Module 2 - Helvepolis

Object-oriented urban design-framework for Processing
In this module, we become urban planner, architect and flaneur at once! We formulate our own algorithmic building-law and examine the effects in our artificial cities! Our goal is no less than building rome in a day. We are exploring the diversity and the potential of cities via scripting. Data abstraction, encapsulation, modularity, polymorphism, and inheritance are brought to urban design.

This module is a six-week introduction to programming using the Processing language. The objective was to create a generative city - Helvepolis. In the first weeks, students concentrated on building a common city-engine platform. They began bottom-up by first defining an object 'wall opening', which could be a door, window, facade element etc. Then 'wall', 'floor' and 'roof' objects were added, leading to the specification of house and building prototypes.

At this point students split into groups and focused on the cities' urban design strategies. A number of different approaches were implemented - ranging from an camera-controlled interactive city, to a city built of voxels, to a city engine that configures cities based on topological information downloaded from NASA's servers.

Short videos from each of the groups are presented below, followed by a link to further images.