Abstract

The goal is a computer simulation of architectural creative performances, with a particular emphasis on randomness. Those aspects of design that do not fall under the category of problem solving have been simulated. The feasibility of simulation requires the existence of a general descriptive analysis of the creative process. Such an analysis argues that the creative process should unfold at levels that involve the discussion of how that which is not becomes. Three major levels, corresponding to the trilogy of saturation, incubation and illumination, are discussed: negation, imagination and crystallization. ;The first step is the longing for that which is not. The quest for the not is no more than a search for an identity, for an end of a duality between a subject and an object. But nothingness is not an absence of being; rather, it is defined as a privation of an empirical nature. The creative content is not therefore an empty receptacle but an object of consciousness. ;The second step, namely imagination, is the activity of forming ideas of things that are not present to sense-perception. To long for that which is not is to be able to account for the meaning of ideas that are not presently related to existing facts or events. This is illustrated by the three major operations of remembering, guessing and expecting. ;To subsume imagination under the power of memory is not to argue that to imagine is to remember, but to remember in a certain way. A distinction is thus made between direct imagination and indirect imagination. Through techniques such as diversified retrieval and random juxtaposition, indirect imagination enhances creativity by making memory negate its functions of habitual storage and recall. ;The last step of the creative process is crystallization. The essential principle of this operation is to select one content and give it a definite form. This step consists in establishing a relationship between ideas that are not apparently related and binding them with a thread of unity. The fulfillment of crystallization is consequent upon the ability to think in metaphors, the promotion of insight and the exercise of judgement