Shape
talking about seeing and doing
by George Stiny
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" In Shape, George Stiny argues that seeing shapes--with all their changeability and ambiguity--is an inexhaustible source of creative ideas. Understanding shapes, he says, is a useful way to understand what is possible in design. Shapes are devices for visual expression just as symbols are devices for verbal expression. Stiny develops a unified scheme that includes both visual expression with shapes and verbal expression with signs. The relationships--and equivalencies--between the two kinds of expressive devices make design comparable to other professional practices that rely more on verbal
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If you're interested in L-systems you may also enjoy reading about Shape Grammars. Sort of an evolutionary dead-end in terms of system design, but intriguing. As far as I can tell they were basically superceded by other types of programmatic or parametric design systems. Some…
on “Lindenmayer Systems” ↗Thanks for sharing, I never heard about this before! The Wikipedia article on shape grammar has a link to an old website[1] from a workshop at MIT that links to many more interesting resources, including the “Shape” book by George Stiny you mentioned as a free download (not sure if the…
on “Lindenmayer Systems” ↗I had a look at George Stiny's "Shape: Talking about Seeing and Doing" book (MIT Press, 2006) which is freely available on the web [1]. The introduction is very waffly ... his analysis of shape strikes me as what Euclid('s predecessors) did…
on “Shape Grammar” ↗