ARC 4301A
Issues in architectural theory and design
Fall 2004–05

3, Defining style formally: shape grammar

Sentence grammar (Chomsky 1964)

1. Sentence → NP + VP
2. NP → T + N
3. VP → Verb + NP
4. T → The
5. N → man, ball, etc.
6. Verb → hit, took, etc.

Shape grammar 1: Malaguiera (Duarte 1999)

Basic concepts in shape grammar (Stiny 1980)

A shape consists of points, lines, planes, volumes (in 3-space), and labels.

A description consists of symbols, like letters and numbers.

A design consists of shapes and descriptions. Recall the definition given earlier.

A shape rule consists of a left shape, a right-pointing arrow, and a right shape.

A description rule consists of a left description, a left-pointing arrow, and a right description.

A design rule consists of shape rules and description rules.

A grammar consists of an initial design and one or more design rules.

Using a shape grammar

See Li (2003, 3–5)

Shape grammar 2: square + diamond (set) grammar (Li 2003)

1 initial design and 5 design rules.

Discussion of assignment 1

If you lost 1 point for poor writing, you can make it up by submitting a corrected version.

Some students didn’t address the fundamental issue: how do we understand “basic layout” or “general shape” or “very similar” spaces? Recall Stiny and Mitchell’s (1978, 17, original emphasis) definition:

When several buildings each create a similar impression, they are said to exemplify a particular architectural style. Given a finite corpus of buildings that are perceived to be alike in some sense, the problem of style consists of characterizing the basis for this likeness.

The result was usually assumptions according to which almost every possible section was legal.

Shape grammar 3: section grammar

List of references

Chomsky, Noam. 1964. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.

Duarte, José Pinto. 2004. Malaguiera: Alvara Siza Vieira – 1977/99. 1999 [cited 2004]. Available from http://www.civil.ist.utl.pt/~jduarte/malag/.

Li, Andrew I-kang. 2003. The Yingzao fashi in the information age. Paper read at The Beaux-Arts, Paul-Philippe Cret, and 20th-century architecture in China, at University of Pennsylvania.

Stiny, George. 1980. Introduction to shape and shape grammars. Environment and planning B: planning & design 7: 343–351.

Stiny, George, and William J. Mitchell. 1978. The Palladian grammar. Environment and planning B: planning & design 5: 5–18.