Parametric Form Finding in Contemporary Architecture
The simplicity within the complexity of modern architectural form.
As the napkin sketch turns into a building, considerations pile up, and sometimes they wear the original idea down. We design buildings a certain way because that is how they "should" look; perception links form to function out of habit.
The book argues that design freedom starts with questioning those limits. It builds complex form from simple two-dimensional shapes, showing how complexity can grow out of the simplicity of a single shape.
- Author
- Vassilis Kourkoutas
- Published
- 20 June 2012
- Publisher
- LAP Lambert Academic Publishing
- Format
- Paperback, 92 pages
- ISBN
- 978-3-659-12527-0
One shape, many forms
The book's method in miniature. A single flat shape is repeated, rotated and scaled level by level until a building-like form appears. Change the rules and drag to look around it.
The author
Vassilis Kourkoutas is the son of the office's founders, its owner today and the mind behind its work.
He studied architecture in Patras and completed an MSc in Building Science and Technology at TU Vienna. Coming from an architectural family, he looked as a student for a balance between form and function by denying the rules that lead to repetition.
Back in Athens he brought those ideas into the practice his parents started in 1977: parametric models, 3D building modelling, energy-led design and building automation, all in service of buildings that get built.
After all, form follows function… or is it function follows form?
