The Influence of Parametric Design Tools on Increasing Creativity in the Furniture Design Process

Authors: Shalaw Hamza Hamad¹ & Husein Ali Husein^2
1Architectural Department, Faculty of Engineering, Tishk International University, Erbil, Iraq
²Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Salahaddin University, Erbil, Iraq

Abstract: This paper tries to investigate the influence of parametric design tools on increasing creativity of furniture designers, hence the most difficult issue for a designer is the creative thinking and bringing new ideas into life. The methodology of this paper is to make a protocol analysis to find criteria of creativity based on the reviewed literature, then create a measurement scale based on these criteria to evaluate the creative aspects of parametric design furniture’s, and a comparison study has been made between parametric design furniture designed with geometrical model-based design. A survey prepared and distributed among 30 architects who had experience in furniture design to assess the creativity level of each furniture which contained three categories (chairs, shelves, and built-in furniture). The participants were 22 males and 8 females. From analyzing results, we can find that 65.38 % of the participants said they have used parametric design tools in the average of (3 years’ experience) while the other 34.62 % said they didn’t use it before. 92.31 % from the respondents think that parametric design increases creativity, and the rest disagrees. The results of the first part show that participants rated the selected parametric furniture based on criteria of creativity as following: For Originality 4/5, aesthetic 4/5, Function 3.5/5, elegancy 4/5, and Innovation 4/5. While the second part of the survey which a comparison; the median for parametric furniture’s creativity level was 4 while the median for geometric based modelled was 3. From the results, we can conclude that parametric design tools indeed help designers to do creative designs more than geometric based design tools. For future studies, we suggest investigating the role of parametric design in the interior design process in total, hence we only studied its influence on the furniture design process.

keyword: Parametric Design, Creativity, Design Process

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doi: 10.23918/eajse.v6i1p199

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