Parâmetros de Design na Arquitetura

Prévia do material em texto

1 
 
Design Parameters to Parametric Design 
Patrik Schumacher, London 2014 
Published in: The Routledge Companion for Architecture Design and Practice: Established and Emerging Trends, 
Edited by Mitra Kanaani and Dak Kopec, Routledge,Taylor and Francis, New York 2016 
 
 
Parametric Design is a computer based design approach that treats the geometric properties of the 
design as variables. The dimensions, angles and geometric properties (like curvature) remain malleable 
as the design progresses. Although at any time the parametric model displays a determinate shape 
according to the set of currently chosen values, the essential identity of the parametric design resides in 
the malleable object s topology rather than its momentary determinate shape. This means that the 
design consists in the relationships that are maintained between the various elements of the 
composition. In fact the parametric design model is conceived as a network of relations or 
dependencies. This way of building up a design has the important advantage that the build-up of 
complexity and the detail resolution of the design can progress while simultaneously maintaining the 
malleability to adapt to changing requirements as new information is fed into the design process. The 
generation of alternative options remains viable and economical deep into the detail design without 
requiring abortive modeling and drafting work. This parametric malleability is advantageous both for the 
sake of continuous design adjustments as the design progresses, and for the sake of the generation of 
options and variations. The parametric model can be conceived as general building plan or geno-type 
for the generation of many different versions or pheno-types that might co-exist (rather than substitute 
each other as options). Optioniering thus leads to versioning. Mechanical repetition is being replaced by 
mass customization. Versioning might also be applied within a single building design via the versioning 
of components, via ge erative o po e ts . The components adjust their individual shapes in relation 
to their placement within the encompassing model. These components are small parametric models, i.e. 
sets of interdependent parts with adjustable shapes. The component adapts to (and fits into) local 
constraints via the adjustment of its internal parameters. For instance an array of façade components - 
complete with glazed openings, frames and fixing details - might be made to populate the surface of a 
volume with changing curvature. The components are to be set up in such a way that they auto-fit to the 
surface. Each component will assume an individuall fitted phe ol-t pi al shape, o the asis of the 
sa e u derl i g ge o-t pe . Thus parametric design is a powerful methodology to achieve a new 
architectural morphology, namely a morphology of continuous differentiation. However, the potential 
2 
 
for such differentiation is not confined to the achievement of scaling and geometric fit with respect to 
complex forms with continuously changing surface curvature. This kind of differentiation might also be 
driven by performance parameters like environmental or structural performance parameters, on the 
basis of external parameters like sun exposure or wind loads. For instance the opening within a façade 
panel or the shape of a shading element might vary according to the differential sun-exposure of a 
curved façade at each point of its surface. The parametric designer might set up the following 
dependency: the higher the sun-exposure of a certain surface patch, the smaller should be the opening 
of the façade component at this location. A sun-exposure map imported from an environmental analysis 
tool might then deliver the data input for the component differentiation. The sun-exposure map is thus 
being transcoded into a differentiated field of façade panels that optimizes the sunlight penetration 
within brackets set out by the parametric design. The resultant façade articulation is thus a function, 
mapping or indeed a represe tatio of the façade s differe tial e posure to the su . “i ilarl , a 
designed architectural volume might be structurally articulated via the transcoding of structural analysis 
parameters into differentiated geometric components. For this purpose the results of a finite elements 
stress analysis might become the input for a framing pattern that differentiates either member density 
or member size or both. Again, the result achieves a relative structural optimization (if compared to an 
undifferentiated framing pattern) and a thus differentiated structure represents the underlying stress 
distribution. Thus in a tall building a parametrically designed skeleton responds to and displays the 
differentiation of structural forces. Both compressive stresses due to the accumulating vertical loads as 
well as the moments due to horizontal wind-loads accumulate at the bottom of the tower which will 
thus be rather different from the middle and top of the tower respectively. The respective variation of 
performance parameters of the various subsystems of the building like envelope and skeleton thus 
translates into the morphological differentiation of these subsystems. The way performance parameters 
might be transcoded into morphologies is an open question that calls forth the creative designer. 
Further: These subsystems – each adaptively differentiated according to its own performance logic – 
also might adapt to ea h other s differe tiatio . We might talk about sub-system orrelatio . To the 
e te t that the e elope s differe tiatio is respo si e to the skeleto s differe tiatio a ordi g to a 
rule it becomes its appi g or represe tatio . The particular rule or mode of correlation is again 
open to design invention. The same principles of adaptive system differentiation and multi-subsystem 
correlation might be applied to urbanism which thus becomes para etri ur a is . The initially 
considered subsystems here might be the circulation system (road network), the building fabric 
(massing) and the programmatic distribution (land use). The existing topography (topo-map) as well as 
3 
 
the pre-existing roads might serve as underlying input data sets to be transcoded into a differentiated 
road network. The differentiation of the urban massing might initially follow its own logic of block 
differentiation, initially conceived as internal product variation without as yet responding to external 
data i puts. This i ter al differe tiatio ould i a se o d step e over- oded or correlated with the 
differentiation of the circulation network according to a certain rule. The fabric differentiation might be 
further adapted with respect to an agenda of morphological affiliation with the adjacent urban context. 
Each step requires the invention of a rule of differentiation or adaptive correlation. At the basis of these 
differentiations and correlations are the chosen geometric primitives (or components buildup from 
those primitives) with their respective variables and respectively chosen degrees of freedom. 
Parametric design thus delivers a new powerful adaptive capacity to architectural design. This new 
capacity opens up a new domain of creative design invention, namely the invention of transcoding rules 
and rules of sub-system correlation. Design thus becomes rule- ased design. Critics unfamiliar with 
this new world of parametric design sometimes presume that the new algorithmic design operations 
somehow replace or dis-e po ers the desig er s reati e freedo . The opposite is the ase: a e 
real of reati e e ploratio ith its e desig halle ges is ope ed up a d alli g for the desig er s 
creative ingenuity. The more computational design tools free the designer from the drudgery of drafting 
and modeling, the more does the creative essence of the design process as process of invention and 
decision making comesto the fore. 
 
To design is to generate and to choose. All design is decision making, i.e. the making of choices. Choice 
presupposes a set of alternatives to choose from. The design process thus comprises two fundamental 
sub-processes: the generation of alternative solution candidates and the selection of an alternative 
according to test results on the basis of posited evaluation/selection criteria. The overall rationality and 
effectiveness of a design process depends thus on two principally independent factors: its power to 
generate and its power to test/select. The design principle of ge erate a d test conducted in a design 
medium or model in advance of physical construction stands in as economic (rational) substitute for the 
physical trial a d error process that is the principle of the biological evolution as well as of all pre-
architectural cultural evolution. Both powers and factors of design rationality are being massively 
enhanced by the computational aids that constitute parametric and algorithmic design in comparison 
with traditional design based on drawing according to precedent or intuition. The more the processes of 
generation and selection are themselves automated via algorithms , the more powerful does the design 
pro ess e o e, as the desig er s reati e hoi es shift to the meta-plane of choosing generative 
4 
 
algorithms and evaluating selection criteria. These in turn might be looped into evolutionary algorithmic 
set ups. Parametric design and design via scripted rules is replacing design via the direct manipulation of 
individual forms. Computational processes can uniquely enhance both the design process's generative 
power and its analytical power. The techniques of variation and versioning as well as the differentiation 
o the asis of tra s odi g a d orrelatio ad a e the para etri desig er s effi ie as ell as the 
rationality of his design. 
The generation of design options can be opened up much further than the mere versioning proliferation 
of phenol-types on the basis of a pre-established geno-type. A much more open ended, generative 
technique of producing solution candidates is via agent based system whereby the elemental primitives 
(atoms) of a composition or multi-primitive components (molecules) are set free to roam within the 
modeling space where they aggregate and configure larger global structures according to local rules of 
attraction, repulsion, alignment, attachment etc. Many of the properties of the resultant configuration 
are emergent and un-anticipated. Prediction can only mean pattern prediction here in terms of general 
qualitative properties or in terms of quantitative brackets but hardly precise anticipation. Genuine 
surprise is possible. Some undesired properties might be prevented by giving the generation process 
respective constraints. Certain desired properties might be attainable in ways and to a degree that 
would have been difficult or impossible to attain via intuitive methods. Agent based processes open up a 
huge field of e ploratio a d are a for the desig er s reati e i ge uit . The a also e used i the 
agenda of multi-subsystem correlation described above. A structural skeleton or an urban path network 
might be configured via agent based aggregation processes. Urban fabric particles (agents) might 
interact and configure over the substrate of a topographic map that biases the migration and self-
organisation process of the agent population in ways that produce a transcoding of the underlying 
topography not unlike the more direct transcoding via a simple rule of correlation. The result of the 
agent based model might display many unexpected variants and properties that might or might not be 
advantageous upon further analysis. The general advantage of these less predictable processes is that 
they might deliver in-built criteria in new, unexpected ways and offer up unusual properties that might 
sti ulate the desig er s for ulatio of altogether new desires and criteria. However, the legibility of 
the transcoding as representation might be compromised relative to the technique with direct rules of 
correlation. 
 
 
 
5 
 
 
Parametric Software 
 
By far the most widely used parametric design software is Grasshopper developed by the David Rutten 
for Robert McNeel Associates
i
 and first released in 2008. Grasshopper is a freely available graphical 
associative logic modeler and algorithm editor closely i tegrated ith M Neel s 3-D modeling tool 
‘hi o eros . Grasshopper is a pertinent tool for the set up parametric models as described here as 
networks of interdependent elements. The network of relations is set up and visualized graphically so 
that the designer can keep track of and intervene in the relational network he is designing. The 
parametric designer usually opens two programmes/windows: the 3D modeling space of Rhinoceros and 
Grasshopper s graphical algorithm editor. The designer can now move between the modeling and the 
scripting environment to build up the parametric design, e.g. creating objects in Rhino, make them 
interdependent in Grasshopper and then manipulate the interdependent configuration in Rhino etc. 
Grasshopper might become the primary medium and site of the design work while the 3D geometric 
model visible in Rhinoceros (passive visual control) is driven or executed by the active definition/script 
visualized and manipulated in the grasshopper window. That the design is all about the set-up of 
topological parametric geno-types defined via networks of relations (both internal to the 
building/artefact and external in relation to context parameters) is thus evident in the constitution of 
the primary design medium. That indeed most parameters/values are treated as variables is evident in 
the ubiquitous use of sliders (with designated ranges of values). 
Rhino/Grasshopper has also become the preferred platform for scripted plug-ins and for a new powerful 
set of i tegrated tools that push ar hite ture s desig i tellige e e o d the mere handling of 
geometry to include engineering logics and real time access to physics simulations that allow for 
sophisticated form-finding and optimization processes to be seamlessly folded into the design process. 
Kangeroo is a physics engine created by Daniel Piker as a tool for interactive real time structural form-
finding simulations like surface-relaxations. These simulations are implemented via particle-spring 
s ste s. With this parti ular tool Frei Otto s se i al ph si al for fi di g e peri e ts ith tensile 
structures and shells via inverted catenary systems as well as his famous wool-thread models can be 
recreated i the u h ore ersatile digital do ai . Frei Otto s odels represent but a small corner of 
the new space of possibilities that is put at the fingertips of parametric designers in a very intuitive, 
playful way that equals the intuitive play with real physical materials, however now unleashed from the 
narrow parametric bounds given by any chosen physical material. Karamba and Milipede are structural 
6 
 
analysis and optimization tools for grasshopper. They are interactive, parametric finite element analysis 
programs that display stress distributions and deformations of any geometric form under any 
imaginable load. Karamba was (and continues to be) developed by Clemens Preisinger and Robert 
Vierlinger a.o. within the structural engineering office Bollinger- Grohmann-Schneider. Millipede was 
(and continues to be) developed by Panagiotis Michalatos. These tools are allowing architects to design 
intuitively with immediate engineering feedback and intelligence. They also allow the articulation and 
characterization of spaces and elements to be guided by structural logics, i.e. they are tools for the 
ar hite tural proje t of te to i arti ulatio ii
. For instance, both programs deliver vector-fields that 
depict the principlestress lines of any surface under specific load conditions. These principle stress lines 
(or moment lines) can then be used to generate beautifully adapted rib-patterns beyond the usual 
default grids. These might be used to articulate skeletons, waffle-slabs or grid-shells etc. In addition 
millipede also offers structural form-generation via so called topology optimization, i.e. the iterative 
erosion of a solid form placed between any loads and support points to reveal an optimized truss-like 
dematerialization or framing pattern that might be substituted for the solid form. 
Octopus is a multi-objective optimization tool for Grasshopper using genetic algorithms developed by 
Robert Vierlinger (from the Karamba team). Objectives might include both structural and environmental 
parameters at the same time, or any other further parameters. The program searches for the best trade-
offs between the different potentially conflicting fitness criteria that need to be addressed. Or the 
designer sets a single fitness criterion but imposes diversity as a second objective to generate a 
multitude of possible approaches and solutions. Octopus displays the various (pareto-optimal
iii
) 
solutions within a 3D possibility matrix. In a multiple objectives search (within a multi-dimensional 
parameter space) that searches trade-offs between several goals a full range or spectrum of options is 
produced that spans between the extremes of each separate goal. This tool is based on David Rutten's 
Galapagos User Interface. Galapagos is a general evolutionary solver that David Rutten has developed 
for the Rhino/Grasshopper design world. The computational harnessing of the principles of evolution - 
variation (mutation, recombination), selection (according to fitness criteria), reproduction (as a basis for 
further variation) – is one of the most exciting new frontiers in computationally augmented design. The 
work with evolutionary algorithms accelerates the design process. Some worry about where the 
designer is in such a process. However, like all enhancements that are implied in the move from manual 
design to computational design, the use of evolutionary algorithms does empowers rather than dis-
e po ers the desig er a d e ha es the desig er s e pli it desig i tellige e. All desig ight e 
construed as a trial and error quasi-evolution. With evolutionary algorithms the fitness criteria for 
7 
 
design decisions have to be clearly stated. This enhances the clarity of design thinking. The author does 
not expect that the totality of the design process for a complex product like a (contextually embedded) 
building can be solved via a single evolutionary set up. This is so because it is virtually impossible to state 
in advance all the criteria that might become relevant during the project development. The design 
process is a discovery process not only in terms of solutions but also in terms of the goals and potentials 
of the project. Computational design pro esses aug e t the desig er s apa it of dis o er i oth 
dimensions. The proliferation of (intelligently pre-constrained) options boosts selection according to set 
criteria and stimulates the setting of new criteria. To summarize the advantages of augmenting the 
design process with the computational tools described above: 
Contemporary, parametric and scripting-based design techniques allow for the establishment of a 
powerful design process/method. The unique power of this process/method lies in its ability to combine 
otherwise conflicting trajectories: 
1. The combination and simultaneous increase in both the generative power and the constraining power 
of each design cycle. 
2. The combination and simultaneous increase in both the breadth and depth of the solution search in 
each design cycle. 
3. The combination and simultaneous increase in both the power of creative surprise discovery and 
analytic selective rationality. 
 
 
Parametric Style 
 
Is there a parametric style? Parametric design is a design methodology based on parametric modeling 
and scripting techniques. This methodology might be productively employed on any architectural 
design, independent of the architectural style the designer might be adhering to. All styles can benefit 
from the advantage of maintaining design malleability during the desig s progressive resolution. 
Parametric design is thus equally applicable to all architectural styles and in this sense stylistically 
neutral. 
Parametricism is the contemporary style that is most vigorously advancing its design agenda on the 
basis of parametric design techniques. 
Conceptual and Operational Definition of Parametricism: 
8 
 
As conceptual definition of parametricism one might offer the following formula: Parametricism implies 
that all architectural elements and compositions are parametrically malleable. This implies a 
fundamental ontological shift within the basic, constituent elements of architecture. Instead of the 
classical and modern reliance on ideal (hermetic, rigid) geometrical figures - straight lines, rectangles, as 
well as cubes, cylinders, pyramids, and (semi-)spheres - the new primitives of parametricism are 
animate (dynamic, adaptive, interactive) geometrical entities - splines, nurbs, subdivs, particle-spring 
systems, agent based systems ect. - as fundamental geometrical building blocks for dynamical 
compositions that rea t to attra tors a d that a e ade to reso ate ith ea h other ia s ripts. 
 
In principle every property of every element or complex is subject to parametric variation. The key 
technique for handling this variability is the scripting of functions that establish associations between 
the properties of the various elements. However, although the new style is to a large extent dependent 
upon these new design techniques the style cannot be reduced to the mere introduction of new tools 
and techniques. What characterizes the new style are new ambitions and new values - both in terms of 
form and in terms of function - that are to be pursued with the aid of the new tools and techniques. 
Parametricism pursues the very general aim to organize and articulate the increasing diversity and 
complexity of social institutions and life processes within the most advanced centre of post-fordist 
network society. For this task parametricism aims to establish a complex variegated spatial order. It uses 
scripting to lawfully differentiate and correlate all elements and subsystems of a design. The goal is to 
intensify the internal interdependencies within an architectural design as well as the external 
affiliations and continuities within complex, urban contexts. Parametricism offers a new, complex order 
via the principles of differentiation and correlation. 
 
This general verbal and motivational definition of parametricism can and must be complemented by an 
operational definition. It is necessary to operationalise the intuitive values of a style in order to make its 
hypotheses testable, to make its dissemination systematic, to be exposed to constructive criticism, 
including self-critique of the parametricist design work etc. 
The operational definition of a style must formulate general instructions that guide the creative process 
in line with the general ambitions and expected qualities of the style. A style is not only concerned with 
the elaboration and evaluation of architectural form. Each style poses a specific way of understanding 
and handling functions. Accordingly, the operational definition of parametricism comprises both a 
formal heuristics - establishing rules and principles that guide the elaboration and evaluation of the 
9 
 
desig s for al de elop e t a d resolutio – as well as a functional heuristics - establishing rules and 
principles that guide the ela oratio a d e aluatio of the desig s social functionality. 
For each of these two dimensions theoperational definition formulates the heuristics of the design 
process in terms of operational taboos and dogmas specifying what to avoid and what to pursue. At the 
same time these heuristic design guidelines provide criteria of self-critique and continuous design 
enhancement. 
 
Operational definition of Parametricism: 
Formal heuristics: 
Negative principles (taboos): avoid rigid forms (lack of malleability) 
avoid simple repetition (lack of variety) 
avoid collage of isolated, unrelated elements (lack of order) 
Positive principles (dogmas): all forms must be soft (intelligent: deformation = information) 
all systems must be differentiated (gradients) 
all systems must be interdependent (correlations) 
Functional heuristics: 
 Negative principles (taboos): avoid rigid functional stereotypes 
 avoid segregative functional zoning 
 Positive principles (dogmas): all functions are parametric activity/event scenarios 
 all activities/events communicate with each other 
 
The avoidance of the taboos and the adherence to the dogmas delivers complex, variegated order for 
complex social institutions. These principles outline pathways for the continuous critique and 
improvement of the design. The designer can always increase the coherence and intricacy of his/her 
desig i e ti g further aria les degrees of freedo for the o positio s pri iti e components. 
There is always scope for the further differentiation of the arrays or subsystems that are made up by the 
elemental primitives. This differentiation can be increased with respect to the number of variables at 
play, with respect to the range of differences it encompasses and with respect to the fineness and 
differential rhythm of its gradients. There is always further scope for the correlation of the various 
subsystems at play in the multi-system set up. Ultimately every subsystem will be in a relation of mutual 
dependency with every other subsystem, directly or indirectly. The number of aspects or properties of 
each subsystem that are involved in the network of correlation might be increased with each design 
10 
 
step. Further there is always the possibility (and often the necessity) to add further subsystems or layers 
to the (ever more complex and intricate) composition. Also: it is always possible to identify further 
aspects or features of the (principally unlimited) urban context that might become an occasion for the 
design to register and respond to. Thus the context sensitivity of the design can be increased with every 
design step. Thus the heuristics of parametricism direct a trajectory of design intensification that is in 
principle an infinite task and trajectory. There is always a further possibility pushing up the intensity, 
coherence, intricacy, and beauty of the design. As the network of relations tightens, each further step 
becomes more elaborate, more involved as all the prior subsystems and their trajectories of 
differentiation should ideally be taken into account. Arbitrary additions show up conspicuously as alien 
disruption of the intricate order elaborated so far. Each additional element or subsystem that enters the 
composition at a late, highly evolved stage challenges the ingenuity of the designer, and more so the 
more the design advances. The complex, highly evolved design assumes more and more the awesome 
air of necessity or quasi-nature. However, the design remains open ended. There can be no closure. The 
classical concepts of completeness and perfection do not apply to para etri is . Para etri is s 
complex variegated order does not rely on the completion of a figure. It remains an inherently open 
composition. 
 
 
Parametric Society 
 
In the perspective of architecture, and specifically in the perspective of contemporary parametric 
design, contemporary society is a vast panoply of parametrically variable event scenarios. (This formula 
spells the program dimension of the built environment.) But is parametric design really concerned with 
society? 
Many critics of parametric design and parametricism ask: What is the societal relevance of the complex 
geometries and intricate spatial compositions made possible by parametric design? Is this not an 
expensive, indulgent and self-serving narcissism on the part of designers that distracts from the social 
task of architecture? This question must be answered. In order to answer this question we need to 
clarify the specific social task (societal function) of architecture: the spatial ordering of social processes. 
The increasing density, diversity and complexity of contemporary social life processes requires complex 
spatial configurations that allow a diversity of event scenarios to unfold in close proximity and 
awareness of each other. The required complex spatial organizations can only function if the 
11 
 
participants that need to come together in the various event scenarios can successfully orient and 
navigate the spaces they encounter. This requires architectural articulation. The stylistic characteristics 
of parametricism like curvelinearity, gradients and correlative resonances are potentially more effective 
in the legible articulation of complex relations - clustering, nesting, interpenetration - between multiple 
different spaces. Without curves, smooth transitions and gradients the complex urban scene quickly 
degenerates into visual chaos. Above the correlative transcoding of external parameters into subsystem 
differentiations, and then the correlative resonances between different subsystem differentiations was 
introduced as a key concept and technique of parametric design. The urban subsystems that might be 
correlated via rule-based associative set ups or scripts might include the differentiated urban massing, 
topography, vehicular circulation, and pedestrian circulation. It is important to note here that 
establishment of systematic dependencies via transcodings – and indeed all associative logics – increase 
the information density of the built environment because every dependency chain can be traced back 
via inferences. The designer might choose and calibrate the adaptive correlations between the 
su s ste s so that the differe t s ste do i deed e o e represe tatio s of ea h other i the se se 
that users navigating the urban environment can not only follow the gradients or vectors of 
transformation in each of the subsystems but that whatever is visible from one of the subsystems gives 
clues about the other systems even if they are not directly visible, e.g. the silhouette of the urban 
massing ill represe t the topograph a d allo the street- and path-network to be inferred. 
Similarly, within a complex mixed-use complex the differentially articulated structural system might 
represent or indicate the circulation path and the program distribution etc. This powerful enhancement 
of the communicative capacity of the built environment via rule-based parametric design goes to the 
heart of ar hite ture s so ietal fu tio of orderi g the ultitude so ial i tera tio s e arios that ake 
up contemporary society. Architecture is in charge of the social functionality of the designed/built 
environment. (Its technical functionality can become the responsibility of various engineering 
specialisms. However, here too the concept of parameter based differentiation is relevant in the 
delivery of optimized solutions with respect to structural and environmental engineering.) 
Here we can only point towards the promising potential of parametric design techniques – employed 
under the auspices of the heuristics of parametricism – for the organization and articulation of 
contemporary societal complexity. The actual proof can only be delivered via individual designs and 
buildings. There are successful built examples of parametricism. (The attempt to deliver this proof via 
the documentation of these designs and their orderingwork would go beyond the scope of this article.) 
However, the parametric design community is still flexing its muscles rather than going to work with a 
12 
 
clear social purpose. In many young design studios and schools of architecture the playful exploration of 
new parametric tools results in designs that cannot yet stand up to the critical scrutiny of the skeptics 
that demand to see the societal relevance and social performance of design efforts. The strategic social 
instrumentalization of parametric design becomes an urgent agenda that must be explicitly posed and 
addressed now with the parametric design movement. The credibility of parametricism is at stake. 
However, we must also protect the need for continued playfulness in the exploration of new tools, 
techniques and repertoires. Innovation requires the oscillation between open ended exploration and 
determinate testing. The explicit formulation of the key task is crucial: the ordering of the complexity of 
social life processes via complex, legible, information-rich spatial orders. 
A Post-Fordist network society demands that we continuously browse and scan as much of the social 
world as possible, in order to remain continuously connected and informed. We cannot afford to 
withdraw and beaver away in isolation when innovation accelerates all around. We must continuously 
recalibrate what we are doing in line with what everybody else is doing. We must be networked all the 
time, so as to continuously ascertain the relevancy of our own efforts. Telecommunication only via 
mobile devices may help, but it does not suffice. Rapid and effective face-to-face communication 
remains a crucial component of our daily productivity. The whole built environment must become an 
interface of multi-modal communication, as the ability to navigate dense and complex urban 
e iro e ts has e o e a ru ial aspe t of toda s o erall produ ti it . 
 
 
Parametric Semiology 
 
I the age da of para etri se iolog ar hite ture s o eptio of society as the panoply of 
parametrically variable event scenarios that need to be ordered spatially comes together with of 
para etri is s o eptio of the uilt e iro e t as a o ple s ste uilt up fro orrelated 
subsystems that represent each other in the following rather compelling way: The event scenarios - 
simulated via agent based crowd modeling techniques – are treated as one more subsystem in the 
multi-system parametric design model. However, this system of differentiated crowds should be the 
central, decisive system around which all the architectural sub-systems revolve as so many contributing 
inputs to its patterned functioning. The principle of correlation, i.e. the establishment of rule-based 
dependencies also encompasses the relationship of the crowd-behavior relative to its surrounding 
architectural subsystems, albeit with the additional complication that the pattern displayed by the 
13 
 
crowds emerge bottom up via the behaviors of the individual agents.
iv
 These age ts eha iors are ade 
dependent on where they are, guided by the encoded environmental clues presumed to be accessible to 
the agents og itio . The spa e o u i ates its desig atio ith its i plied rules of eha ior a d 
interaction. 
All design is communication design. The built environment, with its complex matrix of territorial 
distinctions, is a giant, navigable, information-rich interface of communication. Each territory is a 
communication. It gives potential social actors information about the communicative interactions to be 
expected within its bounds. It communicates an invitation to participate in the framed social situation. 
Designed spaces are spatial communications that frame and order further communications. They place 
the participants into specific constellations that are pertinent with respect to the anticipated 
communication situations. Like any communication, a spatial communication can be accepted or 
rejected, i.e. – the space can be entered or exited. Entry implies accepting the communication as the 
premise for all further communication taking place within its boundaries. Crossing a territorial threshold 
makes a difference in terms of behavioural dispositions. Entry implies submission to the specific rules of 
conduct that the type of social situation inscribed within the territory prescribes. In this way, the 
designed-built environment orders social processes. This spells the unique, societal function of 
architecture: to order and frame communicative interaction. 
 
Parametric design is able to increase the information density of the built environment. Everything must 
resonate with everything else. This should result in an overall intensification of relations, which gives the 
urban field a performative density, informational richness, and cognitive coherence that makes for quick 
navigation and effective participation in a complex social arena. Our increasing ability to scan an ever-
increasing simultaneity of events, and to move through a rapid succession of communicative 
encounters, constitutes the essential, contemporary form of cultural advancement. Further 
advancement of this vital capacity requires a new built environment with an unprecedented level of 
complexity, a complexity that is organized and articulated into a complex, variegated order of the kind 
we admire in natural, self-organized systems. 
The more free and the more complex a society, the more it must spatially order and orient its 
participants via perceived thresholds and semiotic clues – rather than via physical barriers and channels. 
The city is a complex text and a permanent broadcast. Therefore, our ambition as architects and urban 
designers must be to spatially unfold more simultaneous choices of communicative situations in dense, 
perceptually palpable, and legible arrangements. The visual field must be dense with offerings and 
14 
 
information about what lies behind the immediate field of vision. The parametricist logics of rule-based 
variation, differentiation, and correlation establish order within the built environment, giving those who 
must navigate it the crucial possibility of making inferences. Employing associative logics correlates the 
different urban and architectural subsystems in ways that make them representations of each other. 
Everything communicates with everything. This is not a metaphysical assertion about the world, but a 
heuristic principle for parametric design under the auspices of parametricism. The rule-based design 
processes that inform all forms on the basis of informational transcoding imply the possibility of 
information retrieval through the user, as long as human cognitive capacities are reflected. 
 
Ar hite ture s so ietal fu tio – the framing of communicative interaction – can be broken down and 
concretized into three related subtasks: organisation, articulation, and signification. Organization is 
based on the distribution of positions for spatial elements and their pattern of linkages. Articulation is 
based upon the constitution of morphological identities, similitudes, and differences across the 
architectural elements to be organized. Organization is instituted via the physical means of distancing, 
barring, and connecting via circulatory channeling. These physical mechanisms can, in theory, operate 
independently of all nuanced perception and comprehension, and can thus, in principle, succeed 
without the efforts of articulation. However, the restriction to mere organization without articulation, 
a d ithout fa ilitati g the parti ipa ts a ti e a igatio , se erel o strai s the le el of o ple it 
possible in the pattern of social communication thus framed. Articulation presupposes cognition. It 
e lists the parti ipa t s per eptio a d o prehe sio , a d there fa ilitates the parti ipa ts a ti e 
orientation. The distinction of organization versus articulation is then basedon the difference between 
handling passive bodies and enlisting active, cognitive agents. These two registers relate in this way: 
articulation builds upon, and reveals, organization. It makes the organization of functions apparent. In so 
doing, it elevates organization into order. 
The dimension of articulation includes two distinct sub-tasks: phenomenological and semiological 
articulation (signification). Their distinction is between the enlistment of behavioral responses from 
cognitive agents, on the one hand, and the communicative engagement of socialized actors, on the 
other. The phenomenological project enlists users as cognitive agents, perceiving and decomposing their 
environment along the lines of the principles of pattern-recognition or Gestalt-perception. It makes 
organizational arrangements perceptually legible by making important points conspicuous, avoiding the 
visual overcrowding of the scene, and so on. This is a necessary precondition for all semiological 
encodings that can only attach to the visually discernible features of the environment. In other words, 
15 
 
users can only read, interpret, or comprehend what they can discern. However, the comprehension of a 
social situation involves more than the distinction of conspicuous features. It is an act of interpretation 
that presupposes socialization. It is an act of reading a communication: namely, the reading of space as 
both framing communication and the premise for all further communications to be expected within its 
ambit. (These framing communications are attributed to the institutions hosting the respective 
communicative events, i.e. – they are attributed to the clients, rather than to the architects or 
designers.) Communication presupposes language, that is, a system of signification. The built 
environment spontaneously evolves into such a (more or less vague and unreliable) system of 
signification. The task of architectural semiology as design agenda, therefore, is to go beyond this 
spontaneous semiosis (that every talented designer navigates intuitively), and build up a more complex 
and precise system of signification. 
 
Architectural semiology needs to be re-i augurated as ar hite ture s ore o pete u der the 
auspices of Parametricism. After the failed attempts of the 1970s and 1980s, architectural semiology can 
now be effectively theorized and operationalized as parametric semiology. It is important to note that a 
semiotic system can neither be reduced to syntax nor to semantics. This was the mistake of the 
attempts in the 1970s. Eise a s ork had o se ati di e sio , a d Je ks had o s ta . The 
postmodern architects tried to build on the spontaneous semiosis of architectural history and were thus 
restricted to the recycling of clichés, and without the chance to build up a more complex syntax. Instead 
the refoundation of architectural semiology promoted here suggests a radical severance from all 
historical semiotic material, promoting the construction of a new, artificial spatio-visual language in 
analogy to the creation of artificial programming languages, taking full advantage of the radical 
arbitrariness of all languages. The construction of this language must proceed step by step, oscillating 
between syntactical and semantic advances. This is made possible via parametric agen-based modelling 
that realizes the signifying relations as associative functions that systematically make agent behaviours 
dependent on architectural features. At the same time the pragmatic layer is anticipated as the (never 
fully predictable) social appropriation process that commences when the design spaces are finally 
utilized and re-utilized. 
I the se o d olu e of the author s treatise, The Autopoiesis of Architecture
v
, a set of axioms and 
heuristic principles are formulated that outline strategies for semiological projects conceived as complex 
architectural designs – for instance, the design of a university campus – as the design of a coherent 
visual language or s ste of sig ifi atio . The first a io restri ts the do ai of ar hite ture s sig ified 
16 
 
to the social events that are expected to happen within the respective buildings or spaces, defined along 
the three dimensions of function type, social type and location type. The second axiom states that the 
relevant unit of architectural communication, the architectural sign, is the designed/designated territory 
(just like the sentence is the minimal relevant unit of speech). Territorial thresholds mark differences 
that make a difference in terms of social situation. These differences in use constitute the meaning of 
architectural signs/communications. 
Architectural semiology can be operationalized via agent-based crowd modelling. The scripting of the 
age ts spe ifi eha ioural dispositio s, i relatio to spe ifi spatial a d/or orphologi al features of 
the designed environment, allows designers to model and work on the signification relation. The domain 
of the signified – the patterns of social interaction expected within designed territories, can thus be 
rought i to ar hite ture s desig ediu as o e more subsystem (the crucial subsystem) in the set of 
correlated subsystems constituting the parametric model.It therefore becomes possible, for the first 
time in the history of architecture, to model this life-process, thus incorporating it into design 
speculation. This was made possible by the use of computational crowd modelling techniques, via agent-
ased odels. Ge eral tools like Pro essi g , or spe ifi tools like MiAr a d AI.i pla t a aila le 
as plugi s for Ma a , a d Massi e o ake eha ioural modelling within designed environments 
accessible to architects. Agent modelling should not be limited to crowd circulation flows, but should 
e o pass all patter s of o upatio a d so ial i tera tio i spa e. The age ts eha iour ight e 
scripted so as to correlate with the configurational and morphological features of the designed 
environment, i.e. – programmed agents responding to environmental clues. Such clues or triggers might 
include furniture configurations, as well as other artefacts. The idea, then, is to build dynamic action-
artefact networks. 
Morphological features, as well as colours and textures that, together with ambient parameters (lighting 
conditions), constitute and characterize a certain territory can now influence the behavioural mode of 
the age t. “i e the ea i g of a ar hite tural spa e is the ua ed t pe of e e t or so ial 
interaction to be expected within its territory, these new tools allow for the re-foundation of 
architectural semiology as parametric semiology. The semiological project therefore implies that the 
design project systematizes all form-function correlations into a coherent system of signification. A 
system of signification, in turn, is a system of mappings (correlations) that map distinctions or manifolds, 
defined within the domain of the signified (here the domain of patterns of social interaction), onto the 
distinctions or manifolds, which are defined within the domain of the signifier (here, the domain of 
spatial positions and morphological features defining and characterizing a given territory) and vice-
17 
 
versa. This system of signification works if the programmed social agents consistently respond to the 
relevantly coded positional and morphological clues in such a way that expected behaviours can be read 
off the articulated environmental configuration. However, rather than modelling scenarios frame by 
fra e, age t ased odelli g orks defi i g the age ts eha ioural dispositio s a d iases relati e 
to environmental features. The event itself then becomes an emergent global pattern resulting from the 
local interactions of agents with each other inside the environment. If this succeeds, architecture will 
have done its job of ordering the event scenario. That is, themeaning of architecture, the prospective 
life processes it frames and sustains, will have been modelled and assessed within the design process as 
an object of direct creative speculation and cumulative design elaboration. In this way, architectural 
semiology can finally be operationalized; in this way, it will have a real chance of succeeding as a 
promising, rigorous design-research project. 
 
 
Conclusion: 
 
Parametric design starts with parametric variation. Variation can be employed for the differentiation of 
a field, layer or subsystem. To the extent to which this differentiation is rule-based (and gradual) rather 
than random, it establishes an order that might allow for orientation and navigation along its vector of 
transformation. Gradients as well as more complex rule-based differentiations allow for inferences from 
what is visible to what is not yet visible. A differentiated field or subsystem might become the substrate 
upon which the differentiation of further subsystems might be made dependent via functions or 
transcoding rules. As rule-based mappings these subsystems are representations
vi
 of each other that 
allow inferences from one to the other. The technique of associative modelling allows the crucial 
programme layer to be treated as one more correlated subsystem in the multi-system parametric set 
up, via a programme distribution rule that correlates with the spatio-morphological (typological) 
differentiation of the design. However, the heuristics of parametricism interpret program as 
parametrically variable event scenarios whereby the number, type, density and configuration of 
participants are pertinent variables that make a difference. This conception allows for gradual variation 
as well as inbetweening or hybridization of programs or event scenarios. This program layer is thus 
much more pertinently displayed and elaborated via crowd modelling than via the usual labelling or 
colour coding of areas. 
18 
 
The ordered pattern of crowd behaviour and interaction, i.e. the social life process, will be a correlate of 
the spatio-morphological built environment. This built environment in turn becomes a function and 
representation of the life processes it accommodates. And its functioning as a legible representation 
that becomes a communication is part and parcel of its very functioning, i.e. of the functioning of the 
accommodated life processes themselves. These life-processes indeed require the organized and 
articulated system of spatial frames as necessary precondition of their very formation and regular 
reproduction. Parametric design can enhance the density, intensity, complexity and thus productivity of 
contemporary life-processes via the systematic enhancement of the built environment as a well-
ordered, information rich, perceptually tractable, and intuitively legible system of signification. 
 
End. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
i
 Founded in 1980, McNeel is a privately-held, employee-owned company based in Seattle with sales and support 
offices and affiliates in Seattle, Boston, Miami, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Rome, Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, 
and Shanghai. 
ii
 Patrik Schumacher, Tectonics - The Differentiation and Collaboration of Architecture and Engineering, in: 
“tefa Polo i – Bearing Lines – Beari g “urfa es , Ed. Ursula Kleefis h-Jobst et al., Edition Axel Menges, 
Stuttgart/London 2012 
iii
 A solution is in a multi-objective optimization is alled Pareto opti al if o e of the addressed fitness values can 
be increased without decreasing some of the other fitness values. The set of Pareto optimal solutions is called the 
pareto front . 
iv
 Crowd modelling must follow the pri iple of ethodologi al i di idualis . 
v
 Schumacher, Patrik, The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Vol.2: A New Agenda for Architecture, John Wiley & Sons 
Ltd., London 2012 
vi
 The German word for mathematical function - Abbildung - literally means pictorial representation.