Modularity and Proportions in Architecture and their Relevance to a Generative Approach to Architectural Design

Abstract

Modularity and proportions have been at stake in architecture since at least the “orders” in classical antiquity, throughout centuries, and well into our time, as highlighted by architects Rudolph M. Schindler, Hans Van der Laan, and Le Corbusier. Not all architectural modular and proportioning systems are founded on the same assumptions. Some systems, which are truly modular, are based on a unit, and deal only with integer multiples and dividers of this unit (and therefore rational ratios), others imply an irrational division of a chosen length. While both are based on proportions, music and architecture do not relate in the same way to space and time. They involve different issues regarding physics, perception and dimensions. The generative approach to architectural design means the use of transformation rules, which often involve ratios. The use of transformation rules, which relates art to the way nature generates forms, permits events like “hybridization”: how may those operations contribute to a search for “resonance”?

Marie-Pascale Corcuff is a French architect living and working in Rennes, France. She teaches computer science in the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Bretagne. She is the director of research group GRIEF (Groupe de Recherche sur l’Invention et l’Evolution des Formes) at ENSAB. She received her diploma (architecte DPLG) in Strasbourg in 1982, and a Doctorat in 2007 (title of thesis: «Penser l’espace et les formes»). She participates in international conferences, especially Generative Art in Milan, on the topics of generative processes (fractals, cellular automata, etc.) applied to art and architecture.