Abstract
Classical specifications for design spaces are characterized by an implicit need for a priori closure of descriptions of alternative designs before calculating. In this paper, an improvisational specification for design spaces made of shapes is presented. Shapes created visually and without prior description are recorded in a computation history. This history is read backwards to specify descriptions of recorded shapes and the space in which they are closed members. Descriptions of shapes, and the space in which they lie, are both made on the go as rules are applied in the course of a computation; every new visual action (rule application) redescribes the space in which the shapes obtained “thus far” belong. A reconsideration of the classical notion of a design space and its various uses in design theory is suggested, emphasizing a need to reconcile traditional formalistic pursuits that aim at “capturing” descriptions of alternative design possibilities with the open-ended, improvisational nature of creative work in architecture, the visual arts, and related areas of spatial design.
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Notes
- 1.
At times, notation Ui is preferred, as in U1 or U2. In these cases where the “‘j” index is omitted, it is assumed that \(i \le j\).
- 2.
The term “final shape” in this case is not meant to stand as an analogy to “final configuration” in the computation history of a Turing machine or a “final string” (i.e., string without variables) in the derivation tree of a generative (string) grammar. Instead, the term final shape is meant to have a momentary flavor. It is the last shape created before we stop applying rules.
- 3.
Using the identity: \(\gamma \left( {x + y} \right) = \gamma \left( x \right) + \gamma \left( y \right)\), where x and y are shapes.
- 4.
The last rule application \(C_{3} \Rightarrow C_{4}\) is omitted since the resulting topologies would make the drawings of the lattices significantly large.
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Charidis, A. (2019). Notes for an Improvisational Specification of Design Spaces. In: Gero, J. (eds) Design Computing and Cognition '18. DCC 2018. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05363-5_16
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