Can planning be a research paradigm in architectural design?

Abstract In the present paper we discuss the possible use of ‘planning’ ° to support architectural design. Architectural design is conceived as a process incorporating non-trivial subprocesses consisting of evolutionary sequences of drawings. The ‘planner’ can be viewed as a tool capable of managing the automatic development of formal descriptions of architectural objects, according to goals and constraints which are interactively assigned or removed by the designer. The main features of a ‘planner’ dedicated to architectural design are then put forward. The system has been implemented at the University of Ancona, Italy.