Permutation Design

Permutation Design: Buildings, Texts, and Contexts

by Kostas Terzidis (Author)

In design, the problems that designers are called upon to solve can be regarded as a problem of permutations. A permutation is an ordered arrangement of elements in a set. In our case, the set is design and the elements are design components, such as lines, shapes, forms, or spaces.

Traditionally, such arrangements are done by human designers who base their decision-making process either on intuition or on random sampling until a valid solution is found. However, in both cases the solution found may be an acceptable one but cannot be labeled as "the best possible solution" due to the subjective or arbitrary nature of the selection process. In contrast, by harnessing the potential of computational design, these elements can be arranged in all possible ways and then the best ones are chosen based on specific criteria. By presenting a complete list of permutation-based arrangements the "best solution" will eventually reveal itself by excluding all other possible solutions.