This PhD thesis proposes a process of providing mass-customized housingbased on computer-aided design and production systems. It focuses onthe design part, which mainly consists of an interactive system for thegeneration of design solutions based on a mathematical model calleddiscursive grammar. A discursive grammar includes a shape grammar, adescription grammar, and a set of heuristics. The shape grammarprovides the rules of formal composition, whereas the descriptiongrammar describes the design from other relevant viewpoints. The set ofheuristics is used to guide the generation of designs by comparing thedescription of the evolving design with the description of the desiredhouse. The generation of a design proceeds first by producing a designbrief from the user-prompted requirements and then by finding asolution that satisfies this brief. Search is largely deterministic,which decreases the amount of time required to find a solution, therebymaking it reasonable to develop Web-based implementations. The proposedmodel enables an enduring designer´s dream, that of the masscustomization of housing. The model is illustrated with a case studythat includes a shape grammar developed for the houses designed by thearchitect Alvaro Siza at Malagueira, a description grammar based on thePortuguese housing regulations, and a set of heuristics inferred aftera set of experiments. In these experiments, designers were asked togenerate houses based on the Malagueira grammar for specific clients.It is argued that this discursive grammar provides a rigorous methodfor understanding and teaching Siza´s design process and that similargrammars could be developed for other styles. A Web page for explainingthe grammar and generating new designs on-line was developed as aprototype.
dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8189