Unpacking the Cultural DNA of Traditional Chinese Private Gardens Through Mathematical Measurement and Parametric Design

Abstract

Traditional Chinese private gardens have unique cultural significance for the world’s architectural and landscape heritage. To compliment the existing qualitative understandings in the field, this chapter presents a computational approach to unpacking the DNA of this important cultural heritage—capturing and applying the essential spatial characteristics of traditional Chinese private gardens—through mathematical measurement and parametric design. The chapter demonstrates that the computational approach is applicable and effective, through the analysis and generation of two different categories of traditional Chinese private gardens—with Yuyuan Garden and Wangshiyuan Garden as the typical historical example for each category respectively.