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A Ab bs st tr ra ac ct t. . The perceivable regularity of some Roman villas can be understood in the context of a grid-based design. In this paper we try to clarify the requirements under which we may consider that a villa has an outline based on a grid and we quantify the accuracy of the correspondence between a villa's plan and a given grid. We follow this approach with some Roman villas in Portugal and use the grids as tools for the analysis and the reconstruction of their plans.

This paper presents a teaching experiment in which 3D digital computational models are explored as the representational base to integrate formal, structural, and environmental performance criteria in design. By describing the academic experience, the paper reflects on its methodologies and results, as well as on the relation between human and computer factors in the design process. This assessment is important to make the students aware of the increasingly intelligent design systems offered by digital technologies to support architectural design, as well as of their relationship with precedent digital and analog representational mediums.

Abstract. Leonardo invented a new technique of representation which combines the building plan and a bird's-eye perspective of the whole into a single system. Bird's eye perspective may have developed out of cavalier perspective, and instances pre-dating Leonardo can be found, but not used in the same way as he employed it. Though not pre-axonometric, Leonardo took advantage of axonometric representation's capacity to construct/deconstruct an object into its component parts in order to clarify fitting and functioning. This paper investigates the originality of the technique and special relationship with his research on centrally-planned churches, while examining it in the context of contemporary developments and architects.It is hard to deny that Leonardo, among many other inventions, should also be credited as the inventor of a new technique of representation, especially adapted to his research on centrally-planned churches, which combines, as a system, the building plan and a bird's-eye perspective of the whole, as in MS 2307, fol. 5v. (fig. 1). Fig. 1. Leonardo da Vinci, plan and bird's-eye view of a centrally-planned church (MS 2307, fol. 5v)

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