Who cares about right angles? Overcoming barriers in creating rectangularity in layout structures

Abstract

This paper examines methods for the generation of structures that exhibit rectangularity. Rectangularity in architectural and urban structures can be traced to various reasons, including facilitating the design process, since the use of rectangular geometry limits both the space of possible solutions and the operations necessary to search the solution space. With the help of computer-based methods it becomes possible to explore huge solution spaces, however most existing methods stick to traditional concepts for the generation of geometric structures, such as the use of predefined elements (rectangles). These approaches do not take into account geometric irregularities which the structure to be generated may be subject to. In this paper we present a method that makes it possible to create a nearly rectangular structure within a freely definable boundary.