We were in Kyoto last week for monitoring a Workshop on Shape Grammars applied to product design and engineering. The Workshop was held in Kyoto Institute of Technology, from 9th to 11th March 2015, and was sponsored by Kyoto Design Lab. Nearly 30 participants attended the Workshop, mostly Japanese but also from Spain and Turkey.

The workshop was led by Professors José Pinto Duarte and Andrew Li, and monitored by Mário Barros and Eduardo Castro e Costa. José Duarte showed how shape grammars work, and Andrew Li showed how to implement them in his Interpreter application (http://andrew.li/interpreter/index.html).
You can download a PDF presentation of the workshop results.

The workshop was preceded by presentations from Prof. Xavier Cañavate from Terrassa School of Engineering (EET) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain, and from Prof. Güzin Konuk from the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istambul, Turkey.

We would like to thank the staff in KIT for this great opportunity, namely Professor Ryusuke Naka, Professor Tetsuya Sato, and Kazuya Sawada for a most warm welcome to Japan.

Link to workshop: http://kyoto-design-lab.tumblr.com/post/111916842543

Synopsis: In product design and engineering, we commonly use computer-based techniques to model and fabricate forms. To develop those forms, we may use parametric or generative methods. Such methods usually involve a programming language (like Java or Python) or a tool like Grasshopper. To designers, these often seem less intuitive than sketching manually. In this workshop, we focus on a technique that combines both the directness of drawing and the generative power of algorithms. We Schedule Site experimental software application to design and fabricate 2D patterns. This workshop is for practitioners and students of design who are interested in digital fabrication, mass customization, and algorithmic design.