Parametric social housing

actually iam preparing my final thesis and i m interested on parametric approach in architecture at the beginnig i m dropped looking for what s the parametric design, for me it s something new even for us in tunisia, i even didint find a tutor who can help me anyway. i prepared the first part of my thesis talking about the background of this method, how it s used in architecture? why we need it , all this stuff then i choose a tower project as an experimental means but the problem is in my case the main thing is not the project its the method but it s not the aim of the final thesis. so i know someone who suggest me to focus on a problem in our country and try to fix it with parametric approach. then i decided to work on social housing, and because it s a general problem here in tunisia she suggested to work on a parametric model who can generate a different instances according to some variables such us sites, number of family, number of households, accessibility ... it looks interesting but difficult coz i prepeared the analytical part but still blocked how can i translate social inputs into algorithms ?

i really need help plz!

thanks in advance !

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Stasiuk on July 25, 2013 at 1:18am

This is really a pretty big topic, and I expect will be challenging for you if you don't have either experience or tutorial support in the use of parametric design tools. But it's also a really interesting topic, and if you're up for it you should try to dig in. I'd suggest starting by using the "Search Grasshopper" tool here, looking for things like "parametric urbanism" and "housing algorithm" and such. A cursory look suggests that others have endeavored to take this approach as well. Possibly you can reach out to them and see if their experiences can help you out. Good luck!

Permalink Reply by AMINE on July 26, 2013 at 7:26am

Thank you David for your reply and wish) !

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 25, 2013 at 2:23am

Hi Amine,

As Stasiuk mentioned, this is a very big topic and it seems that at the moment your questions are still very broad and therefore hard to answer for the likes of us. You do need to find a good supervisor, but it doesn't have to be someone who understands programming or algorithmics, it needs to be someone who has a firm grasp on research methodology.

You mentioned you have certain social variables/parameters such as family-size and accessibility. You're going to have to translate these fuzzy concepts into cold, hard numbers that can be used to actually dimension and position geometry. Since this is a thesis rather than a doctorate, it's ok if you treat this as a proof-of-concept. You'll need to pick a (small) number of social variables and figure out how they correspond with physical properties such as width, height and spacing. This is the research part of your thesis and it can/should be done on paper. It's also important that you have good justifications for your choices rather than good rationalizations.

I certainly wouldn't start with more than four basic social parameters that map to no more than a dozen or so geometric parameters. I'd also urge you to not try and tackle the architectural and urbanistic problems at the same time. Either focus on a floor-plan for a single housing unit or focus on how multiple units work together.

The more well-defined your research questions, the easier it will be to make justifiable progress.

When you have specific questions about algorithms this will be a good place to ask them, but people here are in general not qualified to give academic advice.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Tirol, Austria

Permalink Reply by AMINE on July 26, 2013 at 7:32am

Thanks a lot David i ll try to be more precise on what i want and try to follow ur advices, hope that i find a way.

Permalink Reply by gotjosh on July 26, 2013 at 8:28am

I find it to be a very interesting research direction!

I think it would be great to define maximum height (number of stories) maximum sprawl (square meters of ground plan) and then to create units with shared kitchens (with bio-gas units) and bathrooms (eco-toilets and solar showers) and to use grasshopper to pack the right number of units into space.

I could imagine to help you get started both conceptually and with the early modeling. What is your timeline?

cheers

Permalink Reply by AMINE on July 26, 2013 at 8:39am

really !! thank you so much ! it s for november 13.

Permalink Reply by AMINE on July 26, 2013 at 9:39am

(Gotjosh) but i want to get a personilized units not just packing a predefined one within a site. it can be relevant only by a participative process which u can give for people the oppurtunity to customize their homes.

Permalink Reply by gotjosh on July 26, 2013 at 9:43am

sounds great... you need to get really specific about what are the factors you want to use to influence the overall layout of the units, and what are the customizable options for each unit...

and be careful to separate the lists into priority level - so you can find out what options are the must have and what you can add later if you have time...

Permalink Reply by alberludo on February 20, 2014 at 5:47am

Hi Amine. I just found your topic here in the Discussions sections and because your research is really close to mine I want to contact you. I am preparing my final thesis also about the parametric colective house (+ neighborhood) and the user´s position in that. I started with the Christopher Alexander´s patterns that allow me numbers to analize in a mathematical way, but in the moment to dig inside the software I have really problems changing my mind in to the parametrical sense. There is a sentence that I repeat for myself: Don´t do something that I can do in Excel.

How is going your thesis? Did you find some add-on or plugin with one you can start? Maybe Galapagos?

Cheers!

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