Architectural Analysis & Computer Process I

Teaching unit ARCH-P441 - Master 1 & 2
Teachers: Denis Derycke (coordinator), Michel Lefèvre

The Architectural Analysis and Computer Process module aims to simultaneously revisit several themes that were once central to research connecting computer science and architecture. These themes include:
- The syntactic approach that decomposes and then recomposes the geometric aspects of architecture according to a basic formal vocabulary guided by syntax rules, like the structuralists of the 1960s.
- The formal analysis of architecture through graphic means and diagrams, inspired by the American postmodern approach.
- The procedural modeling, which means the generation of three-dimensional architectural configurations by implementing a vocabulary of graphic primitives within an algorithmic system. These algorithms are derived from the syntactic approach previously mentioned.
- The production of relevant graphic representations, including the possibility of using media such as 3D printing or laser cutting.

Students are invited to analyze an architectural project, or a family of projects, to identify recurring formal characteristics and compositional rules, and then to turn those forms and rules into lines of computer code (using a programming language like Python integrated with 3D software such as Blender). The goal is to generate parametric three-dimensional architectural configurations based on the analysis, exploring the possibilities of the initial system.

Featured projects:

Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Marche à suivre dans la composition d'un projet quelconque (1813)
Julien Rippinger | Source Code

Japanese Matebolism (1960s): explorations
Edouard Capel | Source Code

Georges Candilis, Alexis Josic, Shadrach Woods - University of Berlin (1967)
Arthur Lachard | Source Code