4.208 Spring 2002

COMPUTATIONAL MODELS OF CREATIVE DESIGN: THEORY AND APPLICATIONS

Instructor: John Gero
jgero@mit.edu

Thursdays 9-11am Room N51-348

This page contains: Session Outlines; Assignments and Readings

SESSION OUTLINES

Session 1: 6 February
How do we want this course to be run? What outcomes are we seeking?
Formal notions of designing: the FBS framework, creativity, where is the creativity

This session lays the groundwork for what follows; it describes the function-behavior-structure framework; introduces concepts of computational creativity

Session 2: 14 February
Representation and processes: Design spaces. First principles, combination and transformation as processes in creative designing

Introduces the notion of design spaces and how creative processes can be assessed. We start to look at the effects of representation and then at some basic processes that can be used in supporting strategic creative designing processes

Session 3: 21 February
Emergence as a process in creative designing

Seeing what wasn't put there; what is emergence; models of emergence; visual emergence; non-visual emergence

Slides: Emergence

Session 4: 28 February
NO SESSION

Session 5: 7 March
Emergence with shape grammars

Shape grammars provide an elegant formalism for certain forms of visual emergence that play a role in creative designing.

Session 6: 14 March
Analogy – I

Introduces the foundational concepts of analogy and its use in case-based designing

Session 7: 21 March
Analogy – II

Extends analogy to distant analogies where analogies are drawn from domains unconnected with that of the current design; looks beyond structure-based analogies

Slides: Distant Analogies

Session 8: 4 April
Evolution – I

Introduces computational model of evolutionary system as a form of combination and extends it with the use of concepts from genetic engineering to produce potentially creative results

Slides: Genetic Engineering

Session 9: 11 April
Evolution – II

Computational models of evolutionary systems provide a framework for combination of elements, to make them creative requires new forms of combination that can produce novel results

Slides: Genetic Interpolation

Session 10: 18 April
Evolution – III

Co-evolution allows both the design and the specifications that design is attempting to satisfy to evolve together

Session 11: 25 April
Situated cognition and constructive memory

Situated cognition takes the view that “where you are when you what you do matters; constructive memory argues that memory is not a thing in a place but a process; situated cognition combined with the concepts of constructive memory provide the basis of a new approach to designing that forms the basis situated computational creativity

Session 12: 2 May
S-creativity, situated emergence, situated analogy

A new descriptor of creativity is introduced – s-creativity, emergence and analogy are re-examined through the lens of situatedness

Slides: Situated Creativity

Session 13: 9 May
Societal creativity through agent-based communities

Creativity may be viewed as having a social component, here we look at creative design  agents and how they can form communities producing societal creativity

Slides: Social Creativity

Session 14: 15 May
No session

ASSIGNMENTS

Assignment 1
Discuss, (using references) in no more than 1500 words, where the creativity might be in designs and designing.

Due: 21 March 2002, emailed as a Word document to jgero@mit.edu

Assignment 2
What questions about creativity and computational creativity are raised by the computational models of emergence and analogies that are in the readings?

Due: 25 April 2002, emailed as a Word document to jgero@mit.edu

Assignment 3
Human c
reativity can be informed by computational models of creativity and be augmented by artificial creativity. It is claimed that creativity is:
(1) in the process,
(2) in the product and/or
(3)
in the society within which processes and products occur.
Using material from the course and from the readings present arguments for and against each of these three views.
Conclude with your position as to the potential role of artificial creativity in designing supported by arguments.

Due: no later than 26 May 2002, emailed as a Word document to jgero@mit.edu. Note the due date has had to be changed from that discussed in class (and yes, I know it is a Sunday).

READINGS

Books

Bentley, P and Corne, D (eds) (2001) Creative Evolutionary Design, Morgan Kaufman, San Francisco

Boden. MA (1990) The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanism,  Cardinal, London

Clancey, WJ (1997) Situated Cognition: On Human Knowledge and Computer Representations, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Csikszentmihalyi. M (1996) Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Harper Collins, New York

Dartnall, T (ed.) (1994) Artificial Intelligence and Creativity, Kluwer, Dordrecht

Gero, JS and Maher, ML (eds) (1993). Modeling Creativity and Knowledge-Based Creative Design, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey

Gero, J. S. and Maher, M. L. (eds) (1999) Computational Models of Creative Design IV, Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, University of Sydney, Sydney

Gero, JS and Maher, ML (eds) (2001) Computational and Cognitive Models of Creative Design V, Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, University of Sydney, Sydney

Articles

Many of these can be found at http://www.arch.su.EDU.AU/~john/publications.html

Gero, JS (1990) Design prototypes: a knowledge representation schema for design, AI Magazine, 11(4): 26-36

Gero, JS (1994) Computational models of creative design processes, in T Dartnall (ed.) Artificial Intelligence and Creativity, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 269–281

Gero, JS (1996) Creativity, emergence and evolution in design: concepts and framework, Knowledge-Based Systems  9(7): 435-44

Gero, JS (1998) Adaptive systems in designing: new analogies from genetics and developmental biology, in I. Parmee (ed.), Adaptive Computing in Design and Manufacture,  Springer, London, pp.3-12

Gero, JS (1998) Towards a model of designing which includes its situatedness, in H. Grabowski, S. Rude and G. Grein (eds), Universal Design Theory, Shaker Verlag, Aachen, pp. 47-55

Gero, JS (1999) Constructive memory in design thinking, in G. Goldschmidt and W. Porter (eds), Design Thinking Research Symposium: Design Representation, MIT, Cambridge, pp. I.29-35

Gero, JS (2001) Mass customisation of creative designs, in S Culley, A Duffy, C McMahon and K Wallace (eds), Design Research – Theories, Methodologies and Product Modelling, Professional Engineers Publishing, London, pp. 339-346

Gero, JS and Damski, J (1997). A symbolic model for shape emergence, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 24: 509-526

Gero, JS and Kazakov, V (1999) An extrapolation process for creative designing, in G. Augenbroe and C. Eastman (eds), Computers in Building, Kluwer, Boston, pp. 263-274

Gero, JS and Kazakov, V (2000) Adaptive enlargement of state spaces in evolutionary designing, AIEDAM 14(1): 31-38

Gero, JS and Kazakov, V (2001) A genetic engineering extension to genetic algorithms, Evolutionary Systems 9(1): 71-92

Gero, JS and Kulinski, J (2000) A situated approach to analogy in designing, in B-K. Tang, M. Tan and Y-C. Wong (eds), CAADRIA2000, CASA, Singapore, pp. 225-234

Gero, JS and Maher, ML (1992) Mutation and analogy to support creativity in computer-aided design, in G. N. Schmitt (ed.), CAAD Futures '91, Vieweg, Wiesbaden, pp. 261-270

Jun, H and Gero, JS (1998) Emergence of shape semantics of architectural shapes, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 25(4): 577-600

Kulinski, J and Gero, JS (2001) Constructive representation in situated analogy in design, in B de Vries, J van Leeuwen and H Achten (eds), CAADFutures 2001, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 507-520

Qian, L and Gero, JS (1996) Function-behaviour-structure paths and their role in analogy-based design, AIEDAM 10:289-312

Saunders, R and Gero, JS (2001) Designing for interest and novelty: Motivating design agents, in B de Vries, J van Leeuwen and H Achten (eds), CAADFutures 2001, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp.725-738

Schnier, T and Gero, JS (1998). From Frank Lloyd Wright to Mondrian: Transforming evolving representations, in I. Parmee (ed.), Adaptive Computing in Design and Manufacture, Springer, London, pp. 207-219

Suwa, M, Gero, JS and Purcell, T (1999) Unexpected discoveries and s-inventions of design requirements: A key to creative designs, in J. S. Gero and M. L. Maher (eds), Computational Models of Creative Design IV, Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, pp. 297-320