(Re)Appropriation: Procedural Modeling in Architectural Investigations

Architects have a long history of adapting industrial technologies from outside their discipline as tools for innovative design and research. From the work of the Eames with Naval glue technologies to Greg Lynn’s use of cinematic software as a methodology for articulating time-based design, the modern era of architecture has witnessed countless examples of the appropriation and re-appropriation of “foreign” practices in an attempt to push our profession forward. This lecture will briefly examine the history of technological appropriation within modern Architecture as a basis for understanding one of the more recent movements in computational design: Procedural Modeling. Used in the Computer Graphics industry for over 20 years, Procedural Modeling has come into vogue with Architects in recent years both as a tool for investigational understanding as well as formal experimentation and articulation. Unlike more traditional modes of computational design, Procedural Modeling results are generated through the construction of hierarchical networks, whereby the effect of change within one “node” of the network causes adjustments to the network result as a whole, meaning changes to the actual computer model. For the conceptualist this means the ability to quickly visualize changes of states within compositions through the testing of simple parametric data. For the formalist, the network allows for quick and precise modeling of spatial models with the ability to wholeheartedly change micro and macro elements of the design while simultaneously updating other effected elements of the network. Procedural Modeling can be thought of as “reliant modeling,” whereby information constrained to the network adapts to the seemingly smallest of changes. Examples of both conceptual and formal techniques in Procedural Modeling will be demonstrated through the use of SideFX’s “Houdini” modeling and animation package as well as “Grasshopper,” the Procedural Modeling Interface for McNeel’s “Rhinoceros” NURBS Modeling Software. Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch Street, Philadelphia