designwithcomputer:

Over the last couple of years I have been involved on a number of projects whereby a parametric model has its variables optimised to given, sometimes multi-objective, performance criteria. The key word here is ‘objective’ in that the subjective aspects of the design have already been decided upon…

Physical form, according to D’Arcy Thompson, is the resolution at one instant of time of many forces that are governed by rates of change. In the urban context the complexity of these forces often surpasses human comprehension. A machine, meanwhile, could procreate forms that respond to many hereto un-manageable dynamics. Such a colleague would not be an omen of professional retirement but rather a tickler of the architect’s imagination, presenting alternatives of form possibly not visualized or not visualizable by the human designer .

— Nicholas Negroponte. The Architecture Machine. Cambridge : MIT Press, 1970

1970 FLATWRITER [Yona Friedman]
1979 84 Generator [Cedric Price]
In Generator, Price’s collaborator John Frazer found the germ of an idea that would shift his  concepts of computer-aided design toward one where the computer took an  active, not a passive role.
(via Arqueología del Futuro: V11 DISEÑO PARAMETRIZADO Y COMPUTERIZADO)