existing evacuation modelling software. The prototype system, named SGEvac, has both the scope and potential for redevelopment to any other country’s design legislation

Categorisation of designs according to preference values for shape rules

Shape grammars have been used to explore design spaces through design generation according to sets of shape rules with a recursive process. Although design space exploration is a persistent issue in computational design research, there have been few studies regarding the provision of more preferable and refined outcomes to designers. This paper presents an approach for the categorisation of design outcomes from shape grammar systems to support individual preferences via two customised viewpoints: (i) absolute preference values of shape rules and (ii) relative preference values of shape rules with shape rule classification levels with illustrative examples

Re-inventing Portuguese ceramic tiles: Using shape grammars as generative method and the impact on design methodology

The following paper describes the process and results achieved with the workshop entitled ‘Re-inventing Portuguese ceramic tiles’ reflecting on design methodology and design teaching. Workshop participants were invited to rethink ceramic tile patterns developing a different process which used shape grammars as a generative system. Each participant group developed a three stage task using shape grammars principles and methodology. At a first stage all were exposed to the shape grammar formulation and rule system. At a second stage they had to explore shape rules and create a novel shape grammar. Each design solutions generated were presented for discussion. On the last stage all groups were presented with pre-existing patterns, invited to infer a grammar by extracting shape rules observed through design patterns and then extrapolate these findings to a third dimension. The preliminary results of stages two and three are of particular relevance in shape grammar research: shape grammar formulae does not constitute an intuitive process to most creative designers which are often trained to design singular solutions for a specific problem, more than one operative shape grammar can be formulated to represent the same corpus of solutions and lastly the generative potential of grammars transcends the normal capacities of the original grammarist aiding in design exploration and enlarging the corpus of feasible solutions. This paper also reflects on the impact of shape grammars as a design methodology.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Re-inventing ceramic tiles: Using shape grammars as a generative method and the impact on design methodology

The following paper describes the process and results achieved with the workshop entitled ‘Re-inventing Portuguese ceramic tiles’ reflecting on design methodology and design teaching. Workshop participants were invited to rethink ceramic tile patterns developing a different process which used shape grammars as a generative system. Each participant group developed a three stage task using shape grammars principles and methodology. The preliminary results the work developed are of particular relevance in shape grammar research: firstly shape grammar formulae does not constitute an intuitive process to most creative designers which are often trained to design singular solutions for a specific problem, secondly more than one operative shape grammar can be formulated to represent the same corpus of solutions and lastly the generative potential of grammars transcends the normal capacities of the original grammarist aiding in design exploration and enlarging the corpus of feasible solutions. This paper also reflects on the impact of shape grammars as a design methodology.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Spatial layout planning in sub-surface rail station design for effective fire evacuation

The London Underground network is a crucial part of the transportation system in one of only four ‘Alpha’ world cities. The other three – Paris, New York and Tokyo – also have such sub-surface railway transport systems that may benefit from this shape grammar station design process in a future research proposal. In London’s case, the passenger flow rates are the underlining factor in sizing infrastructure where passengers have access – it is therefore this criterion that provides the basis for the shape grammar formulation for the largest, oldest and one of the most complex underground systems in the world. The research aims to improve passenger fire evacuation times, with due cognisance of the growth of numbers using the system, and its present susceptibility to terrorist attacks taken into account. The proposed shape grammar approach will provide for generation of spatial layouts, based upon visual rules of shape recognition, replacement / union, their connectivity and spatial relationships. The paper concentrates on definition and implementation of novel shape grammar design rules that incorporate station planning design knowledge, and in particular also discusses designers’ fire risk assessment approach and related knowledge that is also needed to produce credible station design solutions. Development, to date, of the proposed artificially intelligent CAD environment is also described along with parallel theoretical research. The proposed CAD interface provides familiarity to the designer and avoids incompatibility issues regarding drawing exchange format between various software systems. The shape grammar layouts produced will be tested in SIMULEX, a commercially available evacuation package, and be compared against ‘traditionally’ designed layouts to demonstrate improvements of preliminary ‘reference’ designs, which follow the standard London Underground design process as a later stage of this research

A multilingual grammar for 'The International Style', and its hybrid grammar

This paper describes the proposal and results of a multilingual shape grammar to describe the designs of three architects, precursors of the 'International Style'. A shape grammar is a generative process that allows the recreation of designs that follow a language. Grammars are useful mechanisms to describe patterns and generative processes that can be used for analysis or design exploration. Most grammars represent one language. This study focuses on three independent languages ​​within the same movement. The proposed grammar is parametric and allows the independent recreation of each independent design. Its difficult application can be linked to the difficult evaluation process. This research proposes a quantitative and a qualitative method of grammar evaluation, using respectively Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and user questionnaires. The results are then discussed and assessed using hybrids that fall in between languages ​​and help delineate parametric spaces

Making Rules, Making Tools: How Can Shape Grammar Support Creative Making?

Design theory has previously studied the practices of architects, industrial designers and engineers. Designer-makers, designers who work independently, designing and making objects with close attention to tools and materials, have not been similarly studied. A renewed interest in craft and making, in part catalysed by new computational and digital fabrication tools at designer’s disposal, strengthens the case for studying successful design-through-making processes. An analogy between rules transforming shapes and tools transforming material provided the initial indication that concepts from shape grammar could be aligned with making processes, to potentially support creative making and deliver new theoretical and applied knowledge for both spheres. The first part of the thesis examines shape grammar theory as a method of modelling designer-maker creative episodes, to inform designer practice. Evidence was gathered from interviews with designer-makers, observations from a design process carried out by the author and other literature on designer-makers. This evidence was analysed in the context of shape grammar and established creativity literature in order to seek formal descriptions of creative episodes. It was found that designer-makers used tools to define personal and shared design worlds and focussed on and undertook specific activities relating to tools which have been classified; tool selection, tool combination and tool transformation, all of which have creative potential. Tool transformation was found to have further scope for definition and it was found that designers can perform parametric, functional and reformatting transformations on tools to produce new and useful design outcomes. Shape grammar schemas were found to provide useful descriptors for the operations performed by designer-makers on tools. The second part of the thesis inquires if shape grammar as a design method can support creative computational making, by specifically exploring the use of shape grammar weights, a way of modelling material properties alongside shape operations, as a tool for generating designs for multi-material 3D printing. A number of design reasoning and computational making experiments were carried out and the process and results reported and considered. The outcome is a range of specified weights systems and a general schema for defining and using weights as tool for managing material properties for multi-material 3D printing that can be used and transformed by computational makers. The general weights schema also extends previous theoretical definitions of shape grammar weights. This part of the thesis also demonstrated the importance of tool development and transformation as a basis for creative episodes in design-through-making processes

Towards a Qualitative Reasoning on Shape Change and Object Division

We propose a qualitative representation for handling shape change and object division. We model the shape of a smooth curve in a two-dimensional plane together with its temporal change, using curvature extrema. The representation is based on Process-Grammar, which gives a causal account for each shape change. We introduce several rewriting rules to handle object division, that consist of making a tangent point, reconstruction, and separation. On the treatment of the division process, the expression can clarify the relative locations of multiple objects. We show formalization and application to represent a sequence of shape changes frequently observed in an organogenesis process

What’s in a shape: An algorithm for finding shapes in shapes

This paper describes a simple two stage algorithm for finding emergent sub-shapes in shapes, in the context of shape grammar systems. Matching the shape in the left side of a rule of a shape grammar with parts of a shape in a design in process to decide if the rule is applicable, is its main purpose. Shape grammars have been used to represent the knowledge behind the creative work of architects, designers and artists and allow the implementation of computational mechanisms to analyze and synthesize designs of visual languages, with obvious applications to design, including for marketing. Their computational mechanisms can include the detection of emergent sub-shapes. The algorithm we propose performs this task and is a core component of a system, described in our past work, that allows users to build their own shape grammars and use them.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio