I want to start a new section where I discuss what I learned in the last week.
AI floorplan generator
I came across this medium article on the latest work from Stanislas Chaillou. He is basically teaching computers to create floorplans like a human would do, from room divide, down to room connectivity, orientation and even furnishing. He made a great job, I think, in creating responsive designs, which adapt to changing site conditions (see picture below).
Maybe even most important factor is the analytics. You can set the parameters upfront (room number, room size, etc.) and run them on many iterations, finding the best one. In my practice I have seldom seen iterations of floorplans with the same entry conditions. Usually it is up to architect’s intuition to create an optimal floorplan.
What to make of it? I like the idea of creating iterations with the same starting conditions. Sometimes computers create solutions architects would have never thought of. It is easier (and faster) to search through possible options than to create them yourself. But these plans lose the artistic note, of course. Something more, the right proportions, the story, which only a human can create.
Here is the original article with some cool graphics.
Antifragile urban planning
I am a fan of Nassim Taleb and his thinking. He is an intellectual bully, but he also has a point. I want to discuss his views on architecture in a separate post. Antifragile systems are systems, which get stronger, when they are exposed to stress. Human body, for example. The more you train (tear down your muscles), stronger you get. In this article Ivan Blecic and Arnaldo Cecchini discuss how these principles could be applied to urban planning. They see antifragility in the capacity of cities to reinvent themselves (Split, Istanbul, Rome, Berlin), which recovered and got better after every disaster.
I also found this beautiful drawing tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHNNPMyILMM
and enjoyed the new AC75 boats. They look incredible and I hope I could be sailing one of them in the future. When the counterweight is so offset of the boat, sailing it must feel much more stable. Plus the speed, the speed must be incredible!
Quote of the week:
Miha Hillenkamp 