PARAMETRICS

161 | PParametric design

Parametric design

Parameter: a reference or value that is passed to a function, procedure, subroutine, command, or program. — The Free Dictionary

Parametric design, a process based not on fixed metric quantities but on consistent relationships between objects, allowing changes in a single element to propagate corresponding changes throughout the system. — Tomoko Sakamoto

Parametric tools are doubtless among the most powerful computational devices yet to be put in service of architectural production. But parametric software is not design software and its use has failed to produce objects or worlds of interest, novelty or depth. — Sanford Kwinter

Most current CAD/CAM/CAE software utilizes parametrics. By the use of parametric equations, dimensions and other variables are linked to geometry in such a way that when the values change, the geometry may change as well. In this manner, design modifications and the creation of associated data can be performed remarkably quickly, compared with the redrawing required by traditional CAD. Parametrics are the heart and soul of building information modeling (BIM) software to the extent that parametric design has been used as an alternative label for BIM. It is rapidly becoming the design process of choice among “third- generation” digital architects. In parametric design, it is the elements of a particular design that are declared, not its shape. By assigning different values to the parameters, different configurations can be created. The overall form can be manipulated by altering specific parameters that are able to automatically adjust building data such as total gross area, total building height, total number of floors, and aspect ratio. It changes the fundamental nature of the traditional design process that architects have used since the Beaux Arts. The “equisse” and the “parti” are gone and replaced by the spreadsheet and the script, or algorithm. The romantic notion that there is an “aha” moment of clarity when one “discovers” the “solution” due to inspiration found in endless design sketching is forgotten. The designer becomes a programmer. Control over form is at the mercy of the machine – the difficult whole is abandoned. The ordering system becomes predestined, opaque and out of reach.

Architectural practice is starting to shift the role of the architect in the design process from the design of specific shapes to the determination of those geometrical/algorithmic relationships describing the project and its components. — Marco Vanucci

Recently, in the disciplinary attempts to utilize the power of the parametric process it seems as if everyone awoke from the embarrassing drunken party of post-modernism, trying to forget everything that happened. — Michael Meredith

See also: Algorithm • Artificial intelligence • Building information modeling: BIM • Difficult whole •Digital architecture • Digital materiality