The Grid Sketcher: An AutoCAD Based Tool for Conceptual Design Processes (1998)

abstract⁄Sketching with pencil and paper is reminiscent of the varied, rich, and loosely defined formal processes associated withconceptual design. Architects actively engage such creative paradigms in their exploration and development of conceptual designsolutions. The Grid Sketcher, as a conceptual sketching tool,presents one possible computer implementation for enhancingand supporting these processes. It effectively demonstrates thefacility with which current technology and the computing environment can enhance and simulate sketching intents and expectations.One pervasive and troubling undercurrent, however, is theconceptual barrier between the variable processes of humanthought and those indigenous to computing. Typically with respect to design, the position taken is that the two are virtually voidof any fundamental commonality. A designer’s thoughts are intuitive, at times irrational, and rarely follow consistently identifiablepatterns. Conversely, computing requires predictability in just theseendeavors. Computing is strictly an algorithmic process whilethought is not always so predictable. Given these dichotomousrelationships, the computing environment, as commonly defined,cannot reasonably expect to mimic the typically human domainof creative design. In this context, this thesis accentuates thecomputer’s role as a form generator as opposed to a form evaluator. The computer, under the influence of certain contextual parameters can, however, provide the designer with a rich andelegant set of forms that respond through algorithmics to thedesigner’s creative intents.The software presented in this thesis is written in AutoLISPand exploits AutoCAD’s capacious 3D environment. Designsand productions respond to a bounded framework where userselected parametric variables of size, scale, proportion, and proximity, all which reflect contextual issues, determine the characteristics of a unit form. Designer selected growth algorithms thenarbitrate the spatial relationships between the unit forms and theirpropagation through the developing design.While the Sketcher implements only the GRID as an organizational discipline, many other paradigms are possible. Withinthis grid structure a robust set of editing features, supported by thecomputer’s inherent speed, allows the designer to analyze successive productions while refining ever more complex solutions.Through creative manipulation of these algorithmic structures ideaseventually coalesce to formalize images that represent a givendesign problem’s solution set.