ABSTRACT
Environmental design is peculiarly well suited to parametric design, being to such a large degree translatable into binary code. Environmental design is both performative and, increasingly, productive, that is, it not only performs the task of establishing a less damaging relationship between built and natural environments, but also can configure a built fabric that actively produces benefits. In choosing to produce an environmentally-responsive architecture, the architect is opening the building up to many more variables than the sealed block has to deal with: fluctuations in solar radiation, wind velocity, humidity, etc. Younger environmentally-trained architects are taking evaluative tools such as these and, with some additional scripting, turning them into generative ones. The architect chooses the parameters and makes the rules, and the software ‘finds’ the forms, which are then evaluated according to agreed environmentally productive criteria. Contemporary climate-responsive architecture is, after all, capable of far more than protection.
