Morphological Analysis of Cultural DNA

From the invention of concrete to the yield point of steel, it is common knowledge that building design has been dictated in great part by the knowledge and capabilities of the available materials. Culture has also found a place in design, having strong influence of colors, space, and shape. Perhaps less discussed is the influence on building design from the cultural and scientific understanding of the human. As the methods of human simulation develop, so too does the understanding of the human. In this regard, computation is bringing yet another change in the influence of the human form on design. This paper provides a perspective of key historical points on the human form role in architecture and discusses the new role the human form plays with, such as the advancements of computation and simulation in regards to the usage of computational techniques for form finding. This discussion brings about the turning point for when design is inspired by humans to when it is based on humans.

Today, information sharing is faster than ever. From this, we face fragmentation of information about ourselves in virtual spaces such as in online communication, social network, and storage services. A problem we face today is that because the locations of our behavior spaces are integrated that sometimes we get lost in our own virtual behavior spaces. In this exploratory paper, in order to find ways to ameliorate the segmentation of behavior spaces, we attempt to identify how virtual spaces can become more manageable at a human scale by making analogies between physical and virtual architectural components. To investigate what kind of components should be considered in physical space and how spaces have evolved in different countries to the modern times, and onto virtual spaces, we apply the concept of cultural DNA into account. We first clarify what cultural DNA is by organizing the ideas of many scholars; make our own definition of cultural DNA in design field; apply the definition to physical architecture, and finally end with making analogies between the physical and virtual architecture.

Finding cultural characteristics of housing has been a subject in many disciplines. Most of their approaches, however, were qualitative rather than quantitative since even those houses with a similar style exhibit a wide variety of morphological solutions with varying shapes and sizes. As a result, researchers tended to focus on materials, decorations and layouts that are relatively easy to analyse. In recent decades, many attempts have been made to quantify built environment. Space syntax and shape grammar are two representative theories that radically systemised this approach. They highlighted, however, only one side of the reality; space syntax on spatial configuration and shape grammar on formal composition; thus could not suggest the holistic understanding of it. To overcome this limit, this research suggests a new graph representation where the information of both form and space are retained. What is the cultural DNA of Malay houses? We often try to relate this kind of question to traditional houses, but DNA is something that transcends time by transferring itself from an old generation to a new. To find this persisting genotypical element, modern apartment floor plans were converted to the new graph representation and then analysed to filter out the most common spatial elements in them. Through the interpretation of these commonalities, culture-specific properties from the past were revealed.

This article deals with the seven frieze groups of symmetry that works as guiding principles for the analysis and synthesis of housing elevation designs. The mathematical notion of symmetry serves as a tool for analyzing frieze patterns of various symmetries and for constructing new symmetrical designs in housing facade.

Traditional Chinese private gardens have unique cultural significance for the world’s architectural and landscape heritage. To compliment the existing qualitative understandings in the field, this chapter presents a computational approach to unpacking the DNA of this important cultural heritage—capturing and applying the essential spatial characteristics of traditional Chinese private gardens—through mathematical measurement and parametric design. The chapter demonstrates that the computational approach is applicable and effective, through the analysis and generation of two different categories of traditional Chinese private gardens—with Yuyuan Garden and Wangshiyuan Garden as the typical historical example for each category respectively.

By observing cities, numerous regular and repetitive structures appear obviously. They mainly reflect simple spatial organizations based on multiplied habitation groups. The interesting thing is that those are intimately related to the history and culture of each place. More complex forms have arisen from the reproduction and transformation of the groups through their own interactions. Diverse urban dynamics following group formation on a local scale can be observed and developed. In addition, the dynamics can be represented by simple elementary figures and symmetry operations. The study as a part of urban morphogenesis contributes to urban morphology analysis and simulation. The view parameter in particular can newly define urban dynamics as a new cultural element in contemporary cities.

DNA and origin of ideas which have generated the major urban design project of “Seine-Arche” near Paris in the 2000–2010’s years. The radical break that occurred in the 1980’s in the urban ideas have seen the pictorial references from cubism and abstract art change reference to classical garden and Haussmann design. This is not only a formal change but also a policy reversal, the public space has become the major element of urban composition.

This paper presents a model for Korea’s cities that describes the characteristics of growth pattern and morphological transformation. To do so, it uses the case of ‘HanJoo (한주 韓州)’, a hypothetical in-land city on Korean Peninsula, which is developed based on a set of preliminary studies of several Korean cities. The narrative model using illustrations is intends to examine the process of four-staged developments in the central urban area: (1) walled town to regional center (675–1890); (2) town expansion via grid blocks (1890–1945); (3) industrial district and factory complex linked by inter-city highway (1946–1994); (4) new community development and massive suburban growth (1995–present). The study, anticipating further subsequent work in the future, attempts to identify the growth, change and decline mechanism of the built environment in both old and new cities. The findings can help guide decision-makers whose public actions are likely to influence a city’s development process and direction, with more informed planning alternatives within both larger city and larger region.

Urban plans are difficult to comprehensively analyze quantitatively because they lack sufficiently detailed information. They tend to emphasize land-use, possibly suggesting general building typologies. Nevertheless, they are generally conceived with respect to objective criteria, such as population targets, plot ratios, gross floor areas, etc. This research suggests a rule-based approach to generate relevant building data that can serve to analyze and assess such urban plans with respect to these and other relevant criteria, requirements and targets. Such generation must necessarily take into account local conditions, building typologies, codes and regulations.

This research was conducted in an attempt to suggest player segmentation strategies based on the types of self-recognition in online game world. Using the framework based on six types of self-recognition in online game world by Young Yim Do (2009) (Self-enhancer, Trend-expressionist, Relation-oriented, Isolated-antisocial, Social contributor, and Self-interest), I reinterpret the major game behaviors, core values, and psycho-socio-cultural characteristics of the six types. Finally, I suggest new strategic points to improve the player satisfaction for each type of game service design.

This research proposes a method to synthesize car designs based on strategic styling positioning (product appearance similarities among product generations, portfolios and competitors). Automobile manufacturers strategically upgrade new designs similarly or differently from the designs of previous generations, both those within product portfolio, and those from competitors. Design similarity is a critical element of the design upgrading process, and design upgrade strategies vary depending on the automobile manufacturer. Some car brands maintain high similarities with their previous car designs, while others change the designs of new cars. Thus, this paper investigates ways of implementing design similarity to synthesize styles that reflect the particular styling strategy. The implementation of design similarity for generating design alternatives will help to derive two major contributions: first, to provide better understanding of the function of visual reference, and second, designers can strategically upgrade new generations of car designs while maintaining (or changing) a specific style.

For the computational understanding of visual artifacts, shape grammar provides an important theoretical framework. In addition to the theory, there have been numerous computer implementations; these have tended to be proofs of concept. As such, they are essential steps in development, but do not directly help researchers do the kind of analyses seen in the literature, which were done by hand. That is to say, we have a theory but not yet a sturdy tool. We present a prototype implementation to help designers and design researchers work with shape grammars. This implementation allows users to focus on domain tasks—editing and testing grammars—by shielding them from sub-domain tasks—mechanical tasks like matching shapes and applying rules. A grammar is displayed as a collection of shapes in 3D space that users can manipulate directly; a commercial 3D modeling application is used for this purpose. The components of the implementation are designed to make it easy for users to switch between editing and testing their grammars. The implementation handles emergence and is general. We report on users’ experiences with the implementation in workshops on grammatical design and analysis.

In Service Design (SD), there have been various tools being developed to help designers create ideas and innovative ideas. However, currently most tools do not particularly address an intended culture when it comes to design, which is believed to influence the user experience and the quality of a service. In this study, we introduced the development of a cultural design tool, i.e., a culturally oriented persona, to help designers consciously integrate culture elements in SD. We also demonstrated a case study that made use of the tool to enhance the services of traditional tea houses in Taiwan. The results of the study provide evidence of a culturally oriented persona as an innovative design tool supporting design activities in the SD process.

This research aims to develop a BIM-enabled approach to evaluating the qualitative factors of building circulation. Building circulation should be strategically planned with consideration for efficiency, privacy, safety, and additional binding-forced factors such as fire-egress. As these building circulation factors impact overall spatial planning and building organization, a well-defined circulation plan is critical, especially in the early phases of design. In order to establish an optimal circulation plan, architects and related specialists manually conduct iterative analysis tasks to improve the design based on their knowledge and expertise. With the advent of Building Information Modeling (BIM), building design and analysis can be automated by BIM-enabled assessment tools applied to given models. BIM-enabled analysis is based on a series of explicit quantitative data computed from building components and their properties, such as metric distance and number of turns. This enables us to measure explicit egress distances between specific spaces and exits in accordance with the regulations of the national Fire Code. However, even more intrinsic building circulation factors such as ‘convenient access’ have generally been ignored in the development of such BIM applications. This paper proposes an answer to the question of how to measure qualitative building circulation factors using BIM-enabled quantities. Two key categorical elements are suggested as a potential solution: BIM-enabled circulation quantity and a weighted function. In order to measure qualitative factors, building circulation quantities are classified and applied to a weighted function that can assign a relative importance to each factor. The applicability of the evaluation approach was checked by a circulation analysis application on a test case.

The human information processing (HIPS) model predicts that people design by searching in a problem space, but the HIPS model alone provides insufficient guidance for system design. The eight generic tasks presented here elaborate the overall search task into sub-tasks that may be recombined in many different overall design processes. Supporting any such tasks and processes requires a notational system, for which the cognitive dimensions framework provides an analytic structure. Cognitive dimensions analysis requires descriptions of the activity undertaken, the notation used and the environment providing the notation and supporting the activity. We split the notation into two parts, one for design states and one for the design space. In addition we posit the notion of an interaction metaphor or lens that channels system (environment) designs in specific channels. We describe 25 grammar-based systems in cognitive dimensions terms, analyze them for their support of the eight generic exploration tasks and present a cognitive dimensions analysis for one conventional grammar-based system. The grammar lens for design exploration system appears to strongly channel system designs.

This paper discusses the role of prototyping as a vehicle to integrate electronic media technology, materiality, and physical computing into architectural design process and education. It connects a creating-making approach to a broader maker and hacker culture through adaptive and autonomous assemblies and embedded electronic systems. It recognizes the need for a new conceptual discourse on what constitutes effective design methodology that nurtures innovation and considers all design factors: social, cultural, and technological.