Ning Gu
School of Architecture and Built Environment,
University of Newcastle, Callaghan
NSW 2309, AUSTRALIA

Designs in 3D virtual environments (by the author)

3D virtual environments (3DVE) are networked environments designed using the place metaphor. As Computer-aided Architectural Design (CAAD) tools, they have shown promising potentials in areas such as design simulation, distant team works, and interdisciplinary design collaboration. This paper presents Generative Design Grammars (GDG) for dynamic and autonomous design in 3DVE. GDG extend the current design grammar research by providing an integral framework with powerful agent reasoning and design simulation components that automate and optimise the generative design process. For designers, the emergence of generative design tools such as GDG offers cutting-edge technologies to exploit alternative ways of designing; but at the same time imposes new challenges, redefining their roles in design.

About the author
Dr. Ning Gu is a lecturer at the School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle in Australia. He has been researching and teaching in a broad area of architectural and design computing. His research, specifically works on Virtual Architecture, Generative Design, Computer-supported Collaborative Design and Building Information Modelling (BIM), have been published extensively in international refereed journals and conferences. He received his Ph.D. in Architecture at the University of Sydney, Australia and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University. He has supervised and participated in numerous Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation (CRC-CI) projects. As a digital architect, his main design interest is to explore the potentials of the virtual and the digital as well as their relations to the physical. He has published conceptual designs of virtual and digital architecture. He has also implemented a wide variety of virtual environments for e-commerce, online learning, design collaboration and other research purposes.

The correct citation for this paper is:
Ning Gu, "A Grammar for Dynamic and Autonomous Design in 3D Virtual Environments", pp. 11-22 in Nexus VII: Architecture and Mathematics, ed. Kim Williams, Turin: Kim Williams Books, 2008.