if you are that lost why u want to do a "parametric community planning"??, first try "parametric" design as itself and then think how to apply it... and stop with the fancy words... community planning has always been "parametric" by nature, because all the agents (parameters) that are involved in its planning....

wish i could help you, but seems to me you have the wrong approach

they're all just tools, not and end to a means.

look at the Kowloon Walled City as an example of an 'emergent'/ bottom-up system

I did something very similar a couple years ago. I disagree with MADianito that it is somehow a "wrong approach.

What is important to keep in mind is that you keep in mind to make it responsive to relevant information. Don't make it some cool geometric urban thing that only references itself. That should help a little bit...

I don't think MAD is saying its a wrong approach, just that the OP is approaching the concept of parametrics in the wrong manner.

nylex, in your view, why is parametrics a useful/interesting/critical approach to planning a community? I think that's where you should start.

Pixel - I can see how he could mean it that way. Wow, I said "keep in mind" twice in that last post.

There are a lot of pitfalls to doing something like this. I fell into every single one of them. One is first to decide what is designed and what is generated - What is the role of the designer? If you are thinking it is all generated, then you're going to have a hard time. And not only "Why is parameteric design useful/interesting/critical" but how can you make it useful/interesting/critical.

agfa8x, i have to say that I am lost in a wrong approach. In my department, the other guys and professors they all use the same way --design by experience. However I doubt if it's reliable. Therefore maybe by parametric design I can find a better way which combines the personal analysis and the elegance of the computational preciseness.

I've seen many examples done by parametric design. However I found those cool geometry generated in Rhino or Maya have little utility. and can hardly be realized. In addition to these pitfalls, can Parametric Design bring us more systematic thoughts? which is more practical.

I saw Voronoi in many examples. well, i'm not a smart guy, cant find what is the key attribute of Voronoi that can be applied in their design.

the deadline is approaching, hurry up~~~~~

nylex, are you named after the large sign in Cremorne, Melbourne?

well, if you're interested in the voronoi (for example), look into what it is mathematically rather than visually. both wikipedia and wolfram have plenty of information on this and similar topics.

around 2001, Winka Dubbeldam did a project, which i think was kind of the first attempts of doing what later became Parametric planning, in that occasion was for lower Manhattan if i remember properly.
by programming their own simulator they were able to visualize the actual cityscape resultant of the fluxes of the agents in a city, social agents, economical agents, tourism, politics, etc. represented in terms of housing, mixed use, and other different typologies.

i might not be explaining the project properly but my point is really that to represent in ur project a real PARAMETRIC BEHAVIOR you dont really need to know any scripting and or parametric modeler.... i think if what you need to do is to communicate in an effective way to your jury/crit the PARAMETRIC NATURE of your proposal, showing how it will adapt, morph or adjust depending on the variation of its parameters thru time (remember that cities or communities are just patterns thru time).

you dont need a parametric 3d modeler to have a parametric project.... as PIXEL said those you mention are only tools, and also using a parametric MODELER tool doesn't make any kind of project to become a parametric project.

that's what i meant about the wrong approach, if ur project its a typical fix/stiff urban plan, even if u model with parametric software u might come up with a complex geometry volumes for a typical narrow-minded planning, its more about the relationships, is more about you setting your mind to define which are the PARAMETERS that are going to affect and modify ur proposal rather than modeling a "parametric shape" which will have no real impact in the overall proposal... i hope im making my point here, anyway, if DEADLINE is approaching and u want to hurry up, i recommend to stop wishing archinect forums will give you a project idea ;) and get to draw, map, graph!

good luck!

P.S. check Winka's website and look for the FLEX CITY project, non parametric 3d modeller used for that project

1. define ur parameter... any data? urban/geographic...etc.

MADianito, Thank you for ur reply. It really inspires me alot. I still have a question. You said that community is a pattern thru time, well how can the community plan reponse to the changing of the pattern. (I never did planning before T_T)

After I define those parameters how should i design a dynamic planning to reponse to those dynamic parameters.......

two weeks ro go.....deadline

Pixel, I have already searched the Voronoi in Wikipedia. But how can this free system be appllied to a site surrounded in checked roads...

could u give me some example that involves the Voronoi logically....thanks

I'm telling you man, bottom-up/emergent systems.

check out Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson along with Lynch's What Time Is This Place?

diabase, do you mean that where the name "NYLEX" come? I happened to see this word in a film and just use it as the nick name in archinect. I dont know what it means. Do you know it?By the way, could you tell me what is the large sign in Cremorne, Melbourne ^_^

Pixel, many thanks.

regarding the Voronoi: thats up to you to figure out, but its gonna be more than the physicality (roads, etc.) of where ever you're looking. not sure how much stuff he has online, but Tomasz Jaskiewicz at the Hyperbody Research Group @ TU Delft has done some interesting urban analysis using Virtools.

and according a student/friend at the school I work at, circle packing is the new voronoi...

Yeah, voronoi is suuuuper played out.

I'm interested to see what kind of insipid project is generated as a result of this thread.

NYLEX, pls post boards once you have sorted your way through the salad bar of buzzwords and gimmicky techniques.

-andrew

in Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson theres actually some pages dedicated to explain how cities and/or communities become what they are by being a pattern (of activities) thru time, remember that simple communities upscale to towns, cities, regions by the accumulation of activities (intensity + complexity) adding more layers of activity into a first simple layout.

in EMERGENCE i think they put the example of Venice if i dont recall wrong... it mentions how the city got shaped by commerce, how neighborhoods keep having the same shops in the same streets where that kind of goods where trade centuries ago... patterns in time.

i do agree with rabbits/andrew that this is way close to become a "salad bar of buzzwords" i dont know where your anxiety of doing a parametrical planning comes from, specially since i dont have the feeling you been requested by this specifically.... again, parameters can have many aplications, from the road you take to school/work everyday to the design of a screw to even a urban plan, how do you design a dynamic scheme based on your prameters?, well son, thats when the magic of the architect has to emerge, that would be the core of your proposal, the juice..... how do you think your proposal can adapt to changing conditions?, MAP! the conditions (social, physical, economical, geographical, etc) of your locations and found the potentials of and for your community, and then understand how this potential could suffer changes thru years to come, and how it could be adaptable to this changes ("we will be safe as everything keeps moving"), thats where the magic is.

can't believe we r doing your teacher's work!... is this for school?? what school you go to?? i might ask for a teaching job there.... urban studio 101 "buzzword salad and para-gimmicky technoques", lol

"Salad bar of buzzwords" is my favorite new phrase. Nice one, rabbits.

Important question re the salad bar: does it have a sneeze screen?

we have special sauces and dressings at the end of the bar so u can spice up your selection ;)

dammit MADianito, way to give away the punchline on Emergence - make the kid read a little!

and I now fear that the next review I sit I'm going to use the salad bar comment - it happens all to often.

sorry PIXEL, im just trying to land my teaching job for this next (crisis) year ;)

hahaha...
I gotta admit, nothing tastes as sweet as academia at the moment.


delicious

While this article is not directly related to Architectural computing, it does illustrate a very valid point: computers a perfect to a fault, they do what they are told and only that…Garbage In Garbage Out

Thank you guys. I was totally swamped in my essay.

admittedly I have to learn a lot before I can really complete this community planning.

But first of all, let me have a deep sleep-----the most meaningful thing in a rapidly developing country. zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Thank you guys. You makes me know more about where the problem is...Today I was totally swamped in my essay of another class.

admittedly I have to learn a lot before I can really complete this community planning.

But first of all, let me have a deep sleep-----the most meaningful thing in a rapidly developing country. zzzzzzzzzzzzz