Computational Architecture
We use a combination of text-based computer programming with digital design as a medium capable of embedding new degrees of intelligence and creativity in the design process. With the term 'Computational Architecture' we refer to the process of creating comprehensive architectural designs by means of computer programming with the purpose of addressing functional and artistic questions of architectural design.
Programming languages allow us to literally speak to computers in order to access to their computing capacity. In that perspective we use programming as a conceptual language that combines the human intelligence with the digital one. The programming language becomes thus a means that helps architectural ideas to take shape. We use it in a very similar way as we use verbal, drawing, or model making languages for the same goal. The difference and added value of using computers is that they give us an easy access to speed and power of calculation, to complex mathematics, and to the treatment of enormous amounts of data.
Construction has been influenced by geometry and calculation since prehistory, but these computational technologies allow us a new kind of methodic and systemic approach. An approach in which instead of focusing on the direct design of forms we can rather focus on designing the rules and the interdependencies that in turn will generate the architectural form. In this way classical top-down design processes can be inversed, and the design process can start by defining explicit low-level rules that can be very beneficial to the final users of buildings or to achieve specific architectural goals.
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Archimethod SA
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