Parametric Modeling
Robert Woodbury, Victor Chen, Karine Kozlova, Maryam Maleki, Davis Marques, Cheryl Qian, Nahal Salmasi, Roham Sheikholeslami
Conventional CAD systems focus design attention on the representation of the artifact being designed. Currently industry attention is on systems in which a designed artifact is represented parametrically, that is, the representation admits rapid change of design dimensions and structure. Parameterization increases complexity of both designer task and interface as designers must model not only the artifact being designed, but a conceptual structure that guides variation. Parameterization has both positive and negative task, outcome and perceptual consequences for designers. Positively, parameterization can enhance search for designs better adapted to context, can facilitate discovery of new forms and kinds of form-making, can reduce the time and effort required for change and reuse, and can yield better understandings of the conceptual structure of the artifact being designed. Negatively, parameterization may require additional effort, may increase complexity of local design decisions and increases the number of items to which attention must be paid in task completion.
While there is a general appreciation of the concepts and advantages of parametric modeling, application to projects at the scale and complexity of buildings raises important theoretical and practical issues. In a deep sense, parametric modelling is not new: building components have been adapted to context for centuries. What is new is the parallel development of fabrication technology that enables mass customization. Building components can be adapted to their context and parametric modelling can represent both context and adapted designs. In a design market partly driven by novelty, the resulting ability to envision and construct new architectural forms rewards firms having such expertise. There are relatively few such firms, most of which have had long experience and have built substantial reputations on distinctive form and construction. But many firms and students (future practitioners) are interested. The confluence of technology and interest appears as exploration in a new design space: architecture and its supporting technologies of parametric design and fabrication are experiencing both co-development and rapid change.
We contribute to scholarly knowledge of parametric modeling in several ways. In 2005, Robert Aish of Bentley Systems and Robert Woodbury published a paper on technical features of GenerativeComponents that brought key ideas, such as replication, into the public research domain. We devise programming constructs, such as goal seeking, that show how parametric modeling can be used for advanced tasks. Using concepts from my design space exploration work, we seek better ways for parametric modeling to support discrete change.