Shanze Fatima Javed
Week 6
REFLECTION ON THE TALK
I learnt some important lessons in the talk like before diving into parametric design, it’s essential to understand the data you’re working with. This involves collecting data from various sources, understanding its context, and curating it to ensure its relevance and accuracy. One of the key aspects of parametric design is the ability to tell a story. I believe in the talk with Jiaqi I was able to understand the importance of converting raw data into a narrative that can be easily understood and appreciated by the audience. Not all data is perfect. There might be missing fields or incomplete information. It’s essential to recognize these limitations and decide whether to fill in the gaps manually, make assumptions, or exclude certain data points.
Jiaqi also talked about the idea of interactive design, where users can engage with the data visualization. This can be especially powerful in parametric designs where changing parameters can lead to different outcomes, allowing users to explore various scenarios and connecting different data aspects in parametric design, it’s essential to understand the relationships between different data points and how changing one parameter might influence others. Creating a parametric design, especially in tools like Grasshopper, requires a deep understanding of the data you’re working with, a clear idea of the story you want to tell, and a willingness to experiment and iterate
READING PROMPT
What are the key concepts? What ideas are new to you and especially interesting?
The term is applied to two revolutionary fields of designs in Architecture and Design – computational and parametric design.
Computational Design: It refers to the design generation that is aided by algorithms, as well as computer-based logic to produce the same. By developing some rules or algorithms and using it on the computer instead of manually forming all the elements, the designer has the design created by it.
Parametric Design: Design elements in this process are determined by the parameters of this subset which makes up computational design. These parameters modification will directly influence the design and that is why they are referred as automated parameters like in the last class we used the sliders to adjust the parameters and this allows us to create different products of different families
The application of these concepts was shown through the video but the notion that an algorithm can have some effect on creating three-dimensional structures is fascinating. This means moving from time-intensive but static design techniques to speedier and flexible approaches.
What is a family of forms?
The term “family of forms” in general means several structures or patterns originated from one underlying principle or algorithm, yet produced by varying parameters. For instance, several parametric variations for design could be derived by changing some selected parameters in one parametric model and this can be easily achieved in grasshopper by using the graph multipliers or number sliders (sine, cosine etc)
What’s the advantage of designing the process and not objects?
Designers produce flexible and upgradable designs by focusing their attention on the process as opposed to the product they are producing. It is flexible, in that a single design process can give rise to various outputs depending on the input employed or condition under consideration. Such an approach is particularly important when design needs to respond to different customer requests.
What is a parametric model/object?
A parametric model or object has the characteristic that its dimensions may be changed by varying some parameters of shape, size or configuration. It’s as if it were some kind of changing draft plan, which gives birth to more than one solution.
How do you think that computational design represents a shift in design?
Computational design has shifted to the fundamentals of design thinking. Dynamic, flexible, and adjustable, rather than rigid and once-off design is the way to go forwards. The design process is made shorter as well as provides room for modification that could involve changing needs or environmental conditions.
Finally, computational and parametric design is not a tool rather a philosophy reshaping limits in designing. Combining the art of design with technical precision, they create ingenious solutions which could not be conceived as possible prior to it.