Computational design is often presented in pure technical terms without an understanding of the logic and theory behind the process. For example, it is frequent to go to lectures or presentations, whereby the presenter will demonstrate how to do XYZ in a particular software. However, this results in only a superficial understanding of computational design and further undermines its adoption, as it is portrayed as a tool rather than as a philosophy of design. This articles seeks to address this issue through the (brief) explanation of common terminology used in computational design. The terms have been loosely grouped them into six taxonomies: Geometry, mathematical algorithms, natural systems, computation, process and fabrication.
Geometry
Minimal surface
A minimal surface is a surface that locally minimizes its area. This is equivalent to having a mean curvature of zero. The term ‘minimal surface’ is used because these surfaces originally arose as surfaces that minimised…