Offering an intuitive and flexible process of parametric design, grasshopper has taken the architectural academic community by storm.  As the initial euphoria  dies down though, it remains to be seen whether this tool, and parametric design in general, open fruitful avenues of architectural production. As hyper-indexicality and faux-biomimicry have fallen to the wayside, parametric design’s purpose has shifted from formal conceptualization to problem solving. Though its use is more nuanced than ever, the result is a relegation of parametrics from messianic-paradigm-shift to somewhat-useful-tool.

Technology has always had a hand in driving architectural ideology, yet the current situation is perhaps unique considering how successfully this toolset has so bootstrapped its own archi-cultural import. After-all, what is parametrics but the ability customize already existing parameters? Nurbs, Poly-Modelling, Rendering – 3D software is inherently parametric. Thus has a difference in degree, been confused with a difference in kind. Only in architecture are parametrics actually identified as “parametrics”, an assignation which is perhaps more the result of previous software limitations, in combination with a desire to escape post-modern and post-critical aftertastes, than anything else. This isn’t to say this new “meta-software” isn’t useful, just that it isn’t an actual ideological foundation. Indexical, formally expressive parametrics were acceptable due to post-critical tempers and weren’t once this brand of low-brow positivism fell out of favor. The capabilities of this new software will likely be placed to different uses as ideological trends come and go. As such, though not what it was confounded to become, the parametric is here to stay in one form or another, and it behooves one to make full use of this toolset.

The following research uses Grasshopper to explore morphology in the context of game design. Grasshopper is an ideal tool to explore architectural multiplicity and it is here being used to prototype architectural morphology before the real models are made in XML. The end goal is a library of XML primitives with the ability to generate entire cities. Algorythmic urban generation is not a new idea, in fact there are many options currently on the market, such as cityGen, which generated the cityscapes of pixar productions. As a nascent field though, there are still opportunities to different types of rules and classes, that, in turn, generate different kinds of urban form. Below are two examples of morphological primitives: a temple and city street, which, initially modeled entirely in grasshopper, were then modeled in XML. (A very laborious process to say the least.) The most challenging and interesting part of this research came about in puzzling how these objects come to form a hierarchy. Should class rules should apply be applied as inter or intra relationships or both. Should the the parameters of a house ripple upwards to affect the street, or should the streets parameters trickle down to bound the house, or both. What would this interface look like? How would successive generations take place and affect each other? All in all, this summer research raised more philosophical, practical, and technical questions than would ever be possible to answer in the short time allotted.