181 eCAADe 21 digital design Architectural Exploration and Creativity using Intelligent Design Agents Rabee M. Reffat Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition Faculty of Architecture, University of Sydney,NSW 2006, Australia Email: rabee@arch.usyd.edu.au Abstract: Architects and designers are normally interested in situations where differ- ences make a difference. This paper presents the results of the developed system of intel- ligent design agents that supports design exploration and creativity within the domain of architectural shapes. Creativity in architectural design compositions can be viewed as an emergence of new forms and shapes or relationships between forms and shapes from which new concepts can be discovered. 1. Introduction Architects and designers are normally inter- ested in situations where differences make a dif- ference. Faced with a set of alternative possibili- ties, designers seek those which are in some sense, “different” than others. Hence, it is useful to develop computer tools and methods to sup- port conceptual designing. Conceptual design provides abstract, sometimes incomplete solu- tions. The intention of conceptual design to explore the best alternatives comes from the desire of inquiry. The output of conceptual design is one or more new design concepts that can be used as a basis for embodiment and detail design. Since it more or less determines the achievable technical merit of the design and its encountered costs, this early phase of design is the most crucial part of the whole design process. Creativity and exploration are of paramount importance at the conceptual design stage. Conceptualisation progresses through the con- textual domains driven by an internal logic, depending on the application field. For instance, composition and shape concept generation pre cedes the other activities in architectural and industrial design, while mechanical conceptuali- sation typically gives priority to functional con- cept generation (Horvath, 2000). In architecture, the design composition (as a drawn model) repre- sents a description in advance and the most widely used language for this description is geometry. Creativity in architectural design composi- tions can be viewed as an emergence of new forms and shapes or relationships between forms and shapes from which new concepts can be dis- covered. New concepts are discovered as novel organisations of the known. The desire for dis- covery is what helps to convert old ideas into new. This paper addresses the role of computers as active design exploration tools using intelligent design agents to assist in exploring and discover- ing new design concepts. Design concepts are composed of rich sets of categorised abstrac- tions of the mutual relationships between obser- vations and actions. New concepts emerge out of the interaction of old concepts and new situations in relation to the focus.