Flexible Design and Its Effect on Developing the
Urbanism and Architecture, A Comparative Study of
Parametric Design and Its Role in Promoting the
Development of Regionalism in Design

Waleed Hussein Ali Hussein
Faculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt

This research study by Waleed Hussein Ali Hussein focuses on parametric design as a leading global trend in many fields, including simulation, locomotion, industrial design and, most importantly, architecture and urbanism. Parametric design allows for seamless and simultaneous interaction and configuration in architecture.

Based on established mathematical principles and rules that can be controlled and managed to produce what is known as ‘free architecture’, parametric design makes it possible to adjust design architectural components at the interior, exterior or urban levels.

Flexible design technology, or modular design technique, (the term that most accurately defines how it functions), can be applied to the most minute design details and to all benchmarks. This technology has transformed architectural and urban design thinking and done away with many of the conditions that restrict creativity in architectural design. It has created a design methodology that emphasizes and is inspired by nature.

However, in spite of the technology’s capacity for interaction, simulation and creativity, it has to date not been to promote local architectural and urban heritage in the Arab World.

This, despite the fact that computational designs date back to the golden ages of the Pharaohs and Islam when design regulations and codes were first developed, producing delicate ornamentation and intricate shapes, assembled together to produce and interact with an entire architectural unit, as in the case of Islamic architecture.