Configurations, Part 1

I began working on a project that is part of my graduation program at the Computation & Performance track at TU Delft. The project is related to the study of configurations of spaces within a building.

Architectural design begins by generating ideas and continues by transforming them to concrete spatial formations. During this process, the specifications of the project are manifested into a spatial configuration and by the end of it (which takes place rather late in the overall design process) the architectural artefact has obtained most of it's ultimate features and properties.

While the abstract process of combining spaces or shapes together can be broken down to a series of geometrical transformations, in architectural design there is no precise methodology for that matter, at least not one accepted universally. The process of designing a building is often as fuzzy and unclear as its goals.

Architects learn about the design problem by creating alternatives and testing them in order to gain desired spatial formations. In the absence of a concrete theory or a specific design methodology, examples and references become then the designer's most frequently used tools. 

Examples are indeed of great importance: A designer will systematically utilize references of configurations, images, inspirations, as well as alternatives already investigated for the project itself, all put together in a complex combinatorial design process. Therefore, the availability of resources during this process is critical, as it allows for the domain of possible solutions to be broadened.

That being said, the project will revolve around introducing a spatial analysis-generation tool aiming to suggest alternatives to user-specified configurations, alternatives that maintain some of its properties and possibly have the potential to improve on others. Specifically, analysis methods based on established spatial analysis theories, such as the Space Syntax group of theories will be used to create 'profiles' of the user-specified configurations, an abstraction of certain spatial qualities of the design. Based on this profile and using a generative, evolution-based method, new configurations will be generated, in order to explore alternate configurations that are similar to the configuration profile extracted from analysis.

The workflow of the tool should be such that promotes the use of examples. This is best suited to the architectural design process. Therefore, the input should be formulated into recognizable architectural arrangements (e.g. floorplans or models), and the output (the alternative configurations) should also follow this paradigm.