Parametric thinking

Parametric Thinking' is the influence of engaging in a thinking process that links, relates and outputs calculated actions to generate solutions to problems, rather than simply seeking them. It has its origins in the design fields of; urban design, architectural design, interior design, industrial and furniture design. The process is associated with Parametricism a style within contemporary avant-garde architecture, promoted as a successor to post-modern architecture and modern architecture.

History

Parametric thinking emerged as a theory-driven design education and project design process and delivery movement in the early 2010s, with its earliest practitioners harnessing and adapting the then new parametric design software and other advanced computational processes that had been introduced within architecture and related design fields. In the architecture education context in 2011 professors of the schools of architecture Jonathon Anderson, Ming Tang, Maria Vera, Shai Yeshayahu respectively of University Of North Carolina Greensboro, University of Cincinnati, Southern Illinois University along with David Karle and Brian Kelly of University of Nebraska published advocacy for a paradigm shift in design education. "it is crucial to develop a series of correlated systems that can be synchronized and applied to and from multiple instances (i.e. contexts, drawings, models...). Beginning design studios are the ideal place, a breeding ground of sorts for introducing such complex ideologies and developing programs needed for a new generation of designers that will be able to seek solutions from information processing or reasoning, rather than intuition. By cognitively engaging with the environment and not by simply acting on it, we are empowering new practitioners to radically change the future of design. A no boundary approach to designing systems lends itself to processes that parallel those of parametric thinking." "Parametric thinking may be the defining elements of rationalization that forms our beginning design students' future"

Karle and Kelly also highligthed that "digital tools are currently being used in design schools across the country. This paradigm in both education and practice of architecture is continually changing the profession, from the way in which design is conceived, represented, documented, and fabricated. Parametric design can be defined as series of questions to establish the variables of a design and a computational definition that can be utilized to facilitate a variety of solutions. Parametric thinking is a way of relating tangible and intangible systems into a design proposal removed from digital tool specificity and establishes relationships between properties within a system. It asks architects to start with the design parameters and not preconceived or predetermined design solutions.". Parametric thinking in the design process context of best practice as defined by designer/technologist Chris Swartout of M Moser Associates is "a pedagogic approach that combines design and generative solution delivery through reliance on a multidisciplinary team’s knowledge expertise at the outset of the project. This leads to increased productivity, achieving the desired outcome of a workplace that balances all the interests of design, schedule, cost, aesthetics and functionality, while not predetermining a solution."

Farshid Moussavi professor in practice at Harvard University Graduate School of Design has argued that parametric thinking at some level has always existed in architecture as a discipline because "great architecture has been aware of its societal role, and has consequently been informed by multivalent parameters.