[Seminar] Parametric Architecture

The Parametric Architecture Seminar explored the use of parametric methodologies within architectural and engineering design processes. The main theme of the seminar was to showcase how advanced computational tools and techniques are enabling new approaches to design exploration and development, in both research and practice. The seminar was organized by NUS in collaboration with Minus and Plus Collaboratives. The seminar aimed to give participants a diverse series of snapshots of how these methodologies were applied at various scales, at different stages of the design process. It consisted of a series of short 20-minute lectures by a range of experts in academia and practice. Speakers included architects, engineers and computational designers, namely Sam Cho from Meta, Kermin Chok from Meinhardt, Ping Lei from CPG, Colin Yip and Sudhir Bommu from Arup, Stylianos Dristas from SUTD, Vignesh Kaushik and Patrick Janssen from NUS. Flyer for Parametric Architecture Seminar held at NUS Singapore, on 13th March 2013.

I had presented my M.Arch Thesis project on constructing embryological procedures for a spatially complex urban farm network in Singapore. The proposed urban farm had state-of-the-art farming chambers for growing vegetables/fruits, fish and chicken vertically and simultaneously within the same building. The urban farmers' housing were also to be integrated within the complex. Since each of these spatial functions had varying daylight and insolation requirements for its optimum functioning, an embryogenic type of computational procedure was adopted. By employing an adaptive-iterative process, the computational procedure was made progressively more complex and less abstract over four versions. This was later published as a paper in CAADRIA 2013 conference proceedings.