SpaceChase A Dynamic and Interactive Tool for Architectural Design Process

Architectural design, as a cognitive activity, has always been fed by architectural knowledge based on practice and theory, and it has been questioned how creative and generative design processes can benefit from scientific methods. Through inquiry and experimentation, the architect develops his or her ideas, constructs and analyzes the space, and continuously improves it. However, this is a subjective process. There are design tools and methods that provide objective criteria for the assessment of the design decisions and their potential for the designed space whilst iterating with feedback. This study intends to explain how scientific data might be functionalized to search for spatialities that have yet to be designed, and Space Syntax was analyzed to see if it could be included in such a process as a scientific approach. Following discussions on the characteristics of the architectural design process, the study focuses on the development and testing of SpaceChase for Grasshopper, a software plug-in that allows designers, architects, and students to build and analyze dynamic and interactive network structures. This experimental plug-in is intended to be used by architects as a generative and mind-opening design tool during the design process.