Procedural Modelling of Traditional Balinese Settlements

Traditional Balinese Architecture is known for its extensive rules at both, the microscopic and the macroscopic level, ranging from the design of entire villages to single building elements. These rules are preserved in century old palm leaves, so-called lontars, and were put into practice by the Undagi (traditional “architect”) according to the needs of the owner of the building who provides the bodily proportions to parameterize the building rules. These traditional rules lend themselves to the transformation for procedural modelling with design grammars. In architecture design grammars have been used in several examples (e.g. variations of possible Palladian villas, Chinese traditional architecture, historic reconstruction of Rome). Procedural urban modelling appeared more recently with software tools like the CityEngine which have expanded the idea of design grammars and allow for rapid generation of architectural models and entire urban structures of a specific contemporary or historical style. Typically, composition rules are derived by analysing the outer appearance of architectural representations, and lead to formalistic design patterns. The presented approach focuses on the underlying principles of Balinese architecture as well, and tries to formalize design rules reflecting the following concepts: hierarchy of space, cosmological orientation, balanced cosmology, human scale and proportion, open air “court” concept, clarity of structure, truth of materials. As these concepts are adaptable to location as well as the owner, a parametric, rule-based digital model seems well suited to aid this complex design process. A proof of concept was implemented in the CityEngine. This contribution is intended to be a prototypical 3D reconstruction of traditional Balinese settlements, thus helping to understand and preserve the architectural heritage of Bali.