Narratives in Generative Architectural Design: Exploring Sequential Functions and Usage

Architecture still excludes users despite decades of increased attention towards the designing of built environments to accommodate all. Partially, this grand problem is due to the uncertainty and plurality of future usage, which challenge architects in identifying potentially excluding mechanisms of their designs. Common approaches in responding to these challenges are either top-down assessment of architecture, or bottom-up collection of situated accounts from users. However, both approaches face dilemmas in developing representations of usage. This paper presents a framework that integrates qualities of both approaches using user-narratives and a rule-based generative algorithm to generate libraries of designs that each depict potential usage reflecting the narrative of users. The aim is to give architects and other decision makers tools to conceptualise the future usage of their design as plural and diverse. The presented framework is at an early stage of development. However, the principles proposed could hold potential to mitigate exclusion by explicating multiple potential use-events.