Digital Morphogenesis

Parametric Software review

Another question I frequently get is what software do I use &/ what software should someone learn. The following is a summary of parametric software you can use.

Graph based:
When we talk about parametric software, we tend to think of graph based tools. The two major ones being Generative Components and Grasshopper. Both of these use a two dimensional relationship graph to express associations between geometry. Generative Components is the older of the two and as such is more frequently cited to in books and papers and projects. Grasshopper has the benefit of a more modern interface, making coding as fun as playing with lego. Generative Components is probably more powerful at the moment, but with the lead developer of GC – Robert Aish – off to Autodesk, I would expect Grasshopper to pull past GC.

Stack Based:
Stack based tools store transformations to objects in a one dimensional stack. Changes can be made at any location in the stack and propagated through the remaining stack. The best known of these is 3dsMax. 3dsMax also has the ability to link values together through the Wire Parameter option, and these can even be wired to sliders. The Smart Filters in Photoshop also work as a parametric stack.

Associative history:
Associative history is an editable record of how an object was created. Maya uses associative history enabling you to do things like create a loft from two curves and then go back and edit one of those curves, updating the loft. The major software in this space is CATIA/Digital Project, used on The Birds Nest, Sagrada Família and all of Frank Gehry’s buildings. A licence is prohibitively expensive preventing most people from using it.

CAD tools:
Both Revit and Archicad have parametric tools. Revit allows the creation of Revit Families, which are driven from parameters. Walls can also be constrained in a manner similar to CATIA. And the new conceptual massing tool features associative history. Archicad works through the Geometric Description Language, which allows you to code parametric objects (sort of like Revit Families). It is a favorite argument of Revit Fanboys, and while unnatural it is surprisingly powerful.

Others:
The spreadsheet, the first killer app of the personal computer, is parametric. Originally designed by Dan Bricklin, who while studying at the Harvard Business School observed: “As a professor was giving a lecture, he found an error in a single cell and was forced to change the value in every other cell.” The spreadsheet allows cells to be associated with each other through formula to allow the table to be quickly updated without manually reentering the data.

What you should learn:
All of them. And make your own. Each program has a particular mode of translation, so locking yourself into one program limits what you can express. Knowing multiple programs expands this vocabulary. In terms of employment, since the software is changing so rapidly, it seems to me that learning how to learn software is more important than learning a specific piece of software.

[edit 7-2-2009: My servers crashed an lost the comments on this entry, so  feel free to comment again]

Manuel Delanda

I have just started my PhD and have begun reading all those 1990′s books on how to do a PhD. Filled with useful advice like: when searching for a girlfriend, make sure she has transferable skills so that when you get employed overseas she can easily move with you; and start your research by phoning people in your area and asking them to post you papers. It is scary how much researching has changed in the last decade as information become freely accessible. I read almost everything as a pdf on the screen, downloaded from databases like CuminCAD. I get more fiction from the library than non-fiction (although most writing on architecture is fictitious). I have also been watching a bunch of lectures on Youtube by everyone from Steve Jobs to Neil Leach to Einstein to Manual DeLanda. In the 1990′s, only societies elite would have access to this information, now anyone with an Internet connection can watch Manual DeLanda deliver a lecture at Columbia University.

DeLanda’s lecture on Deleuze and the Use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture is a favorite of mine, for DeLanda’s stage presence as much as anything – no Powerpoint just an hour long rant  without any cues. The lecture goes with a paper Delanda produced of the same name. To me, and the Youtube commenters, the philosophy DeLanda presents is a little dubious [i]. I wish he would throw it away like he has done to the Powerpoint and tell it straight because DeLanda, who was once a computer programmer, has a very good understanding of this subject. So since DeLanda wont and because an hour is a long time to watch Youtube, my summary of important points:

1. We have already used the genetic algorithm to design, most domestic animals are the result of selective breeding.
2. The genetic algorithm is a tool – although this somewhat contradicts DeLanda’s paper where he talks about architects becoming racehorse breeders, subservient to the code.
3. The genius of form can either be fixed, if it comes from a God like vision. Or it can be fluid if it comes from an evolutionary paradigm
4. Difference is critical to the process, and this corresponds to the paper where he says surprising results are important. If we are setting up genetic algorithm to produce homogenized shapes in a narrow range then why not just design them ourselves.

[i] I once had a girlfriend who was a philosopher who was very dubious of any architect talking about philosophy, as I think most philosophers are. Needless to say, this was before I had read the PhD books because philosophy is hardly a transferable skill and when I moved overseas things ended, so perhaps the PhD books do have some value.