Houdini Systematic
Architecture
Technology
Experiments
2025
Houdini, Python, Unreal Engine, Blender, Adobe Creative
This project explores architecture not through conventional industry tools, but through alternative software environments that offer more dynamic and systemic possibilities.
By leveraging Houdini's procedural logic and simulation capabilities, the work repositions architectural design as a system of emergent behavior, rather than static form-making. The intent was not simply to use unfamiliar software, but to reveal the architectural agency embedded within it—how flows, parameters, and procedural rules can drive form in ways traditional CAD tools cannot.
Through this shift, the project questions what architecture can become when treated as a computational system—one that is iterative, rule-based, and deeply integrated with code. The result is a speculative yet structured design language, built not from orthographic control, but from generative systems thinking.
Procedural Verticality: Data-Driven Structures in Houdini
This scene illustrates a procedural architecture experiment in Houdini, where vertical forms are generated based on attribute-controlled point data. Using VEX scripting inside an Attribute Wrangle, the system defines polylines that rise along the Y-axis from point positions, creating dense, data-driven vertical extrusions. The network on the right reveals a structured approach combining volume trails, point replication, and VDB processing to translate spatial logic into geometry. Rather than modeling predefined shapes, this method enables architecture to emerge as a dynamic response to spatial parameters. It reflects a shift from static form-making to generative spatial thinking—treating code as a tool for structural logic.
This system uses VEX-based vertical tracing and voxel processing to generate structurally driven geometry.
Volume attributes are remapped to isolate fragmentation zones, enabling precise blast and extrusion control.
The result is a procedural framework that fuses spatial logic with programmable fracture behavior.
This series showcases high-density system design experiments using Houdini. Each node controls the data flow of specific architectural components, organizing hierarchical relationships and division logic through code-based processes. Elements such as columns, slabs, and interior walls are precisely positioned using Attribute Wrangle and Ray SOPs, while Boolean and Connectivity operations manage destructive details and spatial interactions. This complex system decomposes intricate forms into modular units and reassembles them into a unified structure. The entire setup is visually organized at the UI level, offering a scalable framework ideal for large-scale procedural architectural design.
Architecture as System: Designing Beyond Form into Structure and Narrative
This project explores a fully procedural architectural workflow in Houdini, generating and deconstructing components such as walls, slabs, columns, and structural frames through autonomous logic networks.
Each system operates with distinct rules—driven by attributes, remapping, and dynamic fragmentation—allowing for controlled complexity and emergent spatial behavior.
The pipeline culminates in animation caching and FBX output, enabling integration into broader production environments. This approach moves beyond static outcomes, treating architecture as a designed system of interactions.
Should architectural design not only shape form, but also technically orchestrate systems that carry richer and more diverse narratives?
