Parametric urbanism: emergence, limits and perspectives of a new trend in urban design based on parametric design systems

Abstract

In the last decades there has been an extraordinary advance in the development of parametric design tools. In parametric design, the parameters of a particular object are declared, not its shape. These technologies have been transferred from aerospace and automotive industries to architecture and urbanism, to constitute what is being known as parametric urbanism, a theoretical and methodological procedure developed in the context of the Zaha Hadid Architects' practice. Their large scale urban design proposals have frequently applied parametric design tools. This paper analyses the emergence of this new model of urbanism, in order to identify its limits and to show perspectives to its improvement. In spite of the great potentialities offered by parametric urbanism theories and tools for enhancing the efficiency and quality of urban design proposals, we note that the model is only sensitive to formal, environmental and functional parameters. Space configuration parameters, fundamental to the understanding of urban dynamics as well as to propose new urban forms, are not explored. Therefore, some possibilities of improvement of the model through the introduction of space configuration parameters are proposed, based on the paradigms of urbanity and formality, as formulated by Frederico de Holanda. We argue that the referred model can be improved if spatial parameters are introduced.