CODE1110: Achim Menges - Introduction

Computational Design Thinking – Summary

Sean Alquist and Achim Menges discuss several main points throughout their introduction:

Computation: Alquist and Menges address the difference between computation and computerization and how understanding this difference is key when learning about computation as a whole. They say it ‘can be broken down as methods which either deduce results from values or sets of values, or simply compile or associate given values or sets of values’.

Systems Thinking: They highlight the point of determining things as ‘piecelike’ or ‘patternlike’, where you view something as a ‘structure of components’. They describe every object as a hierarchy of components with specific patterns of distribution.

Parametric Dependencies: Alquist and Menges explain the development of structures regardless of its form and/or formation. Goethe brought this formalism that ‘marks a turning away from the simple structure of end-products and toward the active’.

Emergent Formations: This refers to a process that makes a feature’s appearance more defined due to the background boundary. Crutchfield says ‘an emergent feature also cannot be explicitly represented in the initial and boundary conditions. In short, a feature emerges when the underlying system puts some effort into its creation’.

Designing Computation: Alquist and Menges discuss the validation of computational design as a whole. They talk about how it needs purpose with the intent of solving crucial complexities that will dramatically affect the way we execute certain processes.