The study of imaginary worlds in this design studio case study is limited to motion pictures that postulate unique, or new environments rather than those films that faithfully attempt to document or reconstruct reality. In this sense, the movies used for study have a lineage traceable to Georges Melies "who came to film from illusionism and the "heater," rather than to the reality of the Lumiere brothers who came from photography which ultimately would lead to "cinema-verite."

Discussions, assignments and presentations in the studio are organized to provide students with an opportunity to gain a different awareness of architecture and use varying stimuli as source material for design. The study of architectural history, art, formal principles of design, visual perception, and media are required in order to complete the reconstructions and creations of proposed environments.

All student work throughout the entire semester is created with electronic media and the computer is used as an integral component of the studio enabling analysis and study, design, model creation, and animation. The available capabilities of computer graphics in the studio enables students to explore analytic and synthetic issues of design in motion pictures in a manner not readily available when restricted to traditional media. Through the use of digital media we have an opportunity to better understand the imaginary worlds for what they communicate and the ideas they contain, and therefore create an opportunity to modify our own concept of architecture.

Most of the studies done for the effective use of this potential of computer aid in architectural design assert that the way architects design without the computer is not "familiar" to the way architects are led to design with the computer. In other words, they complain that the architectural design software does not work in the same way as the architects think and design the models in their brains. Within the above framework, this study initially discusses architectural design as a modeling process and defines computer generated simulations (walkthrough, flythrough, virtual reality) as models. Based on this discussion, the "familiarity" of architectural design and computer aided design is displayed. And then, it is asserted that the issue of familiarity should be discussed not from the point of the modeling procedure, but from the "trueness" of the model displayed.

Therefore, it is relevant to ask to what extent should the simulation simulate the design model. The simulation, actually, simulates not what is real, but what is unreal. In other words, the simulation tells lies in order to display the truth. Consequently, the study proposes measures as to how true a simulation model should be in order to represent the design model best.

The experimental use of various media is of major Importance for architects. Nevertheless, the author of this article is convinced that architects and designers will continue to make physical models. During the design process. however, the designer might wish to transfer the design idea into the computer. If he has already made a physical model, it will take him much time to recreate the same model on the screen by means of his CAD programs. This would be different if it were possible to digitize the existing physical model and then to continue designing on the computer. In this paper, the author describes some 3D-scanning methods based, on computer tomograms. Also the inverse combination of modeling and digitizing would be useful. So-called 3D-printing methods could help architects to transform their model on the screen into physical models during or at the end of the computer supported design process.

In this paper, the author will give a survey on how designers can use input and output devices to generate digital data from a physical model and - vice versa - to transform a digital design solution into a physical model. The reader will get an impression of both procedures from the examples given.

These all are dealing with the material world, for which the tools of computer science are highly appropriate. But what will happen to the immaterial world? How can we put these immaterial values into a computers model? Or can the computer be creative as a human being? Early developments of computer science in the field of architecture involved two-dimensional applications, and subsequently the significance of the third dimension became manifest. Nowadays, however, people are already speaking of a fourth dimension, interpreting it as time or as dynamics. And what, for instance, would a fifth, sixth or X-dimension represent?

In the future we will perhaps speak of the fifth dimension, comprising the tangible qualities of the building materials around us. And one day a sixth dimension might be created, when it will be possible to establish direct communication with computers, because direct exchange between the computer and the human brain has been realised. The ideas of designers can then be processed by the computer directly, and we will no longer be hampered by obstacles such as screen and keyboard. There are scientist who are working to realize bio-chips. If it will work, perhaps we can realise all these speculations. It is nearly sure that the emergence of new technologies will also affect our subject area, architecture and this will create fresh challenges, fresh concepts, and new buildings in the 21st century. The responsibility of the architects must be, to bear in mind that we are dealing with the well-being and the prosperity of mankind.

How is the research situation? Using several standard research data banks, the author collected articles and book(chapter)s on architectural psychology in German- and English-language countries from 1990 to 1996. Studies on main architecture-psychology interface problems such as user needs, housing quality evaluations, participatory planning and spatial simulation / virtual reality did not outline an “old, settled” discipline, but rather the sketchy, random surface of a field “always starting anew”. E.g., discussions at the 1995 EAEA-Conference showed that several architectural simulation studies since 1973 caused no major impact on planner's opinions (Keul&Martens, 1996). “Re-inventions of the wheel” are caused by a lack of meetings (except this one!) and of interdisciplinary infrastructure in German-language countries (contrary to Sweden or the United States). Social pressures building up on architecture nowadays by inter-European competition, budget cuts and citizen activities for informed consent in most urban projects are a new challenge for planners to cooperate efficiently with social scientists. At Salzburg, the author currently manages the Corporate Design-process for the Chamber of Architecture, Division for Upper Austria and Salzburg. A “working group for architectural psychology” (Keul-Martens-Maderthaner) has been active since 1994.