Making grammars: From computing with shapes to computing with things

Abstract

Recent interest in making and materiality spans from the humanities and social sciences to engineering, science, and design. Here, we consider making through the lens of a unique computational theory of design: shape grammars. We propose a computational theory of making based on the improvisational, perception and action approach of shape grammars and the shape algebras that support them. We modify algebras for the materials (basic elements) of shapes to define algebras for the materials of objects, or things. Then we adapt shape grammars for computing shapes to making grammars for computing things. We give examples of making grammars and their algebras. We conclude by reframing designing and making in light of our computational theory of making.Keywords: computational model(s); design theory; perception; reflective practice; shape grammarThe recent wave of interest in making, materiality, and material culture -the so-called "material turn" and "new materialism" (Coole & Frost, 2010;Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012) -in the social sciences and humanities has been paralleled by growing attention and research on new materials, making, and manufacturing processes in engineering, science, and design. While humanists and social scientists inquire into the subjective, embodied, situated relationships between people and material things, their engineer, scientist, and designer colleagues tend to focus on technological innovations and applications of advanced materials and fabrication devices.We pursue a different tack in the terrain of making and material things. We consider making from a computational point of view. Our computational view intersects with some concerns above, but offers a distinct alternative to how we can think about and engage in making. Our view is rooted in computationbut computation beyond the narrow, digital kind of computation to a more general and perceptual kind in which people carry out operations with things that may only have digital approximations. In a similar vein, we consider making to be processes carried out by people to form material things. From this perspective, the kinds of making are extensive and diverse -ranging from drawing a picture on paper, to producing an image on a computer screen, to weaving a basket, to 3D printing a model, to machining engine parts, to constructing a building. 2In developing our computational approach to making, we also consider the relationship between making and designing, the latter often understood as an intellectual or cognitive activity resulting in a plan for action or making. Our approach collapses many of the dualisms associated with designing and making that originate with Aristotle's concept of hylomorphism. Hylomorphism regards creation as the imposition of an idea of form (morphe) upon passive material or matter (hyle). A reincarnation of hylomorphism, perhaps better known to architects, is Alberti's distinction between designing -as a "pre-ordering of the lines and angles conceived in the mind" (Alberti, 1986: p 2) -and building. Th...

Defining Rules for Kinematic Shapes with Variable Spatial Relations

“…Making grammars [3] apply the computational framework of shape grammars to physical objects, and model processes of making that take place in the arts, crafts, and manufacturing. To support this, shape algebras are extended to include spatial stuff, which is the composite matter of physical things, and making grammars incorporate actions applied to stuff as consequences of sensing its properties, e.g.…”

“…This is because the shapes used in shape grammars are visually dynamic, supporting reinterpretation and recognition of emergent forms. In recent years, shape grammars have been extended to making grammars [3], where the aim is to formalise physical manipulations of material and objects, and to represent processes of making that take place in arts, crafts, and manufacturing. Consideration of things made from stuff, introduces new constraints to ensure that shapes mimic the behaviour of physical objects in physical space, for example to take account of collisions [4].…”

Interactive Genetic Algorithm Oriented toward the Novel Design of Traditional Patterns

“…Therefore, the batik shape patterns design methods are important. In the study of pattern designs, shape grammar [3] and the fractal algorithm [4] are usually used to extract and reconstruct patterns. However, both use a combined transformation based on shape rules, and shape rules are finite in number.…”

Formal Descriptions of Material Manipulations

“…The user can decide what shapes to see and which rules to apply. This is what makes visual calculating both "perceptual and improvisational" [12].…”

“…They consider designing as a kind of making itself where the designer perceptually and bodily engages with materials. Suitably, shape grammar computations are a "highly sensory, action-oriented" kind of computational making where "shapes are the materials that one works with by hand and by eye" [12].…”