CARTESIAN BY FORMAS: anything to 3D. A new form of spatial intelligence for design

A photograph, a sketch, or a few simple volumes can become the beginning of a complete design investigation. CARTESIAN brings spatial intelligence into that process: trained agents develop proposals, reason about relationships and constraints, and explore how things can be assembled and made.

Generative AI and deterministic methods work together. Generation opens possibilities; geometric construction, measurement, and validation connect them to dimensions, material behaviour, structural requirements, and spatial purpose. Questions of reuse, material reduction, fabrication complexity, and cost become part of developing the design.

This is generative continuity: carrying design intent, relationships, and knowledge through successive transformations, while keeping uncertainty visible and the designer in control.

Through CARTESIAN case studies spanning interiors, architecture, and urban design, the lecture explores the connection between agentic reasoning and real-world action: from images to editable models, sketches to 3D printing,ideas to CNC, and existing materials to new uses.

The broader promise is access: enabling more people to explore complex design problems in three dimensions, with intelligence supporting the journey toward meaningful, resource-conscious things we can make.

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