Evolution of Mathematical and Geometrical Modeling Techniques from Ancient India to Computational and Parametric Design: Approaches for Its Pedagogic Integration in Architecture Design School Studios
摘要
Mathematical and geometrical modeling has been an integral part of architecture and design education, practice and research. Literature suggests that geometry and trigonometry originated as generic abstractions from specific methods developed for building construction and astronomy in ancient times. Over the course of time, mathematical and geometric methods were taught in a textbook-centric problem-solving approach in school education and many of the students especially in architecture and design schools lack training in how to approach to model real-life design and geometry problems in mathematical language. Over time tools like MATLAB, Mathematica, and programming languages like Python-enabled transforming mathematical models into interactive digital computational models. The geometric modeling skills of students are comparatively better due to the predominantly visuospatial nature of the design domain. The coming of computational tools like visual programming languages and interfaces for visual programming has been a great jump in enabling the designers and design students to more easily model their design problems, as the symbolic abstractions could be made easy to read by a visual interface. This enabled the domain of parametric and generative design approaches in architecture design that is built over a strong foundation of computational mathematics. This paper presents the evolution of mathematical and geometrical modeling in architecture and design, in the Indian context and based on that looks at an example problem as a case study to teach and enable students to mathematically model complex design problems taking advantages of computational geometry and mathematics, through medium of visual programming as a method using McNeel Rhinoceros and Grasshopper as a digital toolset.