Alexandra Paio

ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa | ISCTE · Department of Architecture and Urbanism

This paper presents original research developed during PhD research. It proposes a multidisciplinary process as a methodology for the construction of thick, rigid origami surfaces to be used for kinetic architectural purposes. Origami surfaces that fold rigidly allow for strict geometry-based simulations that can reproduce rigorous rigid kinematics...

Urban spatial patterns that can enhance the city's cultural, social, environmental, material and structural performance advance beyond the old notions of design patterns by incorporating the digital design. Pattern books such as``A Pattern Language'' are revisited and toolboxes /toolkits are used in contemporary urban designs by laboratories and of...

Precisely capturing context is a fundamental first step in dealing with built environments. Previous research has demonstrated that existing methods for generating as-is floor plans of non-orthogonal rooms by non-expert users do not produce geometrically accurate results. The present paper proposes the adaptation of empirical triangulation methods,...

A implementação do processo de Bolonha constituiu-se como um processo de transformação do Ensino Superior em Portugal. A renovação curricular foi um dos principais focos dessa transformação, estabelecendo-se com ela novas formas de organização do ensino e de abordagens à aprendizagem. Contudo, a inovação pedagógica que o contexto de Bolonha promovi...

This paper explores the visual dynamics of the morphology of public open spaces. Resorting to space syntax concepts, visual graph analysis (VGA), and the innovative use of its standard tool Depthmap, a set of case studies is analysed under the perspective of visual opportunity fields and building upon the established concept and metrics of Revelati...

Mass Customization systems in architecture have yet to adequately address the problem of capturing physical context, a fundamental aspect of dealing with building renovation, which has limited their scope of application. Previous research has demonstrated that existing methods of capturing as-built plans of rooms by non-expert users do not produce...

The problem of context, a fundamental aspect of dealing with built environments, has not been adequately addressed by mass customization systems so far, which has limited their scope of application. The aim of the present article is to evaluate the adequacy of existing methods of producing as-built plans of rooms by non-expert users for the automat...

Rigid Origami folding surfaces have very interesting qualities for Architecture and Engineering given their geometric, structural and elastic qualities. The ability to turn a flat element, isotropic, without any structural capacity, into a self-supporting element strictly through folds in the material opens the door to a multitude of uses. Besides...

ICDHS 2018-Back to the Future / The Future in the Past 10th+1 Conference of the International Committee of Design History and Design Studies Transdisciplinary in Architecture as a digital change: back to the future Digital design, Transdisciplinary, Digital architecture, Bauhaus, Sketchpad This paper outlines a historic perspective of transdiscipli...

In the cities of post-industrialized countries, renovation is the main part of building construction activity and has a major urban impact. Measuring this ongoing phenomenon and its distribution is of great usefulness for municipality urban planning and public policies. In this context, it is essential to introduce tools and processes that can allo...

Growing dissemination of digital fabrication technologies coupled with a renewed interest in wood as a construction material have led to a resurgence of research into integral wood joints. Recent research on digitally fabricated wood joints has focused primarily on robotic or on CNC router produced snap-fit or tab-and-slot joints. These types of jo...

RESUMEN El presente artículo describe algunas contribuciones de un curso que introduce a los participantes a métodos interdisciplinarios para proyectar ciudad con las comunidades locales, anticipando el cambio de paradigma sobre cómo los arquitectos abordarán el espacio público en el mundo atravesado por profundos cambios en las áreas económicas, s...

Information technologies are a driving force for progress in the design field, allowing new modes of creativity. However, most of the existing computational design tools are focused on the latest stages of the design process and especially directed to drafting operations. Conceptual design tools that support the designer in the creative and inventi...

This paper discusses an emerging field of research in architecture, kinetic design. This approach has been used in different ways through history, but the technological advances of the “Third Industrial Revolution” offer new perspectives on this topic, along with various design innovations. To face this demand, architects must develop new strategie...

This Letter from the Editor presents an overview of the special issue’s theme, Architecture In-Play, and its focus on digitally enabled, kinetic architecture. The original catalyst for this issue was an international conference on this topic, which was held between the 11th and 23rd of July 2016 at ISCTE–Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Lisbon, P...

Este artigo descreve uma nova abordagem ao desenho do espaço público aberto, baseada numa análise multidimensional orientada para a tomada de decisão e para o desenvolvimento de soluções arquitetônicas assentes em evidências. Apresenta uma visão geral das variáveis mais relevantes de projeto e suas restrições, fornecendo assim informações úteis par...

Design methods have always changed, considering that design thinking is bound to the representational medium. Thus, its scope can be expanded by the enlarged possibilities offered by the new media and methodologies. Today, the computational methods are a crucial medium for architectural design. Not only digital media is augmenting our design capaci...

Mass customization (MC) and personal fabrication (PF) are current relevant topics in architecture offices practice and schools design research. Architects are adopting information based design and production techniques as a response to architectural century challenges. However, is not clear how various authors used and transformed the concept in pr...

The adopted methodology was defined by a multidisciplinary team with a strong believe in the efficiency of learning-by-doing design studios which resulted in an experimental digital workflow to create responsive surfaces based on the geometry of Rigid Origami. The workflow comprehends all the matters related to the creation of such surfaces, from t...

This paper describes an experimental project in which the urban designer uses Space Syntax and other analysis techniques coming from Public Life Studies and Building Thermal Physics, to inform the Design Decision-Making for the redevelopment of a public square. Largo da Graça in the historic centre of Lisbon was selected as a case study, suitable f...

This paper addresses one of the most symbolically and socially meaningful elements of the public open space: the urban square (Portuguese: praça). Besides their urban centrality, these spaces' potential for liveliness depends on multiple factors and their identity as a place may only be grasped by formal methods able to embrace their latent complex...

Shape grammars (SG), which define a set of shapes, are used in applications in the field of Computational Creativity (CC). Computational Creativity can be considered an area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that chases the goal of understanding creativity and building computational applications that emulate or support human creativity in Arts and Sc...

This work proposes and tests through the application to a Portuguese case study (Largo da Graça in Lisbon historic center), an original method of analysis specifically oriented to the study of public squares. Collecting contributions from the disciplines of urban morphology, social studies, environmental and site analysis, the presented methodology...

Recentes desenvolvimentos nos métodos computacionais e a sua integração com processos de fabricação digital permitem perspectivar um paradigma de fabricação personalizada. O referido paradigma é particularmente adequado à realidade da reabilitação de edifícios construídos com técnicas tradicionais, um corpo diversificado em que as intervenções são...

This paper argues for hands-on, contextual and problem-solving collaborations, that is, for a transdisciplinary approach that establishes direct connections between social and technical disciplines. It is based on our experience as a team of researchers at the Vitruvius Fab Lab (Digital Fabrication Laboratory) of ISCTE-IUL (University Institute of...

The word Square and the Latin – platea – derived terms (piazza, plaza, praça, piaţă) are used to identify a public space of an exceptional character that is morphologically distinct in the urban morphology. The study of urban morphology seeks to understand the spatial structure and character of the city by identifying the patterns of its elements a...

The present study arises from the interest in computing as an important partner in the design process and the new paradigms in design practice that emerge with the use of computation. Shape Grammars (SG) are an example of ruled-based systems that, used in applications in the field of computational creativity, might assist architects, designers and...

The focus of the Conferences Architecture In-Play was to think about this interdisciplinary approach of Architecture, about its tools, methods and theories and to bring together people from all the fields that could merge and create new and better architectural solutions. In that sense We invited authors to submit their most recent and unpublished...

Developments in computational design methods and their integration with digital fabrication processes are ushering a customized fabrication paradigm. This paradigm is particularly suited to renovation of old buildings built with traditional construction techniques, a diversified corpus in which interventions are surgical and unique, and where parti...

Visually impermeable boundaries growth of residential multifamily buildings in Boa Viagem (Recife-BR) increases urban environment of buildings that ignore streets and pedestrians. Minimizing it, without disturbing the private use, this work consists in modelled walls defined by cobogós (typical hollow elements of the region), manipulated to guarant...

Public open spaces (parks, squares and other gathering places) can only be grasped from a simultaneous view of their attributes. In an ongoing Phd research project we propose to overcome the limitations of traditional-descriptive urban morphology methods in dealing with this simultaneity derived from their many shapes, functions, uses and relations...

See http://iptel-el.ie.ulisboa.pt/framework/

Com o objetivo de apoiar o processo de conceção e desenvolvimento de cursos em e-learning, apresenta-se uma checklist de apoio. Ao desenvolver um curso ou uma unidade curricular online o docente e/ou investigador poderá guiar-se por este documento. De forma a não descuidar nenhum aspeto importante este recurso encontra-se organizado em 8 dimensões-...

Today, the relationship between computational design and digital fabrication technologies has opened new opportunities in archi-tectural practice that are challenging the relation between the academ-ia and the industrial world. To investigate this condition, the IS-CTE/IUL and FAUP created the Advanced Studies Course in Digital Architecture (CEAAD)...

This paper describes the results of the first OIKONET International Workshop ran from 14th to 19th July 2014 in Lisbon at ISCTE-IUL. The objective of the six-day workshop was to develop a cross-disciplinary dialogue aimed at identifying the meanings and forms of contemporary living patterns in mass housing in Europe, by opposing "formal" and "infor...

The emergence of digital design processes and technologies are challenging the conventional assumption of architecture being immutable and static. There has been interest for some time with 'intelligent' artefacts that can react to user needs in order to improve functional performance. As Fox and Kemp (2009) put it: "Today's intensification of soci...

In an increasingly technological, informed and demanding society Architecture should be able to answer to its space requirements using materials and technological resources that today has at its service. Kinetic systems have been used by architects as an approach that embeds computation intelligence to create flexible and adaptable architectural sp...

Presently there is a progressive tendency to incorporate parametric design strategies in urban planning and design. Although the computational technologies that allow it are recent, fundamental theories and thinking processes behind it can be traced back to the work conducted at the Institute for Lightweight Structures (IL) in Stuttgart, between th...

vius FabLab-IUL 1 http://iscte-iul.pt/ 2 http://vitruviusfablab.iscte-iul.pt/ 1 vascolpereira@gmail.com 2 alexandra.paio@iscte.pt The digital era has brought many changes in the architectural research and practice. Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools are offering now a wide range of benefits in the AECO industry. This paper aims is not to do...

Shape grammars, used in applications in the field of Computational Creativity (CC), might provide the artists with applications to assist them in the creative process, not only creating solutions but also as a way of creating new ideas. In architecture, shape grammars can work with rules which will convey legal restrictions, space needs and goals t...

This paper discusses a key subject of research at ISCTE-IUL. Digital fabrication in architecture offers new perspectives and design innovation in three main areas: academia, research and professional practice. In order to investigate these new challenges and its contributions to architecture in Portugal, a group of multidisciplinary researchers org...

This paper proposes a multi-agent rule based architecture of a computational system for supporting generic work with shape grammars. The key ideas and technologies involved are presented. This computational system is being developed and will give support to an urban and architecture research based on shape grammar theories.

This paper presents a key area under investigation in Vitruvius FabLab at ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon. A new and unexplored convergence between material and computation is rising up. The increasing capacity of architects to integrate more multidisciplinary and complex design information combined with technological developments and industrial logics are leadi...

This paper describes work in progress in the area of producing affordable housing to underprivileged populations living in slums. This project is being developed recurring to a Shape Grammar approach, using a direct input strategy targeted to the common user with non digital expertise. The diversity of solutions are to be applied to three case stud...

The ongoing research project called “Emerg.cities4all” is focused on the development of a generative computer-aided planning support system for cities and housing to low-income populations, using a descriptive method as the Shape Grammars and based on multi-agent rule-based system. The goal is to develop a system that could reveal the cultural, soc...

This research explores the descriptive and generative potencials of shape grammars to unveil the order of urban morphological complexity underlying Portuguese treatises and the knowledge embedded in Portuguese urban cartographic representations of architecture and military engineering from the 16th to the 18th century. The shape grammar made it pos...

This paper is part of ongoing research to explore (a) descriptive and generative potentials of shape grammars to unveil the order of urban morphological complexity underlying Portuguese treatises, and (b) the knowledge embedded in Portuguese urban cartographic representations produced from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries for purposes of a...

The UIA The right to adequate housing is recognized as a fundamental right to people’s life (UN, 1948). The Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and South America, witness a rapid urbanization with deepening poverty, mass homelessness, environmental degradation and increasing slums. The current situation of informal urban settlements does not al...

This paper suggests that Portuguese historical cities were based on a structured knowledge-based process from where it?s possible to retrieve not only a generative parametric urban grammar but also to construct a computational model capable to generate Portuguese planimetric proportionate and symmetrical urban grammar. The grammar is described grap...

This study considers the relationship between the approach to urban planning in Portugal up to the eighteenth century, and the effective process of urbanisation, from both a theoretical and practical perspective. Portuguese urban layout does not develop as a set of random shapes but rather arises from structured thinking by “urban makers” who are f...