George Stiny

George Stiny is a Professor of Design and Computation in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), focusing on Architecture and Design. He joined the MIT Department of Architecture in 1996 after fifteen years on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Educated at MIT and UCLA, where he received a PhD in Engineering, Stiny has also taught at the University of Sydney, the Royal College of Art in London, and the Open University. He is a member of the Computation Group in the Department of Architecture and serves on the editorial boards of Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design and Languages of Design.

Stiny is a leading theorist of design and computation, best known for co-creating shape grammars with James Gips. Shape grammars are formal systems that use rules to generate and analyze designs in fields such as architecture, painting, and sculpture. His research emphasizes the invention and refinement of shape grammars, the critique of conventional computer-aided design systems, and the computational foundations of seeing and interpreting shapes. Key publications include "Shape Grammars and the Generative Specification of Painting and Sculpture" (1972, with J. Gips), "Pictorial and Formal Aspects of Shape and Shape Grammars" (1975), "Algorithmic Aesthetics: Computer Models for Criticism and Design in the Arts" (1978, with J. Gips), "Introduction to Shape and Shape Grammars" (1980), "Kindergarten Grammars: Designing with Froebel's Building Gifts" (1980), "Shape: Talking about Seeing and Doing" (2006), and "Shapes of Imagination: Calculating in Coleridge's Magical Realm." At MIT, Stiny teaches courses including Introduction to Shape Grammars I, influencing computational design education.

Professional Email: stiny@mit.edu