Shape grammar for Mies van der Rohe's high-rise apartment

Abstract

This thesis explores an application of a rule-based method to a practical architecture design. It uses shape grammar, a paradigm of generating designs in a specific style by using shape tokens (architectural elements) and rules of transforming between them. If a shape grammar can be made for mass production design that needs many repetitious units with slight differences, it would be very productive and valuable in the context of professional architectural practice. As an example, this thesis proposes a shape grammar for generating apartment plans in the style of Mies van der Rohe's high-rise projects that he made in the first half of twentieth century. Through this grammar, alternative apartment plans with different volumetric schemes can be developed rapidly for the given site, and allow an architect to quickly evaluate different possibilities of a building's mass and layout. Such a grammar also can be a good pedagogical tool, and an architectural student can use it to study and understand Mies van der Rohe's apartment designs. The thesis evaluates the advantages and the disadvantages of this shape grammar in the context of professional practice, and discusses the possibilities of similar grammars that could be developed for other architectural styles.