Interestingly, the earliest applications of shape grammars were in an area and for a purpose quickly dropped and not taken up again for a number of years. The first published paper on shape grammars by Stiny and Gips in 1972   illustrates shape grammars for original languages of paintings. The published theses of Gips and Stiny both from 1975 , and the joint Stiny and Gips book Algorithmic Aesthetics from 1978 , also illustrate the shape grammar formalism with original grammars for paintings. The shape grammars in these works are embedded in aesthetic systems for interpreting and evaluating works of art.

Stiny and Gips do not explore or explain the genesis of the original grammars they give in their early works. A specific approach for creating original grammars “from scratch” was first proposed in 1980 by Stiny in his paper, “Kindergarten grammars: designing with Froebel’s building gifts” . Stiny examines the kindergarten method of Frederick Froebel and its analogy in the studio method of designing, and then proposes a computational alternative to these mostly intuitive methods. He uses Froebel’s building blocks in the many simple and elegant shape grammars and designs created with this approach. These shape grammars are the first defined in a three-dimensional space, laying the groundwork for three-dimensional architectural grammars to come.

Stiny’s kindergarten programme for creating original grammars lay dormant for several years while analytic applications of shape grammars grew quickly. In papers beginning in 1992 , Stiny’s programme was taken up by Knight in an expanded approach for creating both shape grammars and color grammars of restricted types. The approach is simple enough to be grasped by nontechnically-oriented designers, yet rich enough to serve as the starting point for complex, sophisticated designs. Knight has put this programme into practice in graduate architecture courses taught at UCLA and MIT.

With Knight’s programme, the development of a shape grammar begins with a vocabulary of shapes and spatial relations between shapes. Spatial relations constrain the ways that vocabulary elements may be combined with one another. They are simple compositional ideas and are the key to shape grammars. They provide contexts for adding and subtracting shapes to create designs. In theory, shapes and spatial relations can be anything at all and are limitless in number. In practice, the constraints of a design problem (site, economic or functional requirements, for example) and the constraints the designer brings to the problem (style or design philosophy, for example) motivate the selection of particular shapes and spatial relations. Thus, the shapes and spatial relations used to compute designs often have implicit meanings and functions in the same way that, in a conventional design process, the lines a designer puts down on paper have meanings.

Spatial relations are explored through additive and subtractive shape rules. Additive rules are used to define simple shape grammars, called basic grammars. Basic grammars generate all of the simplest designs possible with one or more given spatial relations. They are defined by marking or labeling additive rules in different ways according to symmetry properties of the shapes in the rules. The basic grammars so defined apply recursively to generate different designs by instantiating the same spatial relations under different spatial transformations as directed by labels.

An example of the development of basic grammars and designs is shown to the right. A vocabulary of pillars and a spatial relation between two pillars is defined. Additive and subtractive rules that add and subtract pillars in accordance with the spatial relation are given. The pillar added in additive rule is labeled in sixteen different ways according to the sixteen operations in the symmetry group of the pillar. Each different labeling defines a different basic grammar and design.

In classroom teaching, basic grammars are presented in a linear, stage-by-stage way. In design projects, though, students develop grammars in nonlinear ways that correspond to traditional studio design processes. Shapes, spatial relations, and rules are continually modified and redefined until the designs generated satisfy the general goals of a project. These designs are then fine-tuned by detailing basic grammars to produce more complex grammars, or by using traditional studio methods. Below are three design projects developed with basic grammars. Simple spatial relations between three-dimensional shapes are the basis for these projects.

additive rule

subtractive rule

additive rule labeled in 16 different ways

development of basic grammars and designs