Parametric Modelling Workshop

Parametric modelling and digital fabrication technologies offer new ways of developing designs, and represent a working method based more on procedure than geometric form. This workshop series uses Bentley's Generative Components software to teach parametric modelling, with a focus on digital fabrication of the projects.

The workshops have been taught by a group of invited practitioners, each with their own specific area of expertise, including Robert Aish, previously Director of Research at Bentley Systems and the developer of the software. The workshop is led by the MSc AAC, and also attended by students from diploma programmes at the Bartlett, the Architectural Association, Westminster, Oxford Brookes as well as other schools.

Parametric modelling differs from standard CAD modelling principally in the way elements are related to one another. While a standard CAD model consists of geometric elements placed in a uniform, Cartesian space, a parametric model sets up a structure of relationships, or schema, that allows dimensions, and even quantities of elements to be deferred to a later point.

With the addition of scripting and basic programming even non-geometric relationships can be incorporated, including structural and environmental considerations and abstract logic. This parametric approach entails a very different approach to design, more aligned to the idea of the architect as chief builder than the designer as the drawer of form.

The workshop aims to ground the generative procedure in the reality of the design project by focusing on one of two aspects: either on how it is to be built or how it performs.

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