Computationally enhanced Ideation

peer reviewedThis research argues for enhancement of the ideation process in architectural design through computational approach. European directives on building’s performances, state that, by the end of December 2020 all buildings must be near zero energy. This leads to new reflections, especially with current conceptual approach in architecture. Traditional workflows, in which early decisions are the most critical, have focused on refining concepts with little or no regard on whether the design was good to begin with. Moreover, although the growing information load makes it harder to apprehend current demand, the ideation process still relies essentially on intuition. We therefore question the intuitiveness in decision- making at the conceptual stage, more precisely, what we describe as the ideation point. In order to study the ideation process in architecture, this presentation will explore studies in creative thinking, mainly, the Geneplore model, a widely used framework in psychology to study creative cognition. By breaking down the general structure leading to creativity, certain aspects can be identified as showing potential for computational enhancement thus improving the overall creative process and consequently, ideation. Computation would therefore be considered as a new way to think and conceive architecture, and not merely and solely as a mean of execution