Additionally, this type of component model construction for the production of technical drawings offers a unique bridge over the gap between the practice of architecture and the teaching of architecture. Rather than teaching students how to "do working drawings," something all practitioners wish the academic institutions did, students would develop the ability to design, integrate, and construct complex three-dimensional assemblies and present them in a variety of ways using the standard sections, layers, view, etc. inherent in any reasonable threedimensional computer based modeling system.

A building while being designed can be visualized and criticized from its solid model, and the model can take a variety of forms depending on its part): computer-based, drawn in orthographic or perspective projection, constructed of cardboard or wood, or described narratively by means of text, programmatic data, performance model or animation. However, practicing architecture is the process of recording and communicating the decision making process and the contractual obligations that result. In actual practice, in contrast to the designer directed ideal, more participants are brought in sooner at the beginning of a project and with more publicity, which in turn means keeping more, not fewer, records. As the profession evolves, records of the string of design decisions will become more automated, more carefully structured and more retrievable. More buildings will be "tracked" and exposed to review in this way because public environmental sensitivity will improve. The communication between a single designer and his own thoughts will become less and less important.

In 1992-93, in the Department of Architecture of the 'School of Architecture and interior Design' at the University of Cincinnati, a curriculum committee was formed to review and modify the entire architecture curriculum. Since our profession and academia relate directly to each other, the author felt that while revising the curriculum, the committee should have factual information about CAD usage in the industry. Three ways to obtain such information were thought of, namely (1) conducting person to person or telephone interviews with the practitioners (2) requesting firms to give open- ended feed back and (3) surveying firms by sending a questionnaire. Of these three, the most effective, efficient and suitable method to obtain such information was an organized survey through a questionnaire. In mid December 1992, a survey was organized which was sponsored by the School of Architecture and Interior Design, the Center for the Study of the Practice of Architecture (CSPA) and the University Division of Professional Practice, all from the University of Cincinnati.

This chapter focuses on the results of this survey. A brief description of the survey design is also given. In the next section a few surveys organized in recent years are listed. In the third section the design of this survey is presented. The survey questions and their responses are given in the fourth section. The last section presents the conclusions and brief recommendations regarding computer curriculum in architecture.

This study describes a system that has been developed to address a number of these issues. Based on research findings from the field of Artificial Intelligence which expounds on the need for multiple techniques to represent any complex area of knowledge, we have selected a particular approach that focuses on multiple techniques for design representation. We review this approach in depth by considering its many facets necessary when implementing a knowledge-based system. We then partially test the viability of this approach through a small case study, implementing a knowledge-based system for designing stairs. While this effort only deals with a small part of the total design process, it does explore a number of significant issues facing the development of computer-based design assistants, and suggests several techniques for addressing these concerns.