Introduction to Flow Builder

Traditionally, Giraffe draws geometry with a usage, generating nice little block-and-stacks. It is simple and can be pretty expressive:

overlaps,

cantilevers,

or even ziggurats.

Ultimately block-and-stacks are very simple geometries. The generative design editor in Giraffe takes simple geometries, like a cube or a line, and turns them into complex geometries, like apartment blocks, using a dendrogram system.

Taking queues from software like Grasshopper, Giraffe makes generative design straightforward via the dendrogram, a tree-like diagram with branches. The power of Giraffe's generative algorithms is design decisions are still in the hands of human designers, who are now empowered to control complexity through an intuitive and highly-visual editor interface.

Under the hood, Giraffe builds a way of composing these algorithms that take something simple and turn it into something complex. The challenge is to make generative design accessible to people who don't want to know what a generative editor is or what a dendrogram is. You just want to start editing and changing your designs on the fly, and Giraffe supports that simplicity.

From parks with trees

To avenues

To apartment complexes

To subdivisions

Or anything you can imagine

This is an astonishingly effective way of designing. We can't wait to see what you come up with.