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Interactive Urban Synthesis Computational Methods for fast Prototyping of Urban Design Proposals

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  • Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School
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Abstract

In this paper, we present a method for generating fast conceptual urban design prototypes. We synthesize spatial configurations for street net- works, parcels and building volumes. Therefore, we address the problem of implementing custom data structures for these configurations and how the generation process can be controlled and parameterized. We exemplify our method by the development of new components for Grasshopper/Rhino3D and their application in the scope of selected case studies. By means of these components, we show use case applications of the synthesis algorithms. In the conclusion, we reflect on the advantages of being able to generate fast urban design prototypes, but we also discuss the disadvantages of the concept and the usage of Grasshopper as a user interface.

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... However, some authors have highlighted the efficiency of drawing on these tools to generate urban design prototypes in a very short time period (Koenig et al., 2017), and for the optimization (Charalampidis and Tsalikidis, 2015;Luo, He and Ni, 2017) or simultaneous consideration of various factors (Bielik, Schneider and Koenig, 2012;Amado and Poggi, 2014). Interestingly, other group of authors have seen the potential of the tool to enrich the design process, turning it into a "dynamic reflective practice" (Beirão, Nourian and Mashhoodi, 2011), and to support collaborative and participatory urban design (Steinø, Karima and Obeling, 2013;Steinø, Yıldırım and Özkar, 2013). ...
... Firstly, Grasshopper has been the environment for geometry work and running the simulations. Grasshopper is one of the most widely used tools for computational design worldwide (Gerber, 2007;Beirão, Nourian and Mashhoodi, 2011;Bielik, Schneider and Koenig, 2012;Amado and Poggi, 2014;Speranza, 2016;Koenig et al., 2017). Secondly, Ladybug has been the tool for sunlight modelling. ...
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