Victor Sardenberg

A walk through the latent space using computational aesthetics as a compass Authors: Victor Sardenberg, Igor Guatelli, Mirco Becker. Link to the paper here. Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) models produce a latent space where many new images emerge. These models translate vectors from a latent space of possible designs into actual images, introducing a new degree of variability to the concept of objectile. This research proposes applying a computational aesthetics framework to navigate the latent space and present the designer with new images for feeding their imagination. Theories of parts to whole from aesthetics and cognitive psychology are combined with Birkhoff’s aesthetic measure and computer vision to predict aesthetic preferences and map the latent space.

Paper here. Published in: 2023 Annual Modeling and Simulation Conference (ANNSIM). A computational framework is proposed to quantify the aesthetic experience of perceiving architecture. This framework is used as the criterion for navigating a design solution space. A parametric model's solution space is represented as a set of computer-generated images. We utilize computer vision to recognize parts and the relations between parts and the whole. These values are inserted into an adaptation of Birkhoff's aesthetic measure formula, calibrated via crowdsourced hedonic response. An artificial neural network (ANN) model is trained to predict the hedonic response of images using (A) parts relations as inputs and (B) the average hedonic responses as target outputs. The prediction of the ANN is used as a fitness function for optimization. The same public evaluates the parametric model's output to compare the ANN model's effectiveness in predicting their response. The method is useful in translating formal qualities into quantities and navigating solution spaces, especially with surrogate models. Keywords: Computational Aesthetics, Artificial Neural Networks, Computer Vision.

Design Computation Input/Output Conference 2022 - Online. Paper is available here. The presentation is available here. The existing methods for solution space navigation require numerical values to score solutions. The authors introduce a method of quantitative aesthetic evaluation utilizing Computer Vision (CV) as a novel criterion to navigate solution spaces. Therefore, aesthetics can complement structural, environmental, and other quantitative criteria. The work stands in the extended history of quantifying the visual aesthetic experience. Some precedents are: Birkhoff [1933] and Max Bense [1965] built an approach with experiments to empirically support a measure, whereas Birkin [2010], Ostwald, and Vaughan [2016] devised the first computational methods for evaluating vector graphics. Our research automates and accelerates aesthetic quantification by utilizing CV to extract computable datasets from images. We are especially keen on architectural images as a shorthand to assign an aesthetic value to design, aiming to navigate the solution space or design space in architecture [Woodbury, 2005]

Design Computing and Cognition'22 - Glasgow. Poster is available here. In this poster, the authors introduce a new visual, quantitative aesthetic measure utilising computer vision (CV). The work stands in the extended history of quantifying the visual aesthetic experience (Birkhoff 1933, Bense 1965, Birkin 2010, Oswalt and Vaughan 2016). Birkhoff and Bense followed an approach where empirical user experiments back up a theoretical measure, where Birkin, Oswald and Vaughan devised computational methods. Our work continues the computational approach by automating and accelerating aesthetic quantification using CV. We are specifically keen on architectural images as a shorthand to assign an aesthetic value to design, aiming to navigate the solution space in architecture.

Read it here. Computational Quantitative Aesthetics Evaluation: Evaluating architectural images using computer vision, machine learning and social media Victor Sardenberg & Mirco Becker This paper correlates two methods of aesthetic evaluation of architectural images utilising computer vision (CV) and machine learning (ML) for automating aesthetic evaluation: Calibrated aesthetic measure (CalAM) and aesthetic scoring model (ASM). From a database of images of proposals for a single location, users are invited to like or dislike it on social media to feed an ML model and calibrate an aesthetic measure formula (AMF). A possible application is to assist designers in making decisions according to the hedonic response given by users previously, enabling a faster way of popular participation. Keywords: Quantitative Aesthetics, Crowdsourcing, Aesthetic Measure, Computer Vision, Machine learning, Social Media

Watch the paper presentation here or read the paper here. The Hyphae House is a prototype that speculates about the application at 1:1 scale of Augmented Reality as a construction tool that replaces orthographic technical drawings as the means to communicate the architectural design to the construction site. It proposes the use of smartphones as the tool for the current digitization of the construction site to achieve complex geometry with local materials and workforce. It was built during the seminar I taught in Recife with Ana Luisa Rolim.

Video here! Paper here

Read it here! Drude, Jan Philipp; Sardenberg, Victor (2020) The preparation of food usually follows a recipe towards a tasty dish. While such a recipe is usually just a guideline for the person cooking a meal for themselves or family, it was sometimes raised to the status of a chemical formula in Taylorist modernism, leading to repeatable dishes branded as trademarks of food franchises. (Preble, 1993) However, taste changes; today’s consumer is more interested in options and customisable orders. This is underlined by a survey published in the Wall Street Journal, whereas only one in five millennials ever tasted a Big Mac®.(Jargon, 2016) The former flagship burger seems to get less important under ever changing seasonal features and a wider menu then in Taylorist times. The desire for customisability in the food industry can be seen from Coca Cola’s printing names on Coke cans, to ordering your custom cereals at mymuesly.com, or simply personalising your burger at the food delivery service of your choice. This paper tries to follow this trend to an extreme, proposing a computer game-like approach to collaboratively topping up a pizza1 in virtual reality (VR) and preparing it using an augmented reality (AR) guiding mechanism.  

Sardenberg, V. and Chnaiderman, B., 2019. Link in English! and Link in Portuguese!

Abstract: This article focuses on the Euro monument in Frankfurt am Main as a tool to understand the production of subjectivities in the present capitalocentric era through data construction and its digital reproduction. It explores what kinds of desires are being formed by people that share photos and selfies with the monument in social media and concludes with a depiction of how our new system of values centred in the generation of Capital is forging a new kind of subject.

Keywords: Capitalocentrism, Selfie, Monument, Euro, Subjectificities, Identities  

Generative Systems: Intertwining Physical, Digital and Biological Processes, a case study Gonçalo Castro Henriques, Ernesto Bueno, Daniel Lenz, Victor Sardenberg Read it here. The fourth Industrial Revolution is characterised by the computational fusion of physical, digital and biological systems. Increasing information in terms of size, speed and scope exponentially. This fusion requires improved, if not new, tools and methods to deal with complexity and information processing. By opening Generative Systems to interact with the context, we believe that they can develop solutions that are more adequate for our time. This research began with a literature review about generative systems and their application to solve problems. We then selected the tools, Cellular Automata, L-Systems, Genetic Algorithms and Shape Grammar, and thought about how to translate these original mathematical tools to specific design situations. We tested the application of these tools and methods in a workshop, implementing recursive loops to open these techniques to interference. Analysing the empirical results made us revise our design thinking, relying on the study of complexity to understand how these techniques can be more context-aware, so we can make design evolve. Finally, we present a comparative framework analyses that interlaces techniques and methods, so in the future we can merge physical, digital and biological information.

Victor Sardenberg, Theron Burger, Mirco Becker Link! The paper describes a research experiment of incorporating quantitative aesthetic evaluation and feeding the metric back into a parametric model to steer the search within the design space for a high-ranking design solution. The experiment is part of a longer-standing interest and research in quantitative aesthetics. A web platform inspired by dating apps was developed to retrieve an aesthetic score of images (drawings and photographs of architectural projects). The app and scoring system was tested for functionality against an existing dataset of aesthetic measure (triangles, polygon nets). In the actual experiment, an evolutionary algorithm generated images of design candidates (phenotypes) and used the aesthetic score retrieved by the ``crowd'' of app users as a fitness function for the next generation/population. The research is in the tradition of empirical aesthetics of G. T. Fechner (Fechner, 1876), using a web app to crowdsource aesthetic scores and using these to evolve design candidates. The paper describes how the system is set up and presents its results in four distinct exercises. Keywords: Quantitative Aesthetics, Social Media, Crowdsourcing, Collaborative Design, Human-Computer interaction

Read it here. LAMO seminar/workshop >> Em busca da forma, sistemas generativos (Form finding & generative systems) sought to deepen the theoretical and practical development of generative algorithms in design. It proposed to explore the advances of mathematics at the end of the 20^th century, namely information theory and general systems theory. These advances provided a new set of techniques to find design solutions. Although these techniques have already been applied in areas such as engineering, graphic design and urbanism —​given their mathematical and computational nature — their application in architecture is still scarce. This event sought to translate computational techniques, such as cellular automata, L-systems, genetic algorithms and shape grammars, for generative form finding tools. The idea was to understand through experimentation how these techniques can be applied to solve design problems. The event was preceded by a research and was supported by an international scientific committee, gathering a group of researchers experienced in the referred techniques. This article describes the methodology, studying the results, evaluating the potentialities and limitations of each technique, considering future developments.

www.politicsoftheground.com The Politics of The Ground is an ongoing critical and projective research on the political implications of how architectural objects touch the ground and its implication in the city and in the usage and legal statuses of it. This is a trial of how to approach and understand architecture looking through the history of the discipline and proposing new diagrams. This research took form as a visual essay while I was studying the course Introduction to Contemporary Arts and Politics at the Valand Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and now as a website for the occasion of The Katakombe conversation at the Staedelschule, Frankfurt, both in 2018.  

Matrix application processes for RoboFelt, a system of additive manufacturing needle-felted fiber composite structures Mirco BECKER*, Victor SARDENBERG*, Theron BURGER*

This is the catalogue of the exhibition ER-RE / Estranhando o Real - Realizando o Estranho curated by Victor Sardenberg, Breno Eitel Zylbersztajn and Adriana Xiclet and designed by Victor Nosek. It's available for sale worldwide at: CreateSpace and at Amazon and a Proof Read PDF can be found here. July 2017.    

A thesis paper submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts on Architecture and Urban Design at Städelschule Architecture Class, April 2016. Thesis advisor: Prof. Peter Trummer.  

The Unbuilt Beauties is a ongoing series of articles about extremely influential unbuilt architectural projects for the international online magazine Indechs.

Arquiteturas Avançadas (Advanced Architectures) is a weekly updated blog co-written by Victor Sardenberg and Affonso Orciuoli as part of Revista aU (aU Magazine) portal. The main topics are: New technologies, theory, computation, new materials, sustainability and actualities.

Read it! This book documents the intense ten-day workshop of the AA São Paulo Visiting School 2014, advanced computational design and digital fabrication were used to generate speculative new architecture models in the creation of a ‘liquid design’ that can mediate multiple-scale flows. The workshop explored the redevelopment of a bordering territory along the Marginal Rivers of São Paulo, where in the 1960’s, much of the water-system was disastrously canalized, causing problematic flooding and the creation of ill-conceived residual post-industrial riverbanks that are inhabited by monolithic, large-scale programs. The Visiting School São Paulo worked on bringing a new urban life for these sites by redefining the existing macro-architectural typologies along the river with micro-scale interventions to introduce new flows of urban street culture. Specifically, the workshop will focused on the reinvention of the Vila Leopoldina region around and including the large-scale market distribution center, CEAGESP (Companhia de Entrepostos e Armazéns Gerais de São Paulo), to introduce programs and structures that could mediate a new movement of people, commerce, and environmental forces using parametric design and fabrication. Students worked at various scales, from the urban to the architectural scale, bringing a new contemporary interface between agricultural production and consumption.

Read it here. 2nd Prize in "National Architectural and Urbanism Monograph Competition" ' Brazil. July, 2013

Booklet with the products of AA Infrastructure Padrão FIFA workshop. Link here. Centro Carioca de Design/Studio X – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America Tuesday 15 – Thursday 24 April 2014 The Architectural Association Visiting School Rio de Janeiro will collaborate with the Centro Carioca de Design with the support of Columbia University Studio X to investigate new possibilities for the urban infrastructure surrounding World Cup Stadiums. Nation-wide, there has been significant investment to build and renovate stadiums for the 2014 World Cup in order to meet the required standard FIFA regulations (‘Padrão FIFA’). At the same time, there has been a large public demand for equal investment into transport systems, public space, and public programs such as hospitals and schools. The Visiting School will tap into the momentum of this movement, and promote a series of interventions within and around the World Cup structures, proposing new public programs and standards for their legacy. Students can choose to focus directly on the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, the venue for the Final match of the World Cup. The intense ten-day workshop will employ computational design and digital fabrication to introduce a design methodology that creatively automates and promotes transformation, mutation and complexity for these infrastructure interventions.