Parametric thinking

Parametric Thinking is the influence of engaging in a thinking process that links, relates and outputs calculated actions to generate solutions to problems, rather than simply seeking them. It has its origins in the design fields of; urban design, architectural design, interior design, industrial and furniture design. The process is associated with Parametricism a style within contemporary avant-garde architecture, promoted as a successor to post-modern architecture and modern architecture.

Parametric thinking emerged as a theory-driven design education, project and delivery movement in the early 2010s, with its earliest practitioners harnessing and adapting the then new parametric design software and other advanced computational processes that had been introduced within architecture and related design fields. In the architecture education context in 2011 professors of the schools of architecture Jonathon Anderson, Ming Tang, Maria Vera, Shai Yeshayahu respectively of University Of North Carolina Greensboro, University of Cincinnati, Southern Illinois University along with David Karle and Brian Kelly of University of Nebraska published advocacy for a paradigm shift in design education. "it is crucial to develop a series of correlated systems that can be synchronized and applied to and from multiple instances (i.e. contexts, drawings, models...). Beginning design studios are the ideal place, a breeding ground of sorts for introducing such complex ideologies and developing programs needed for a new generation of designers that will be able to seek solutions from information processing or reasoning, rather than intuition. By cognitively engaging with the environment and not by simply acting on it, we are empowering new practitioners to radically change the future of design. A no boundary approach to designing systems lends itself to processes that parallel those of parametric thinking." "Parametric thinking may be the defining elements of rationalization that forms our beginning design students' future"

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