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Abstract — In the era of transformative urbanism that needs a new totalizing concept in generating good values in the life practices of its inhabitants, alternative design approaches are needed to respond to these phenomena. This is due to the fact that these phenomena and conditions will be transformed into possibilities that would affect Bandung’s built environment and its values of good life practices in the future. A more flexible and reflexive approach in designing the city (macro) and its architecture (micro) are new demands that must be responded by those involved in the practice of the built environment. Generative algorithms tools made possible by parametric technology are seen as one of the many possibility that would help to generate alternative design approaches in responding to this issue. The complex variables of cultural and daily life practices of the inhabitants of a specific place were used as inputs for the metric parameters used in the generative algorithms tool. This paper is to delineate new design approaches and techniques that are hoped may contribute positively in responding the complex transformative conditions of Bandung. By conducting research and analysis on the phenomena of urban transformation, the objective of this paper is to provide a visionary thinking through best practices approaches and methods on how to intervene the city. Furthermore, the flexibility and capability of the generative algorithms tool is deemed viable for further design explorations and also acts as a liberator against homogeneity for future architectural and urban design works. Keywords : generative algorithms, urban transformation, parametric design, Bandung, cultural studies

I. INTRODUCTION The phenomena of urban transformation that

Bandung is experiencing are something that needs comprehensive analysis and understanding. This is due to the fact that these phenomena and conditions

Hafiz Amirrol, 25209022, h.amirrol@gmail Chichi Asda Artha, 25209035, chichi_asda@yahoo.co.id

will be transformed into possibilities that would affect Bandung’s built environment and its whole future development. The topic is crucial in developing a total understanding of the city with all of its conditions, since these conditions of the city will also condition the whole living environment, and also represent human’s achievement per excellence (Rossi, 1984). What Bandung is experiencing today is a representation and manifestation of the collective will of the people that inhabit it, and currently, the image is not a good one. This paper is hoped to produce better analysis and understanding in helping to recognize conditions and transformations of the city into better practices.

The advancement of computational tools in the process of designing architecture and urbanism has been crucial in the development of the built environment. For the past fifteen years, parametric and generative methods of design, often incorporating explicit computer programming, represent a working method based more on procedures than geometric forms have led the practice of architectural and urban design into a more critical ways of approaching design issues and problems (Hanna and Turner, 2006). Parametric design in the context of the urban condition allows a more holistic and scientific approach towards the understanding of the urban fabric, morphologies, typologies, and the formation of many other urban components based on multiple variables of the context.

II. BANDUNG IN TRANSFORMATION The current conception of the city has been

dominated by the deterministic approach of city planning and its growth, which include rationalist, planned and functionally driven approaches. These ideas of scientific planning have ignored other elements that are similarly important; humanistic values, happiness, fun, spirituality and so on. It is through this collaborative method of the paper, qualitative and experiential natures of the city are to be addressed in seeking approaches in making a city more pleasurable. Subjective notions of habitation and occupying the city can be best addressed through

Generative Algorithms as a Design Tool in the Transformative Urbanism of Bandung

Hafiz Amirrol & Chichi Asda Artha

AR6141 Arsitektur Budaya dan Pembangunan Program Studi Arsitektur, Institut Teknologi Bandung

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speculative research in order to understand the city from a more holistic, user-oriented perspective.

This paper will try to move away from the modernist and rationalist legislative planning and design methods in suggesting particular transformation and augmentation phenomena of the urban landscapes. It is within this concept that the arguments will suggest that the issue of the late-capitalist city is not simply to do with the material, the functional and the acqusitional aspects of the city, but contemporary urbanisms should also be concerned with the experiential and qualitative aspects of the city users, which include their daily life and cultural practices as design data and guidelines (Lim, 2001).

By studying organizations and observing the relations and behavior of patterns emerging from users’ interactions, systematic approaches will be introduced in developing spatial and strategic designs that respond to, activate and enrich the complexity of these conditions. Through these conditions that are to be encoded through the use of generative algorithms and speculative computational tools through changes in design practices, it is hoped that the research will be able to propose valid new logics that underlies value systems that are not prescriptive and reductive, but is driven with the performance of the city.

The practice of urbanism in the city of Bandung, which was the product of the 19th and 20th century urbanism were facilitated by forms of technological development, driven by industrial production and were designed heavily based on the zoning and land use distribution of the city use. With the declining quality and condition of Bandung’s city area, it is important to re-address the whole idea of needs in sustaining the transformation process of the city (Suganda, 2002). While not ignoring the programmatic aspects of the city, what the methods of this paper try to articulate is the effect of such transformations on inhabitation that project needs in creating a responsive urban discourse in creating a new conception of new forms of symbolic values, new ‘interface’ replacing the machinic capitalist city, and the requirements of a much greater levels of self-sufficiency and autonomy.

These ideas are seen as an alternative method in suggesting the urban condition in addressing and promote values and forms of social organization that are liberating and celebratory. By shifting the perspective in the research and design approaches, the paper will focus on social-cultural practices rather than the conception of the formalist and functionalist urbanism. This will allow ‘other’ approach in formulating complex design process of the urban through parametricism (Schumacher, 2009). Similar to the conventional design process, the parametric design logic is based on two variables; (1) inputs of data and site conditions, and (2) processing variables

as frameworks and logical procedures that will be used in forming the design.

III. GENERATIVE ALGORITHM AS DESIGN TOOL

The development of the computer as a design tool has revolutionized the design practices of the built environment, including architecture and urban design. Currently, the role of the Computer Aided Design (CAD) is an integral part in the process of design initiation and development. Evolutionary algorithms today are able to combine software programming scripting with architectural design logics to produce software with a very broad parametric capability in assisting the process of designing. This advancement of digital tools allow the designer/ architect to act as the ‘master processor’ based on his own aesthetical and design logic, while the computer functions as the intelligent assistant in helping to solve complex design problems at many stages, parametrically (Chevrier and Perrin, 2009).

Built within the Rhinoceros framework, the digital tool used in this study is Grasshopper, an associative modeling software that enables the construction of a parametric model at a range of different interfaces, from purely graphic through to an entirely code based designs, thus allowing the manipulation of such non-geometric, algorithmic relationships as described above (Khabazi, 2010). Algorithm is the formulation of measures to solve problems that are commonly used in various disciplines, including architecture and design, thus act as a processual problem-solving tool that can form the arrangement of spatial relationships and syntax, circulation, ventilation, lighting, shading and so on (Figure 1). The composition of these variables is the algorithmic rules or constraints that are to be used in devising the logic of design articulation and directions.

Figure 1: The Grasshopper associative modeling algorithm

(source: Asda, 2010).

Parametric design exploration is also a real

time based tool that allows designers to obtain a variety of alternative designs by just altering the variables and processor inputs (Figure 2). This flexibility in generating design studies helped as a very effective design tool for urban studies and

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analysis, especially when the design involved complex condition such as in the context of Bandung. In the process of urban design, many elements are interconnected, and are mutually attractive and exclusive. In this case, the parameter of the cultural and daily practices can be simulated by defining these elements with the use of architectural design standards in forming points (vertex) and lines (vectors). However, the main challenge here is how to define parameters that are not measurable such as social and cultural practices? The solution to this problem is to establish an equation in the form of standard architectural design frameworks so that these values can be used as input variables for the parametric system.

Figure 2: Parametric design alternatives produced in real-time by

altering design variables (source: Schumacher, 2009).

IV. METHODOLOGY Since the interest of this paper is to analyze

the unstable and transforming cultural practices and social values of Bandung, strategic research methods are selected in forming the structure of the studies. Multi variables conditions (spatial, programmatic, social, culture, politics, economic, as well as the historical particularities of the city) are the focuses of the study, and will be used to devised ways of developing an appropriate architectural language, design methods and methods for drawing and representing consequent strategic and spatial interventions incorporating all pertinent and direct elements, before producing the design simulation proposal to support the arguments (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Design process cycle (source: Amirrol, 2010)

The design method will be operated within designed strategic operations. The first approach is to choose or identify and existing urban condition within the central or peripheral areas of Bandung that can be anything from a current development strategy to any form of current events that directly influence the city. 1. Devise methods for immersing in the chosen

urban condition. 2. Devise ways of understanding the structure of

the urban condition. 3. Identify variables that make up and influence

the urban condition. 4. Investigate the relationship between the urban

condition and the city’s fabric. 5. Choose a moment within the urban condition

and formulate an understanding of the relationship between physical and social-cultural structures.

6. Develop strategies for creating interactive relationships between physical and social-cultural structures.

7. Devise appropriate methods of representation and communication.

8. Define the perimeter and analyze the structure of this urban territory.

9. Investigate the variables that make up this urban territory.

10. Investigate different ways of transforming it into a potential territory of action for an urban hub.

11. Devise appropriate methods of representation and communication.

12. Prepare preliminary proposals for a direct hub at the architectural scale and an urban hub at the urban scale. At the urban scale, the research will focus on

a territory that relates to the chosen urban condition, defining its perimeter, analyze its structure and transform it into a potential urban hub by designing spatial and strategic interventions. 1. Explore the potential of the designed direct

hub as an urban component and explore its relationship to rule-based urban systems.

2. Reassess the territory of action as a potential urban hub.

3. Identify and make use of relevant agents and initiatives.

4. Define and design the direct role of the urban hub by producing design simulations and other strategic representations of the idea.

5. Define the relationship between the proposal for the urban hub and the city's infrastructure, fabric and rule-based systems.

6. Speculate on the interrelationship between the three hubs: the situation, the direct hub and the urban hub.

7. Finalize the strategy for the urban hub, model

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and represent its spatial configuration. 8. Finalize the rule-based systems required to

procure and support the urban hub and devise appropriate methods of representation and communication.

9. Compile the whole process as design proposal.

V. USER METRIC FRAMEWORK In attempting to achieve a more holistic

approach to understand the process of the practice and transformation of urbanism in Bandung, a specific, user-oriented analysis framework is to be established. This user metric framework encapsulates the process of parametric surveys.

The process of quantifying the qualities of urban spaces and its architecture, and acknowledging social and cultural needs is often a complicated and intangible process (Clarke, 2008). The thesis is proposing new techniques to measure the parameter of the city, since current techniques (i.e. land use zoning and distributions, plot ratio regulations, measuring density by the numbers, etc.) in the practice of urbanism does not adequately reflects current social-cultural and demographic transformations of the city. They also remain a one-dimensional and restrictive means of ‘measuring’ the city. Therefore, alternative measures that are more user-oriented and reflexive are needed. The proposed alternative measures are: V.1 Cultural Complexity Measuring the complex cultural composition of the areas studied based on: 1. Numbers of language or dialects used per

square meters. 2. Numbers of cultural practices differences per

square meters.

V.2 Technological Density Assessing usage of technology by dwellers based on: 1. Numbers of wireless hotspots per square

meters. 2. Numbers of Facebook/ Twitter/ BlackBerry/

iPhone users per square meters. 3. Parameters of areas covered with Wi-Fi and

3G networks. V. 3 Metropolitan Index Quantifying the index of globalization’s impact on the city and its lifestyle practices: 1. Numbers of Starbucks/ McDonalds/

Indomaret/ Circle K/ Alpha Mart in the area of study.

2. Numbers of ideas per square meters by mapping the distribution of creative industry practices, design consultants, distros, creative applications used, etc.

V.4 Demographic Growth Patterns Measuring demographic data to gain insights on varying socio-economic conditions by measuring: 1. Fertility rates or number of births per square

meters. 2. Health impacts and mapping of diseases on

dwellers per square meters.

VI. CONCLUSION Culture is a basic element for any design

process, in which culture affects human behavior within the community. However, not every cultural and social value can be used as measured variables, thus demanding the architect/ designer to still have their own sensitivity in articulating cultural values into the design parameters. Much generative design today is produced simply as an exploration of the method and are geometrical based. Not many designers utilize digital tools by including cultural values as their design variables. Generative algorithms associated with cultural variables are relatively new and requires new techniques of thinking and modeling. More liberated approaches in articulating variables into design strategies are needed. It is hoped that by conducting these alternative methods in quantifying data on the areas to be studied, emerging issues of change, needs and use may anticipate how design practices can make more purposeful intervention, while creating opportunities for alternative approaches and innovations.

REFERENCES Chevrier, C & Perrin, J.P. (2008) Generation of Architectural Parametric Components – Cultural Heritage 3D Modelling. Montreal: CAAD Futures 2009. Clarke, P. (2008) Metricity: Exploring New Measures of Urban Density. London: Royal College of Art. Hanna, S. & Turner, A. (2006) Teaching Parametric Design in Code and Construction. London: Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL. Khabazi, Z. (2010). Generative Algorithms using Grasshopper. Retrieved Agustus 1, 2010, from www.morphogenisism.com. Lim, W. (2001) Alternatives in Transition – The Postmodern, Glocality and Social Justice. Singapore: Select Publishing. Rossi, A. (1984) Architecture of the City. Cambridge: MIT Press. Schumacher, P. (2009). Parametricism - A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design. Retrieved October 2010, from www.patrikschumacher.com Suganda, H. (2002) Jendela Bandung – Pengalaman Bersama KOMPAS. Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas.