A computational tool for the study of proportional balance is introduced as an apparatus for investigating Andrea Palladio's design of Villa Almerico, more familiarly known as Villa Rotonda, in the second book of his Quattro Libri dell'Architettura. The objective of this investigation of Villa Rotonda is to find a novel outcome from the morphological transformations of the villa, where the transformations are generated from parametric variations of the villa while maximizing its proportional balance. The outcome confirms Palladio's mastery of proportional treatments of his design of Villa Rotonda and shows various morphological descendants evolved from the original design. It suggests a new way of employing a parametric geometry in the formal study of a classical building and its stylistic evolution.

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In this paper, a traditional Korean residence, Yeongyeongdang in Seoul, is selected to demonstrate the achievement of environmental sustainability in the formal composition of traditional Korean architecture. Using the computational analysis features of Ecotect, as performed on geometric models of the Yeongyeongdang complex, the paper highlights the method of articulating environmental factors in the design of its spatial systems, which were heavily influenced by social hierarchy during the Joseon dynasty .

The formal approach outlined in this paper uses symbolic memes as a framework for the hierarchical deconstruction of a cultural artefact, the traditional Korean pattern known as bosangwhamun, to describe the evolutionary development of such a pattern using shape grammar rules. The formal descriptions of this pattern are thus the basis for generating its variations, and the process is used to evaluate the validity of the rules and their appropriateness for the study of bosangwhamun.

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