Generative design systems for the industrial design of functional mass producible natural-mathematical forms

Nature provides us with a vast source of inspiration. However, given industrial designers' open-mindedness and inquisitiveness, a surprisingly limited set of nature-derived symbols continues to be popular in this creative discipline. Rather than designing products mimicking nature, it is probably more rewarding designing them based on the natural principles leading to its growth and form. However, the constraints related to mass produced products make designing with the often complex forms found in nature a daunting task for a human designer. In this paper, we demonstrate, through the implementation of two generative design systems, how fairly complex everyday objects based on three-dimensional natural-mathematical morphologies can be designed, evaluated and produced using mass production techniques; that digital and analogue methods can be linked to create an aesthetic and functional whole beyond purely decorative mimicry. The output from the generative design system made it possible to produce a fully developed, "ready-for-sale" product, with potential for large-scale production. This is a step towards enabling industrial designers the same level of form articulation as has been available to artists and architects, even though the constraints on the design activity are much different