02 · Computational City Design

CCD
A DESIGNER-DRIVEN CITIES TOOLKIT.

WhatA custom Grasshopper plugin for parametric urban design — from street networks and parcels to land use and massing.

WhereDeveloped in-house at SOM through internal R & D, deployed across the City Design Practice globally.

RoleCo-developer & technical lead — object model, UI, metrics, analysis components.

FIG. 01 / CCD FEATURE SETGEOMETRY GENERATION · METRICS AND ANALYSIS

/01Overview

Computational City Design (CCD) is a custom Grasshopper plugin developed in-house by SOM — a comprehensive set of parametric components for urban design, from site creation and street networks to parcels, lots, land use assignment, and massing generation with real-time metrics and 2D analysis.

/ Restricted

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CCD enables designers to rapidly prototype and iterate on urban plans using a node-based visual programming workflow within Rhino / Grasshopper. Using object-oriented programming, each object of the urban form is imbued with parameters unique to that object — from blocks and parcels to footprints and massing.

The tool allows users to draw the street centerline grid, allocate open space, parcelize buildable blocks into Lots, assign land use, generate footprints, and extrude massing. Each step generates geometry and metrics in real time, allowing for rapid extraction of metrics at any scale — building, lot, parcel, neighborhood, or district.

/ Philosophy

CCD is not a generative tool that scores and ranks options for you. It is a designer-driven approach — you make the decisions, and the tool adapts in real time.

Human judgment at the center

02 · Driving Parameters

Driving Parameters, Metrics, & Analysis.

FIG. 02 · INPUTS → OPTIONS → METRICSSTREET GRID · LAND USE · FOOTPRINT · HEIGHT

03 · Density Studies

Balancing density & open space.

SCHEME 01 · HIGH-RISE MIXED-USE

METRICS

SCHEME 02 · MID-RISE PERIMETER

METRICS

SCHEME 03 · LOW-RISE COURTYARD

METRICS

SCHEME 04 · VILLAGE / WATERFRONT

METRICS

04 · CCD UI

A dynamic UI for interacting with the object model.

/ Notes

CCD UI is a custom Windows Forms–based parametric design environment embedded inside Grasshopper / Rhino. Designers interact through structured card-based parameter panels — each component opens a dedicated floating window with labeled input rows, dropdowns, sliders, and live-updating viewer panes.

CCD UI introduces interactive parcel selection and modification in the viewer, live 2D plan compositing, massing block placement via drag-and-drop, and SVG export from any viewer panel.