Parametric Landscapes

Parametric Landscape
Meanings (from the particular to the general)
1. A landscape is designed taking parameters into account, when these are understood and identified a priori, i.e. as variables that in different degrees configure the project, so that the variations of parameters necessarily alter the project.
2. Landscapes designed with 3D parametric software (such as Grasshopper plug in with Rhinoceros).
3. Environment resulting from the application of parametric methods or parametric-based programs. This last definition is general and includes any product of parametric design. As such, it is similar to other terms such as "financial landscape", which broadly and metaphorically refers to the set of existing financial tools and contexts.
Parametric Landscape follows a trend that was previously inaugurated by the terms Parametric Architecture and Parametric Urbanism, as can be seen in the 2006 Architectural Association brief by Patrik Schumacher "SWARM URBANISM" (see below). http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/aadrl/ABOUT/DOWNLOADS/parametric_urbanism_briefs/parametric_urbanism_briefs.pdf
"Parametric Urbanism takes the paradigm and tools of parametric design into the domain of urbanism. The power of parametrics is usually exploited to cope with the rapid succession of design changes, i.e. for its ability to produce variations of a single building, or to generate versions of building components for a complex building geometry that does not allow for the repetition of elements. Parametric Urbanism suggests that these techniques of versioning can be applied to an array of buildings, so that a new version does not replace an older version but instead comes to join and extend the field of simultaneous versions in building up a complex urban field."
While the concept of landscape, especially since the Industrial Revolution, tends to acquire its own autonomy, pursuing a differentiation from other disciplines such as Architecture and Urban Planning (in both its aspects of planning and design), the history of the parametric as an autonomous discipline is much more recent, and is closely related to the concept of programming.

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