Wren's language of City church designs: a formal generative classification

A parametric shape grammar that characterizes the plan designs of Wren's City churches is developed. The grammar formally specifies the generation of each design in its language and classifies them into four basic types. Each type is defined formally by a shape rule lattice. Complex compositions are characterized as variations of these simple types. Variations on a type are specified formally as simple changes to the grammars' shape rules.

Proceedings of the International Conference eCAADe: European Computer Aided Architectural Design Education

In the beginning of the eighties, a few enthusiastic researchers, under the impulsion of Tom MAVER (director of the ABACUS group) and Rik SCHIJF (TH Delft) initiated a regular, if not formal, convention of people involved in the teaching of computer aided architectural design ECAADE in Europe. In 1982 a first meeting took place in Delft and, taking into consideration the member of attendants and the enthusiasm during this convention, it was decided that CAAD was definitely an important topic and that a more formal symposium was to be organised in the fall of 1983, in the University of Brussels. The positive evolution of CAAD, not only in educational institutions, but also in professional practice is not surprising: it is to be considered in the global frame of technological and organisational revolution actually taking place. As will be read in the outstanding contribution of the participants it is not a mere choice of increased productivity which attracts the architects, the CAAD techniques also release then from a serious burden: the production of technical drawings and administrative paperwork

Procedural shape modeling in digital humanities: Potentials and issues

Procedural modeling is a technology that has great potential to make the abundant variety of shapes that have to be dealt with in Digital Humanities accessible and understandable. There is a gap, however, between technology on the one hand and the needs and requirements of the users in the Humanities community. In this paper we analyze the reasons for the limited uptake of procedural modeling and sketch possible ways to circumvent the problem. The key insight is that we have to find matching concepts in both fields, which are on the one hand grounded in the way shape is explained, e.g., in art history, but which can also be formalized to make them accessible to digital computers