Shape

59 Background
without ‘‘agreement about the nature of the data.’’ You can call this science or not as
you please. It’s entirely inconsequential. It’s calculating either way. Everyone knows
that shape grammars are quirky, even unconventional as Batty implies. You put up
with them. But there’s surely another reason I haven’t heard any grumbling about
units. Their absence is overlooked. The assumption that there are units is so firmly
rooted—it’s automatic for calculating—that no one bothers to ask what shape grammars
do. Or maybe they work so magically without units that no one cares. The results
are spellbinding. Some things are difficult to see if you don’t know how to look, even
when they’re right in front of your eyes. You need the rule and have to apply it. That’s
the reason for this book—to show how embedding makes it practicable to calculate
with shapes that aren’t given using units or symbols, and how calculating in this way
includes creative design.