Generating a Visual Language of Performance-Driven Configurations for the Principal Façade of a Prototype Sustainable House

Abstract

A performance-driven application of shape grammars is presented. A parametric shape grammar that generates a language of pattern designs for the principal façade of a prototype house—featuring a 5 × 20 matrix of electrochromic windows—based equally on performance and aesthetic criteria is described. The adjustment of the chromatism and light transmittance of each individual windowpane on the façade enables the adjustment of solar radiation at the house interior. The novel aspect of the grammar is that it encodes performance constraints of interior daylight illuminance and associates them to visual, symmetry principles of two-dimensional pattern generation. Twelve parametric rules account for the generation of the façade pattern language and five subclasses account for the symmetry of the patterns in the language.