Abstract
In this chapter we consider computer tools for architectural design based on shape grammar design systems, and evaluate the advantages and disadvantage of handing over these tools to inhabitants for the design of their apartments. This evaluation is qualitative by considering the values of inhabitants, architects, and cities that are affected by this hand-over. Shape grammar design systems when applied to architecture enable computer tools to generate new designs and adjustments of existing designs of apartments on the basis of design rules. First, focussing on individual housing, it is argued in this chapter that the use of shape grammar design systems by inhabitants for designing their apartment realises the values of customisation and inhabitant autonomy without compromising design quality and structural safety. Second, focussing on cities, it is argued that a wide-spread use of these grammar design systems creates for cities a bottom-up inhabitant-led renewal of neighbourhoods and urban structures that maintains the social fabric in neighbourhoods and the architectural identity of cities. Values that are less realised by the hand-over are financial feasibility and ecological sustainability. Third, shifting to philosophy of technology, we present shape grammar design systems as a technology for design for values in architecture that allows for flexibility in the values designed for over the longer time periods characteristic to architecture. These systems are a technology that enables the incorporation of values of inhabitants, architects, and cities by the designs of apartments, and they are a technology that enables inhabitants to adjust their apartments through time to their developing needs and wishes.
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A computer implementation of the RdB transformation grammar can be found in (Strobbe et al., 2016).
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In this chapter we mean with inhabitants of an apartment the persons who use the apartment for living. In the case of an apartment that is designed to be constructed, these persons are more precisely characterised as the future inhabitants. Inhabitants of apartments may also be the owners of their apartments but owners of apartments – landlords, housing corporations, investors, cities – need not be their inhabitants. In this chapter inhabitants are our main focus, yet when it is relevant to our arguments, we introduce also owners.
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Autonomy is in this paper understood in the basic meaning of what in philosophy literature is called personal autonomy, i.e., the power of a person to act competently on the basis of his or her own needs and wishes. Making this meaning more precise, using the elaborate body of work in philosophy on this concept, is useful but lies outside the scope of this chapter. Yet we can note that in case of inhabitant autonomy the ‘person’ involved is regularly a social unit as a family, introducing questions about autonomy of groups. Furthermore, one can analyse the ability of inhabitants to determine their ‘own’ wishes and demands; for determining more functional needs such as shelter, heating and the number of sleeping places, this capacity may be taken as less problematic; whereas it may be criticised for more lifestyle related wishes as say the number of required bathrooms. The issue of the competence of inhabitants brings us to a second remark. We opt for considering the value of architect authority instead of architect autonomy because the hand-over of design tools to inhabitants affects primarily the way in which skills and knowledge of architects are employed; focusing of the autonomy of architects would frame the hand-over in a limiting way as a power struggle between inhabitants and architects.
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A fourth option that can be discerned emerges when the inhabitant of an apartment is not the owner of the apartment. In that case the actual owner can decide about the refurbishment of the apartment, and that can be done two ways: either in collaboration with the inhabitant or independently of the inhabitant. In the first case the three options described in the main text again cover the main ways in which the refurbishment is done by the collaborating owner and inhabitant. The only change in the argument is that one should read “owner plus inhabitant” whenever it refers to the inhabitant. In the second case the owner fixes the refurbishment design for the inhabitant, which infringes on the value of inhabitant autonomy and which probably does not realise the value of customisation.
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The emergence of Digital Fabrication and the Do It Yourself (DIY) vision presents the possibilities of fabricating individual customised product through decentralising production and of addressing local problems with local solutions (Gershenfeld, 2005). Supporters of the Digital Fabrication approach challenge the assumption that prices decrease only with an increase in the scale of production; they argue that prices become lower too by changes in production lines with generative-design-systems and ready to fabricate equipment.
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When the inhabitant of an apartment is not the owner of the apartment, a number of variations of the given options can be discerned. In that case the owner can decide to renovate or refurbish an apartment building. When an owner renovates an apartment building, one has option 2. When an owner refurbishing the building in a centralised way with the help of an architect, one has option 1. When the owner refurbishes the building in a decentralised way listening to the wishes of the inhabitants, one has options 3 and 4 depending on whether an architect is involved. A new option may be defined when an owner fixes the refurbishment designs for the inhabitants without the expert help of an architect. We take this case as in instance of option 1 in which the values of design quality and safety is less well realised because no architect is involved.
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Vermaas, P.E., Eloy, S. (2021). Shape Grammar Systems as a Technology for Flexible Design for Values in Cities: Giving Architectural Design to Inhabitants. In: Nagenborg, M., Stone, T., González Woge, M., Vermaas, P.E. (eds) Technology and the City. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52313-8_12
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