Artificial plan designing refers to the use of computational models to generate plan descriptions.

Sometimes it is referred to as “automatic plan generation” or “creative design”.

Artificial plan designing is designing:

by machines and computational models

by human-machine interaction

by human- machine networks interaction

A Plan is a projection of future developments- is the design of future changes.

A Plan represents how we will or we should meet current and future needs.

A Plan describes decisions to be implemented.

We focus on spatial decisions and hence spatial plans: architectural plans and urban plans (e.g. building layout, building form, land use plan, facility location-allocation).

Plans are not always good representations of our future needs but are always part of the dynamic of change in cities.

Floor plan design www.mit.edu/~celani

Designing and planning are cyclic processes. Artificial Plan Design supports the generation of solutions and evaluations all the way through the different stages of design.

Designing and planning are collective and multidisciplinary processes. They require the participation of multiple agents with diverse requirements and views. Artificial Plan Design can be used to explore diverse requirements and interdependencies in order to support collective decision making and conflict resolution.

Design and planning are creative processes. Artificial Plan Design makes all trivial computations for us. But it may also reveal unforeseen solutions.

Optimization:considers design as a search for optimum solutions- uses various optimization techniques to find best solutions under certain constraints.

Evolutionary Design:considers design as a selective and creative process- uses genetic algorithms to create evolving design forms.

Shape Grammars: considers design as a compositional process based on shape vocabularies - generates designs based on the creation and reproduction of grammatical rules.

Case-Based Reasoning: considers design as a creative process- focuses on the adaptation and reuse of previous knowledge incorporated in design cases to solve similar problems.

Multi-Agent Coordination: considers design as a search for coordinated solutions that satisfy distributed domain requirements and views.

Color shape grammar www.mit.edu/~celani

Karl Sim's evolving creatures www.genarts.com/karl