Emergent Programmatic Form-ation: Parametric Design Beyond Complex Geometries

The increasing use of computational techniques in architectural design clearly exhibits the temptation to develop geometries of formal complexity. However, it is a bigger challenge and responsibility to employ such techniques to address specific pragmatic references. Emergent Programmatic Form-ation illustrates how computational techniques can be integrated into current design and planning processes to coordinate complex relationships and conditions specific to urban housing. A series of explorations of varying program and scale demonstrate a shift in design potential of parametric modeling away from the ambiguity of formal complexity to a focus on programmatic and performance-based configurations. Emergent Programmatic Form-ation defines new grounds where computational techniques manipulate not only form, but also function, program and space. In each of the explorations, dynamic relationships are established between the digital design model and its programmatic influences. The model stores explicit performance-sensitive design decisions and constraints and responds to them simultaneously. This allows for a complex and cumulative expression, both programmatic and spatial.