Today, computation serves as an important intermediary agent for the integration of analyses and the constraints of materialisation into design processes. Research efforts in the field have emphasised digital continuity and conformity between different aspects of a building project. Such an approach can limit the potential for significant discoveries, because the expression of architectural form is reduced to the varying tones of one fabrication technique and simulation at a time. This dissertation argues that disparate sets of digital and physical models are needed to incorporate multiple constraints into the exploration, and that the way the designer links them to one another significantly impacts the potential for arriving at significant discoveries. Discoveries are made in the moment of bridging between models, representational mediums, and affiliated processes.

This dissertation examines the capacity of algorithm—as a basis for computation—to diversify and expand the design exploration by enabling the designer to link disparate models and different representational mediums. It is developed around a series of design experiments that question how computation and digital fabrication can be used to diversify design ideation, foster significant discoveries, and at the same time increase flexibility for the designer’s operation in the design process. The experiments reveal the interdependence of the mediums of design—algorithm, geometry, and material—and the designer’s mode of operation. They show that each medium provides the designer with a particular way of incorporating constraints into the exploration. From the way the designer treats these mediums and the design process, two types of exploration are identified: goal oriented and open-ended. In the former, the exploration model is shaped by the designer’s objective to reach a specified goal through the selection of mediums, models, and tools. In the latter, the design process itself informs the designer’s intention. From the kinds of interdependencies that are created between mediums in each experiment, three main exploration models emerge: circular and uniform, branched and incremental, and parallel and bidirectional.

Finally, this dissertation argues that the theoretical case for integral computational design and fabrication must be revised to go beyond merely applying established computational processes to encompass the designer and several design mediums. The new model of design exploration is a cooperation between algorithm, geometry, materials, tools, and the designer. For the exploration to be novel, the designer must play a significant role by choosing one medium over another when formulating the design problem and establishing design drivers from the set of constraints, by linking the design mediums, by translating between design representations, and by describing the key aspects of the exploration in terms of algorithms.

With this article wehighlight the importance of architectural repertoire, methods and tools touncover basic components set by building science in performance-basedregulation. This article elucidates the potential of architecturally groundedmethods when assessing daylight often used in legislation and certificationschemes, by making the daylight factor metric intelligible through geometry. Theempirical material used is five architectural cases from 1917 to 2016. Thesefive cases originate from an exhibition room on daylight presented in relationto architectural composition, historical changes in Swedish building regulationand the 2014 daylight factor building code requirement. The Swedish buildingregulation has, as many other countries, undergone a historical change fromprescriptive-based regulation to performance-based regulation. With regards toregulating daylight this has meant replacing requirements based on geometricalrelationships with abstract building science metrics. Additionally,we review these findings in relation findings from a numerical analysis of 2014daylight factor building code requirement from a larger number of Swedishresidential building stock from the 20^th century. This articleargues that architectural research based in drawings and geometricalrelationships and case study material, weather historical or contemporary, canguide practitioners towards a new understanding of building code.

This article examines the definition of the architect's role in Leon Battista' Alberti's instaurational text De re aedificatoria and considers the problems of judgement and authority for architectural authorship.

Decorum, "appropriateness", is deeply embedded in the psyche of architects as a means to justify their actions. This essay considers the shifting significance of this term for architectural discourse.

Architecture and Authorship comprises 16 essays that explore issues of authorship, attribution and intellectual property in architecture. The book examines how individual architects and movements, from the fifteenth century onwards, have endeavoured to maintain their status by defending what they see as their own unique territory—the origins and intentions of their work, and their signature style.

This article is published in the a key international journal devoted to Alberti studies, produced  by the French Centre National de la Research Scientifique (CNRS) and published by Olshki Editore in Milan, with support from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. The paper demonstrates previously unstudied relationships between theory and practice in the work of one of the most notable Renaissance figures associated with architecture.

The widespread use of Electric Vehicles (EVs) has been one of the main directionsfor pursuing a sustainable future of road transport in which, the deployment ofthe associated charging infrastructures, static or dynamic, has been included as oneof the main cornerstones for its success. Different electrified road (eRoad) systemswhich allow for dynamic charging of EVs by transferring electrical power from theroad to the vehicle in-motion, either in a conductive or contactless way, are underactive investigation. One of the important tasks in feasibility analysis of suchinfrastructure is to quantitatively assess its environmental performance and, thus,the consequential influences to the sustainability of road electrification as a whole.Having this concern in mind, in this study, a systematic LCA study is carried out in which the environmental impacts from the different life cycle stages have beencalculated and compared among several promising eRoad systems. In a next step,suitable strategies can be accordingly made to minimize these impacts in a most effectiveway; and more importantly, the LCA results of this study can serve as one ofthe important bases for conducting a more comprehensive and objective evaluationof the potential environmental benefits EVs could bring.

PST is a tool for performing space syntax and regular accessibility analyses. It currently consists of two main parts - a C++ and Python library called Pstalgo and a plugin for the desktop application QGIS.

PST is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. The GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users.

For latest download visit either the Chalmers publication page, or find "Releases" on the Github page.

This article presents the results of a study of the Swedish multi-family housing stock in relation to its daylight performance under overcast sky conditions. A total of 8573 rooms in 35 existing buildings were investigated using advanced lighting simulations to determine their point daylight factor, as defined in the current building regulations. The buildings were selected based on their architectural typology and construction era. The results show that, on average, the existing rooms meet the current daylighting requirement (point daylight factor DFp of 1%). The window sky exposure factor was found to affect the DFp significantly. Rooms with a large sky exposure angle that failed to meet the requirement were deep rooms or rooms with a small window-to-floor ratio. The general conclusion is that the current requirement can be considered realistic to ensure an adequate provision of daylight in multi-family dwellings.

An important feature of a future smart or multifunctional road is that an intrinsic integration of different new advances into the practical roads should be achieved, in terms of such as Car-to-Road communication, energy harvesting, autonomous driving or on-the-road charging. However, our current engineering and research communities do not necessarily allow for an optimal development of such integrated systems. To fill some of the knowledge gaps from infrastructure point of view, this research is focusing on a specific case of the electrified road (also called ‘eRoad’) that allows for on-the-road charging, in which the consequences and possible modifications of the road infrastructure are considered. Some preliminary analysis results are presented in this paper, from which it has been found that such kind of the integration could indeed influence the service performance of individual components of the whole system, while further studies should be carried out to ensure the implementation of these smart technologies is ultimately sustainable.

This paper investigates the influence of mixture morphologies and microstructures on oxidative ageing of asphalt mixtures. For this, an oxidative ageing mechanism based on a diffusion–reaction process was developed. Previously, most asphalt oxidative ageing modeling research focused on unidirectional diffusion of continuous oxygen flow through bitumen films, which is far from the actual boundary conditions in asphalt mixtures. For this reason in the current study, a finite element (FE) analysis has been conducted in which 3D mixture morphology was considered. Mixture morphology is the combination of mineral aggregate packing, porosity, air-void distribution and their interconnectivity. One dense and one open graded field asphalt mixture core were scanned with a computerized tomography X-ray scanner. In the analyses, the developed oxidative ageing model was implemented. The FE analysis showed that the effect of the air-void distribution, their interconnectivity and the mineral aggregate packing has a significant effect on the resulting age hardening of the overall mixture. Furthermore, from the microstructural investigation done in this research, strong indications were found that, depending on the bitumen and its conditioning, water soluble thin films are formed due to ageing. This means that ageing and moisture damage are strongly interlinked and this should thus be considered in the design of the asphaltic materials and the prediction of their long term performance.

The transition from conventional cast concrete to 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) marks a paradigm shift by directly depositing fresh concrete layer upon layer according to a digital model without the need for a formwork. This technology offers the possibility of achieving innovative and complex geometries in an automated process. Additionally, the implicit digitalisation introduced by this technology streamlines the interaction among different stakeholders, thereby reducing human errors and augmenting construction quality.

Nevertheless, despite its potential, methods for fully exploiting the design capabilities of 3DCP are still largely underdeveloped. This is primarily due to the assumed separation between the design process and the generation of manufacturing instructions. While the current driver for this technology is linked to increasing productivity and reducing labour costs, its most significant contribution may well be in the manufacturing of material-efficient structures by automatically integrating structural analysis into the designprocess.

This licentiate thesis aims to extend the design scope for this rapidly maturing technology by investigating its design possibilities, relevant printing parameters, and structural optimisation capabilities within the inherent restrictions of the process. The research focuses on the development of integrated design-to-manufacture workflows for the manipulation, analysis, and optimisation of print paths considering material and process constraints. Additionally, a comprehensive literature review is conducted, with a particular emphasis on the expansive design capabilities of 3DCP.

Experimental studies encompassed the design, manufacturing, and testing of concrete prototypes using a custom-made 3DCP system based on a robotic arm. The results demonstrated that customised material distributions can be successfully programmed and executed, resulting in prototypes with enhanced structural performance. Laboratory tests on topology-optimised unreinforced 3DCP beams revealed a substantial increase in load-bearing capacity per unit weight compared to conventional 3D printing patterns. The thesis aligns with the broader sustainability goals of the construction industry. Even though the cement content in 3D printed concrete currently tends to be higher compared to conventional methods, the potential of the technology for optimising material use, minimising waste, and incorporating additional functionalities to structures presents significant opportunitiesfor reducing the environmental footprint of concrete construction. By integrating manufacturing constraints into the design process, this study delineates a pathway for extending the design possibilities of 3DCP toward the implementation of material-efficient structures with graded properties. Ultimately, this study contributes to bridging the gap between digital design and digital fabrication methods, thereby advancing concrete construction practices.

While 3D concrete printing (3DCP) has surged in popularity, methods to harness its design potential remain largely underdeveloped. Existing design-to-manufacture workflows most commonly restrict the design to the overall geometry and a set of print parameters that may fall outside of the scope of the designer. This study presents a novel approach to integrate design and manufacturing by an integrated design-to-manufacture workflow that allows the gradation of the wall thickness along the printed part, which can be independently manipulated using established computer graphic techniques like texture projection and mesh coloring. The effectiveness of this workflow is demonstrated through the fabrication of a test body featuring a customized surface pattern. This approach aims to extend the design scope for 3DCP, enabling the addition and editing of surface patterns without geometry or code manipulation.

Extrusion-based 3D concrete printing (3DCP) is a promising technique for fabricating complex concrete elements without formwork, offering advantages like cost reduction and enhanced design flexibility by decoupling manufacturing costs from part complexity. By placing material only where structurally needed, 3DCP can lead to significant material savings, potentially reducing the environmental footprint of the construction industry. However, this extended formal freedom is still constrained by the fabrication process and material properties. This paper presents a novel method for applying topology optimisation internally i.e., preserving the external boundaries of the concrete element while reducing material use and weight. This method adapts the extrusion thickness along the part according to the expected stresses, reducing the material use while enhancing structural performance. To validate this method, the mechanical behaviour of three different unreinforced 3DCP beams is tested in three-point bending. Results show that beams with optimised material distributions presented a higher strength-to-weight ratio than the conventional 3D printed beam. An important advantage of the proposed method is that it can be easily implemented in existing 3DCP systems without specialised equipment. This paper demonstrates the potential of internal topology optimisation for improving the efficiency and sustainability of 3DCP.

Extrusion-based 3D concrete printing (3DCP) is a promising technique for fabricating complex concrete elements without formwork, offering advantages like cost reduction and enhanced design flexibility by decoupling manufacturing costs from part complexity. However, this extended formal freedom is still constrained by the fabrication process and material properties. This paper presents a novel method for applying topology optimisation internally i.e. preserving the external boundaries of the concrete element while reducing material use and weight. This method adapts the extrusion thickness along the part according to the expected stresses, reducing the material use while enhancing structural performance. To validate this method, three different unreinforced 3DCP beams are tested in three-point bending. Results show that beams with optimised material distributions presented a higher strength-to-weight ratio, averaging 47% and 63% compared with the conventional 3D printed beam. This paper demonstrates the potential of internal topology optimisation for improving the efficiency and sustainability of 3DCP.

The book presents a shortlist of 19 projects including the winners. What these projects have in common is a commitment to design excellence despite constraints of budget, resources, climate, technology, and politics. They share this commitment as one of the necessary tools for societal betterment. The following five projects received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2010: Wadi Hanifa Wetlands,Riyadh,Saudi Arabia; Revitalisation of the Hypercentre of Tunis, Tunisia;MadinatAl-ZahraMuseum,Cordoba,Spain; Ipekyol Textile Factory,Edirne,Turkey;BridgeSchool,Xiashi,Fujian,China.

Since the 1980s, the diagram has become a preferred method for researching, communicating, theorising and making architectural designs, ideas and projects. Thus the rise of the diagram, as opposed to the model or the drawing, is the one of the most significant new developments in the process of design in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Diagrams of Architecture is the first anthology to represent – through texts and diagrams – the histories, theories and futures of architecture through the diagram.

This paper discusses the design, drawing and construction of the Phaeno Science Centre,Wolfsburg,Germany. The building opened to the public in November 2005 and was subsequently shortlisted for the 2006 Stirling Prize and won the 2006 IStructE Structural Award in the Arts, Leisure and Entertainment category.

Collaborating with leading architects like Zaha Hadid, Foreign Office Architects, Norman Foster, and Will Alsop, Adams Kara Taylor have become the engineers of choice for projects that redefine the conventional boundaries between structural engineering and architecture. Their holistic approach expands structural thinking to include technical solutions, aesthetics, and advanced research to adapt both diverse architectures and design methodologies. Organized into a series of synthetic themes - complexity, trans-scalarity, modelling, process - this book presents a cross-section of diverse projects and methods as a manual for new relations between radical engineering and design. Contributors include Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Simon Allford, Patrik Schumacher, Tim Anstey, Mohsen Mostafavi, and Michael Speaks.

Today the convergence of design, engineering and architectural technologies are breeding a new material practice in experimental architecture. In this pioneering publication, this important shift is fully defined as a highly dynamic synthesis of emerging principles of spatial, structural and material ordering integrated through the application of materialization and fabrication technologies. Providing the foundations for a new theory of structuring in architecture, The New Structuralism has broad implications for the way we both conceive and undertake architectural design, as its impact starts to emanate not only across education internationally, but also through architectural research and practice

Pattern–making is ubiquitous in both the natural and manmade world. The human propensity for pattern recognition and fabrication is innate. Encompassing the historical, vernacular and parametric, this title explores the creation, materialisation and theorisation of some of the world′s most significant and spectacularly patterned spaces. It investigates how interiors, buildings, cities and landscapes are patterned through design, production and manufacturing, use, time, accident and perception. It also brings into focus how contemporary advanced spatial practices and CAD/CAM are now pushing patterns to encompass a greater range of structural, programmatic, aesthetic and material effects and properties. Extending patterns far beyond the surface notion of and decoration, Patterns of Architecture assesses how and why the deployment of patterns is shaping the future of architecture.

The AA DRL TEN Pavilion is one of those built projects that push the conventions in architecture and structural engineering as well as the building materials industry. A full-scale construction built by a group of students as part of their academic activities, the pavilion was conceived as a way of bringing together digital explorations in architectural design with state-of-the-art manufacturing processes and advanced structural calculations based on non-linear stress analysis. This book recounts the story of the creation of the Pavilion and identifies the key problems encountered during its successful design and realisation. Though grounded in the specific experience of the pavilion, the book argues that these problems are common to broader contemporary design to production workflows and how they are addressed will have a major influence on future architectural pedagogy and practice.

Cold mix bitumen emulsion technology is getting a lot of focus by the road industries since a few decades due to the diminished environmental impacts and reduced energy associated with it. The durability and mechanical performance of cold asphalt mixtures very much depend on the breaking, coalescence and phase separation processes in bitumen emulsions; however, the exact nature of the breaking mechanism of bitumen emulsion is not completely understood today. During coalescence or relaxation process, two bitumen droplets are completely fused into a unique spherical droplet and their kinetic is usually recorded in terms of time, denoted as relaxation time or τ_relaxation.  In this work, a two dimensional Phase Field model was used to simulate the coalescence process of two bitumen droplets in water phase. The numerical model is based on Finite Element Method and solves Navier-Stokes system of equations coupled with the Cahn-Hilliard equation. The model predictions are validated by direct comparison with the experimental measurements performed in our previous work. Moreover, the study was extended to the small size (order μm) bitumen droplets which are difficult to produce and handle via experimental methods.  

The continuous growth in road transportation demands further development towards sustainable strategies. The electrification of road infrastructure (commonly referred to as ‘e-Road’) to enable wireless charging solutions for Electric Vehicles (EVs) is arising as one of the most promising and yet challenging alternatives for the future mobility by road. In this context, the introduction of charging facilities in the pavement structure and its adequate performance from an infrastructural perspective is determining for the successful implementation of these systems.This study aims to evaluate the structural integrity of e-Roads, considering the embedment in the pavement of a solid module denominated ‘Charging Unit’ (CU) in which the charging facilities are assumed to be installed. To do so, the critical locations of an e-Road pavement structure were identified through computational modelling for its further representation as small-scale e-Road samples in the laboratory. Afterwards, this structure was subjected to different loading conditions using mechanical hydraulic devices and compared with conventional road samples produced under the same conditions. Finally, e-Road samples were scanned with X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) prior to, during and after loading for additional inspection. Results provided valuable learnings of the potential mechanisms of failure of such structure and a better understanding of the e-Road infrastructure. 

This thesis investigates performance-based regulation in Sweden and its consequences for architectural design. In the last 50 years, there has been a transition from prescriptive to performance-based regulation, propelled by the drive to further innovation, productivity and competitiveness by expressing the functions expected of the buildings as performances. This thesis examines the promise of freedom in design and solution that this regulatory construction offers, considering two specific performance aspects of the Swedish building code: the requirements regarding energy performance in relation to user-comfort, and the requirement in terms of daylight in relation to health and hygiene. Each case investigates the implications of the performance-based system of regulation for the synesthetic and multidisciplinary process of design, focussing on how it affects the work of architects.This thesis also addresses the disciplinary knowledge necessary for assessing performance requirements, which in turn connects to the entry into building regulation of abstract natural science models quantifying societal goals in legislation, and to the disciplinary histories of the engineering and architectural professions.Speculating on ways forward that address the concerns that emerge from this analysis, the thesis turns to a historical example that dealt with a similar problem to evaluate its potential for developing current architectural practice. The dual nature of design, reaching into both expressional and technical concerns, has been the subject of research and eloquent discussion within the architectural concept of tectonics. The concluding section of this thesis raises questions about the architectural discourse in relation to tectonics. It suggests that there is work to be done to reconcile the division between architectural design and technical characteristics connected to building physics that permeates systems of building regulation in Sweden and more generally. The thesis suggests that if performance-based regulation is to offer freedom in architectural design, the architecture community needs to be much more involved in both the research and critique of performance requirements and of their formulation and assessment methods when addressing this.

Glazing-to-wall area ratio (GWAR) is one of the key parameters determining energy use in office buildings. Excessive fenestration areas not only yield significantly higher energy use, they are often associated with glare problems yielding a wasteful solution, where blinds are down while electric lighting is on. Future near-zero energy office buildings will have a reasonable GWAR to optimize the balance between good daylighting and low heating and cooling loads while providing a satisfying work environment with good view out. Starting from this evidence-based knowledge, White arkitekter developed innovative building facades for the SEB Bank headquarters in Stockholm, using advanced parametric modelling, where glazingto-wall ratios were optimized as a function of orientation. Other aspects of the design included: 1) adaptation of building functions in relation to orientation to avoid glare, 2) use of self-shading principles adapted to orientation, 3) increase of the window-head-height to maximize daylight penetration, 4) tri-dimensional angulation of facade elements allowing diffuse indirect daylight reflections and intermediate light transitions, 5) modulation of GWAR according to floor level. This paper presents the innovative architectural design proposal and discusses the process used to translate the evidence-based knowledge into an innovative building design using parametric modelling supported by advanced simulation and modelling tools.

Frost damage in asphalt pavements is an important factor influencing the performance of the pavement. This type of damage occurs during freeze-thaw cycles when ice forms in the air voids, causing microstructural changes and degradation of material properties, thus affecting the performance of the pavement. It is therefore necessary to understand the process of frost damage in order to prevent it. However, experimental testing is often expensive and time consuming and only a limited number of numerical models dealing with the topic exist. In this work, a numerical micromechanical model has been developed that couple the diffusion of moisture in the asphalt to the damage occurring in a freezing and thawing environment. In this paper, the model is presented and applied on an asphalt microstructure obtained by x-ray scanning of a real asphalt sample. The effect of including frost damage is shown by comparing the behavior of a damaged microstructure to the behavior of an undamaged microstructure. It is revealed that the strength of the damaged microstructure reduces to about 50% of the strength of the undamaged microstructure. Furthermore, the coupling of the moisture content in the air voids to the expansion of the air voids is proved to be important since the assumption that all air voids are fully saturated overestimates the decrease in strength. The next step in this research will be to validate the model with laboratory data. A validated model can assist in improving the predictions of frost damage and help in developing better laboratory tests.

Freeze-thaw damage in asphalt pavements is a complex phenomenon depending on many parameters such as moisture infiltration, temperature and mechanical properties of the asphalt constituents as well as the interface between them. As a first step in creating a comprehensive multiscale model including all of these parameters, a micromechanical model has been developed. This model couples the infiltration of moisture and the associated damage, the expansion caused by the water inside the air voids freezing, and the mechanical damage. The expansion of the air voids is implemented by applying a volumetric expansion in the air voids dependent on the temperature. The cohesive damage in the mastic and adhesive damage in the mastic-aggregate interface are included by implementing an energy based damage model and the cohesive zone model, respectively. To show the capabilities of the model, two different graded microstructures were exposed to 10 freeze-thaw cycles each and their stiffness was evaluated before and after the simulated freeze-thaw cycles. In addition, the sensitivity of the resulting damage to the time the microstructure was exposed to temperatures below zero was evaluated by simulating freeze-thaw cycles with a total time ranging between 10 hours and 14 days. From the analyses it was concluded that the model was capable of capturing the deteriorating effect of an increasing number of freeze-thaw cycles, and was sensitive to the freezing time in the freeze-thaw cycles.    

Winter damage in pavements, such as potholes, dislodging of stones and structural layer separation, occurs during and after winter seasons. This damage is caused by several processes, such as freezing and thawing action, moisture accumulation, traffic loads and winter maintenance actions, which combined makes winter damage a highly complex phenomenon. To better understand this process and, in the future, being able to predict the damage propagation by modeling, this paper discusses the possibility to separate these actions and phenomena into different cases. The focus in this paper is on the freezing -and thawing damage and how it is affected by different environmental conditions, inspired by real weather data from the City of Luleå in the north of Sweden. To investigate this, a microscale model is utilized. The results from the simulations show an increasing adhesive damage with the number of freeze-thaw cycles while the cohesive damage in the viscoelastic mastic increases is the most severe for a period with several days of freezing temperatures. A discussion of how the separation of winter damage into different cases will contribute to the ultimate goal of a multiscale model is also included.

Winter damage in asphalt pavements is a complex phenomenon which may cause pothole formation, dislodging of stones and structural layer separation. In order to reduce the winter damage, knowledge about the process in both the pavement and on a microstructural level is required. This paper focuses on modeling the process of damage evolution on a microstructural level in order to identify and understand the different phenomena influencing the degradation process. In this paper the evolution of winter damage in an asphalt concrete microstructure was modeled throughout the course of two winter seasons. The simulations include freezing and thawing cycles as well as additional damage originating from snow plows, both based on real weather data from Luleå in the north of Sweden. The results show a large increase of damage in both the mastic and the aggregate-mastic interface, and thereby also vertical displacement of the top surface, after the first freeze-thaw cycle. During the following freeze-thaw cycles the mastic damage continuous to increase but with a decreasing rate while the damage in the aggregate-mastic interface is only affected by the manually added damage from the snow plow. These results indicate a need to include the growth of -and emergence of new air voids in the model as well as an investigation of the actual behavior and influence of the damage evolution in the interface regions.

This report is the result of a collaboration between The Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, The School of Architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the Architectural firm KIT also based in Stockholm. It explores and discusses strategies for integrating novel social-ecological research within the planning and urban design practices aiming to delineate principles for an integrated and comprehensive social-ecological urban design practice. As focal case and example works the Albano campus area in Stockholm, with a strategic location at the crossroads between the three major universities in Stockholm as well as its inner city and the National City Park, the latter adressing the contested issue of expanding the university and city inside a large urban park of national interest. Taken together this critical location in a most informative way highlights several of the potentials and challenges that the contemporary planning and urban design fields are facing today.

Q-book Albano 4 originated from the work by a inter- and transdisciplinary research team, in their effort to challenge existing development plans for the expansion of the Stockholm University campus over an area inside the National Urban Park. While the existing plans lacked a clear engagement with novel findings from research and design theory, and while the campus expansion was to be placed within a park with important biodiversity and cultural heritage, the team took upon them to articulate an alternative vision based on contemporary international and local research. Consequently, the team offered an alternative vision for the area, in contrast to the plans that the City had been offered by other architects and planners.

Furthermore, through presenting this vision at an international academic conference open to the public, the real-estate developer Akademiska hus, a body within the Swedish state that manages university campuses across the country, making them one of the largest developers of their kind in the world, showed an interest and urged the team to develop their suggestion further. Through this support, time was given to deepen the principles of social-ecological urban design and to further develop the alternative vision for how the Albano area could be developed according to these principles. This included workshops with experts, and stakeholder meetings with civil society organizations.

The alternative vision, in this process developed into this illustrated report that effectively joins theories of resilience, social-ecological systems and ecosystem services with theories of spatial analysis, urban morphology and design methodology, translating this new body of knowledge into principles and elements of social-ecological urban design, using the Albano site as case study.

In 1965 Christopher Alexander published an article entitled “The Question of Computers in Design” in the Landscape journal, describing the potential use of computers in architecture. Computers should be considered as “a huge army of clerks, equipped with rule books, pencil and paper, all stupid and entirely without initiative, but able to follow exactly millions of precisely defined operations.” The previous year Alexander had just published his doctoral research, “Notes on the Synthesis of Form,” in which he showed how such an “army of clerks” would be indispensable in digitally remediating modern design’s methodological shortcomings. 

Alexander’s simile effectively summarised the historical reorganisations of intellectual labour that, beginning in the nineteenth century with the application of Adam Smith’s principle of division of labour to produce mathematical tables by de Prony and Babbage, led to the technical concretisation of this same principle in the digital computers of the 1940s. Historically this process consisted the analysis of an increasing number of intellectual activities and their fragmentation into menial tasks that could be carried out by unskilled workers and clerks, and eventually mechanised. This sort of Taylorist intelligence became during the postwar embodied in the computer, but also in the arguments, methods and algorithms in the field of operations research (OR), the source of Alexander’s own problematisation of architecture and design. 

Thus what Alexander’s “armies of clerks” heralded and promoted was not just a remedy to a design process that had grown too complex for the limited cognition and bounded rationality of human individuals, but the final disintegration of the figure of the humanist architect, shaped by the institutions typical of Foucault’s disciplinary societies, into the numerically modulated, “dividual” subjectivities of Deleuze’s societies of control. In the process, modes of subjectivation and enunciation considered exclusive to human individuals, a restriction central to the discipline of architecture, became assimilated into the technological assemblies of computation, redistributed as mechanical procedures, specialised tasks, and new and lean organisational structures. 

Using methodologies close to those of critical code studies, I propose in this paper a close reading of the algorithms and diagrams implemented by Alexander in the HIDECS 2 program and used in the Notes; written in the then recently developed FORTRAN Assembly Program (FAP) language, its code is a record of how discourses of complexity, efficiency and specialisation became inscribed in architectural software from the start, covertly challenging concepts fundamental to architecture.

This Python code is part of an effort to look at computer code as another type of historical record. It implements the functions described in: Research Report R62-2 HIDECS 2: A COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR THE HIERARCHICAL DECOMPOSITION OF A SET WHICH HAS AN ASSOCIATED LINEAR GRAPH by Christopher Alexander, Society of Fellows, Harvard University and Marvin L. Manheim, Department of Civil Engineering, M.I.T. Publication No. 160, June 1962. This was one of the first applications of artificial intelligence in architecture and design, and it made up the basis of the design method later described by Alexander in Notes on the Synthesis of Form.

The original code in the report was written in the FORTRAN Assembly Program (FAP) for the IBM 709 (one of which was available to Alexander at the MIT Computation Center). A great deal of it dealt with getting around hardware limitations of the IBM 709, such as representing an unweighted graph as a binary matrix within the available maximum word size of 36 bits. Translating instead the algorithms described in flow charts, examples and text in the report into Python, deemphasises the material and technical conditions behind the code and foregrounds the abstractions and concepts implemented.

The basic problem the program deals with is that of finding a minimum cut in an undirected graph. For a later and far more effective algorithm see for example Karger's Algorithm. After inspecting the algorithms one may contend that it was not so much an efficient solution that Alexander and Manheim were after, but on the contrary to demonstrate the complexity and almost intractability of a design problem without the heuristic algorithms they proposed.

The code in this repositiory has been developed as part of Sense Without Meaning, a research project on code and architecture sponsored by Vetenskapsrådet, the Swedish Research Institute.

At the same time that flexibility was being constructed as the potential to rearrange, repurpose and even reclaim spaces within modernism, the 1960s and 70s saw the technical concretisation of a parallel conception of design as an open system, into a number of methods and technologies. Influenced by the linguistic and cognitive paradigms underlying the programming languages in which these strategies were being implemented, the intention of these systems was to produce architecture the same way one might derive spoken or written sentences from a set of grammatical rules. Some of the many examples of these concretisations include Christopher Alexander’s “pattern language” (1977) or the shape grammars proposed by George Stiny and James Gips in the 1960s, which were used to encode the individual styles of Andrea Palladio or Frank Lloyd Wright into flexible combinatorial design systems. 

The majority of the historical record of this early digital architecture consists of texts written in assembly, FORTRAN, Lisp and other programming languages. These historical texts and the technical systems in which they were inserted still remain outside traditional historiographical methods. The present paper looks at how these forms of digital flexibility, variation and indeterminacy were linked to new forms of writing and literacy associated with the computer in the early 1970s. It looks in particular to the specific case of shape grammars and the programs, diagrams and formal descriptions used in their proposition. Shape grammars not only exemplify the application of linguistic models as a means to implement design as an open combinatorial system, but also embody a moment in architecture dominated by formalism, semiology and linguistics, leading, as Manfredo Tafuri would put it, to “a syntax of empty signs” within “a language that speaks only of itself.” (Tafuri 1974)