Mission Statement

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ShemaLab  is a design research group focusing on the integration of generative design strategies with numerical analyses and user-behavior data using an Multi Agent Systems (MAS) approach.  The work investigates how we can develop  computational design methodologies, from design to construction, which integrates design generation (synthesis) with simulation (prosomoiosis) and materialization (ylopoiesis) and allows for continuous data flow between design phases via feedback loops. One the group’s core objectives is to explore the value of the emergent, non-standard, and geometrically intricate in a data driven design context. Through a series of research experiments we explore different form generation strategies by: a) modelling requirement into multiple design agencies and b) coupling with optimization techniques. Our vision is to to enable architects and building designers to search larger solution spaces, aid their decision making and ultimately steer complex yet energy efficient design strategies via the combined used of environmental, structural analyses with behavioral spatio-temporal data.

The Lab has been created by Evangelos Pantazis, as a platform for disseminating research work that has been developed by with a group of  collaborators, which consist of Ph.D students and assistant professors  with backgrounds in Architecture, Civil Engineering  and Computer Science. SchemaLab is located at the department of Civil and Environmental  Engineering / Viterbi School of Engineering and is supervised by:Dr. David J. Gerber

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Schema : noun, (pl.schemata |-mətə| or schemas) Origin: form,figure ,from Greek schêma (σχήμα)(origin: < 1790-1800).
-In Engineering:
A representation of a theory in the form of a model: a schema of an agent based design methodology.
-In Artifical Intelligence:
Template which identifies a subset of strings with similarities at certain string positions. Schemata are a special case of cylinder sets; and so form a topological space.
-In Computer Programming:
An underlying organizational pattern or structure; the structure of a database system.
-In Kantian philosophy:
A conception of what is common to all members of a class; a general or essential type or form.
-Lab:
noun, (pl. labs or laboratories) informal for a laboratory: a scientific-research lab.