Constraint-Based Design in Participatory Housing Planning

The research presented in this paper deals with the yet unexplored development of a constraint-based design strategy to support participatory housing planning processes in Latin America. The article discusses the implementation criteria of a constraint satisfaction approach to solving the building bulk design problem. This elementary problem to the architecture practice, is concerned with the synthesis of the boundary geometry from the volume, shape and allocation of the building and any part thereof located inside a given zoning lot. A legal solution to a building bulk design problem is a building cubature that complies with all the applicable bulk regulations. The case study applies to the common class of single-family house units produced in Chile and the regulatory framework implemented there. Two different computer implementation criteria are being tested in an ongoing series of trials. The first, and most extensively developed, makes use of Maxonis XPresso - visual scripting environment to set up a semi-automated controllable design environment that allows to create parametric feature-based 3D models of building bulk solutions. The second approach is currently being tested by using Ilogis OPL Studio - constraint programming environment to achieve fully automated search and 2D graphic visualization of the complete set of solutions to separate subdomains of the bulk problem