Shape Grammar for Mies van der Rohe's High-rise Apartment by Junsik Moon Bachelor of Engineering in Architecture Hong-Ik University, The Republic of Korea, 2000 Master of Engineering in Architecture Yonsei University, The Republic of Korea, 2003 Submitted to the Department of Architecture in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Architecture Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2007 @2007 Junsik Moon. All Rights Reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature of author: Junsik Moon Department of Architecture May 24, 2007 Certified by Takehiko Nagakura Associate Professor of Architecture Thesis Supervisor MASSACHUSETTS INSliTUTE A cce ted b Julian Bein Dt I o OF TECHNOLOGY J Chair of the De ent Committee on Graduate Students JUN 14 2007 jTCH LIBRARIES Shape Grammar for Mies van der Rohe's High-rise Apartment By JunSik Moon Submitted to the Department of Architecture on May 24, 2007 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Architecture Studies ABSTRACT This thesis explores an application of a rule-based method to a practical architecture de- sign. 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 twenti- eth 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. Thesis Supervisor: Takehiko Nagakura Title: Associate Professor of Design and Computation 2 150 Acknowledgements I am deeply thankful to my advisors Takehiko Nagakura, George Stiny, and William J. Mitchell for their friendship, support, and guidance. They taught me new ways of looking at design. My thesis owes to their works on shape grammars. I also thank Prof. Terry Knight for encouragement and generosity in sharing her vast knowl- edge for shape grammar. My thanks also go to my friends: Kirin-i for proof reading my thesis, Jiwoon Kim and Kyuri Kim for easily discussions. I dedicate this thesis to GOD, my parents and my younger brother. The readers of this thesis are: Georgy Stiny Professor of ArchitCcture William Mitchell Professor of Program in Media Arts and Sciences 3 150 Table of Contents A b stract..........................................................................................2 A cknow ledgem ents..............................................................................3 1. Introduction .................................................................................. 5 1.1 Preview: problem and solution.....................................................5 1.2 Organization of Thesis..........................................................7 1.3 Back Ground Knowledge 1.3.1 Shape Grammar.................................................9 1.3.2 Mies Van der Rohe Housing Projects.........................9 2. Shape Grammar of Mies Van Der Rohe's Apartment Plans.............................. 20 2.1 Analyses of Mies Van Der Rohe's Apartment Plans.......................20 2.2 Shape Grammar for Mies Van Der Rohe's Apartment Plans................22 2.3 Derivation of an Existing Design ............................................. 40 3. Evaluation and Conclusion...................................................................45 4. B ibliography ................................................................................ 49 5. Im age C redits................................................................................ 50 4 150 Shape Grammar For Mies van der Rohe's High-rise Apartment 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Preview: problem and solution Shape grammar is a method of generating designs by using primitive shapes and the rules of interaction between them. Shape Grammars usually have an IF-THEN structure and in- volve two steps: Recognition of a particular shape -- i.e. IF a certain shape is found -- and transformation or replacement of the shape -- i.e. THEN apply certain rule to it. As a simple example, one rule is that if there is a rectangle, subdivide it into two rectangles. This rule can also then be applied to each new rectangle. George Stiny and James Gips introduced Shape Grammars in the early 1970s as a way of describing and creating paintings and sculptures. Over time, shape grammars have been widely used to recreate the works of various artists like Piet Mondrian, Georges Vantonger- loo and Fritz Glarner. Surprisingly, these grammars were able to recreate many of the art- works with a great degree of accuracy. Shape grammars have been used in the architectural field to develop designs such as Palladian villas (Stiny and Mitchell 1978), and Prairie houses (Koning and Eizenburg 1981). However, the use of shape grammars is not limited to the architectural field. It has also been used for designs such as window lattice designs in the Iceray grammar (Stiny 1977), Froebel block arrangements in the Kindergarten gram- mar (Stiny 1980), and coffee makers in the Coffee maker grammar (Agarwal and Cagan 1998). Each grammar generates a design by using a particular technique of the shape gram- mar language. Shape grammars were even tried to be used for collaborating design and for design education. The inventors of shape grammars showed that existing designs can be analyzed and the logics behind them can be identified in terms of simple grammatical shape rules. These shape rules, once extracted, capture the visual style of the original design. Hence, shape grammars can be thought of as a way of encapsulating styles. The understandings of rela- tionships of shapes can explain and deconstruct design processes which might be difficult to explain otherwise. Moreover, the construction of rules has pedagogical a value in the sense that it can help understand the principles behind the design. Furthermore, since shape grammar is about defining spatial relationships, they can be applied to architecture. For instance, Durand, the eighteenth century architectural educator, demonstrates how shape grammar can be used to define spatial relationships to generate architectural floor plans. His grammar divides architectural elements into basic spaces such as porches, entrances, stairs, rooms and courtyards. There are rules for the placement of each space. Through the rules, he shows how different spaces can be combined together to generate floor plans. Even though studies applying shape grammars to various architecture fields began a few decades ago, its adaptation has not been practically successful. Two reasons could be given for this failure. 5 150 Shape Grammar for Mies van der Rohe's High-rise Apartment First, the process of shape grammar is not familiar to most architects, who follow tradi- tional design processes to generate design alternatives from concepts or from site analyses of context and environments and for whom shape grammar may seem too mathematical in nature. Second, even though the productivity and practical potential of shape grammar are very high, there have been few studies of how to apply it practically. The final goal of this work is making a shape grammar for generating the mass apartment plans that include designers' fundamental concepts and high-quality design. The purposes of the application are twofold. First, it provides high-quality plans in order to enable de- signers to save time and to provide more opportunities to apply various alternatives for the designs of diverse volumes and site plans. High quality design of apartment plans can be qualified by using Mies Van Der Rohe's apartment plans he participated in many numbers of apartment projects. Second, the analyses of most of his apartment plans are meaningful in letting people understand his design style and using for practical purpose. The current foci are on the development of the design process and the practical application of shape grammars. 6|50 Shape Grammar for Mies van der Rohe's High-rite Apartment 1.2 Organization of Thesis This thesis is organized into six chapters including this introductory chapter. Figure 1.1 shows the flow of organization of this thesis. (Collection of Mies High-Rise Apartment Resources Analyses of Collected Projects Plans '' I''"""" Column Modules Mullion Modules 8698, 1 U Nm.., UnitTypes CorridorTypes; CoreTypes Ue C~akingAShape Grmmar thrugthReusofheAay! Evaluation of the Shape Grammar U S U S S U S S U S S U S S U 0 S S S U S S U S S S S U S ~ations ~sons ~Analysis~ U U U U U U U U U Conclusiohn e Figure 1.1 Flow Diagram of Thesis 7 50