eCAADe 25 879 - Session 19: Generative Design Transforming Grammars for Goal Driven Style Innovation Testing a Methodology Sumbul Ahmad 1 , Scott C. Chase 2 University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom http://personal.strath.ac.uk/{sumbul.ahmad/, s.c.chase/} 1 sumbul.ahmad@strath.ac.uk, 2 s.c.chase@strath.ac.uk Shape grammar transformations have been used for developing new design styles by the systematic modifcation of grammars that encode existing styles. We make use of a style description scheme to aid grammar transformations for goal driven style change. A rule base was authored for the design of Greek temple facades, and was augmented with a style description scheme. These were tested at a student workshop wherein students were asked to develop grammars based on given style briefs. Results gained from the workshop confrmed that most students were able to assemble and transform grammars successfully. The method was found to be useful for teaching style and grammars to students and novice designers. Keywords: Design grammars; style; generative design; teaching. Introduction The notion of style is of special relevance in con- temporary design and architecture due to its re- lationship with identity and image making, as it signifies a distinct design language unique to a particular architect, place or source, with spe- cific characteristics that distinguish it from other designs. It has been a common practice in design felds such as architecture to develop new design styles by adapting previous ones. Such needs of style ad- aptation and innovation may be addressed by mak- ing use of the method of grammar transformations, which allow the adaptive reuse of previous design styles encoded by grammar rules (Knight, 1994). Grammar transformations are also signifcant since they make possible the use of grammars beyond a single application. Our previous work outlined the development of a style description scheme for a grammar. The de- scription scheme was developed by specifying the style characteristics of the primitives and spatial rela- tions existing in grammar rules using polar adjectival pairs (Ahmad and Chase, 2006). In this paper we demonstrate how grammar transformations may be facilitated as a response to changes in design style objectives with the help of a style description scheme. We make use of an ex- ample of Greek temple façade style. A rule base was developed and augmented with a style description scheme. These were tested at a two-stage student workshop organised at the Department of Architec- ture, University of Strathclyde.