Cumincad : CUMINCAD Papers : Search Results

CumInCAD is a Cumulative Index about publications in Computer Aided Architectural Design
supported by the sibling associations ACADIA, CAADRIA, eCAADe, SIGraDi, ASCAAD and CAAD futures

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_id	cf2011_p035
id	cf2011_p035
authors	Langenhan, Christoph; Weber Markus, Petzold Frank, Liwicki Marcus, Dengel Andreas
year	2011
title	Sketch-based Methods for Researching Building Layouts through the Semantic Fingerprint of Architecture
source	Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures 2011 [Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures / ISBN 9782874561429] Liege (Belgium) 4-8 July 2011, pp. 85-102.
summary	The paper focuses on the early stages of the design process where the architect needs assistance in finding reference projects and describes different aspects of a concept for retrieving previous design solutions with similar layout characteristics. Such references are typically used to see how others have solved a similar architectural problem or simply for inspiration. Current electronic search methods use textual information rather than graphical information. The configuration of space and the relations between rooms are hard to represent using keywords, in fact transforming these spatial configurations into verbally expressed typologies tends to result in unclear and often imprecise descriptions of architecture. Nowadays, modern IT-technologies lead to fundamental changes during the process of designing buildings. Digital representations of architecture require suitable approaches to the storage, indexing and management of information as well as adequate retrieval methods. Traditionally planning information is represented in the form of floor plans, elevations, sections and textual descriptions. State of the art digital representations include renderings, computer aided design (CAD) and semantic information like Building Information Modelling (BIM) including 2D and 3D file formats such as Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) (IAI, 2010). In the paper, we examine the development of IT-technologies in the area of case-based reasoning (Richter et al., 2007) to provide a sketch-based submission and retrieval system for publishing and researching building layouts including their manipulation and subsequent use. The user interface focuses on specifying space and their relations by drawing them. This query style supports the spatial thinking approach that architects use, who often have a visual representation in mind without being able to provide an accurate description of the spatial configuration. The semantic fingerprint proposed by (Langenhan, 2008) is a description and query language for creating an index of floor plans to store meta-data about architecture, which can be used as signature for retrieving reference projects. The functional spaces, such as living room or kitchen and the relation among on another, are used to create a fingerprint. Furthermore, we propose a visual sketch-based interface (Weber et al., 2010) based on the Touch&Write paradigm (Liwicki et al., 2010) for the submission and the retrieval phase. During the submission process the architect is sketching the space-boundaries, space relations and functional coherence's. Using state of the art document analysis techniques, the architects are supported offering an automatic detection of room boundaries and their physical relations. During the retrieval the application will interpret the sketches of the architect and find reference projects based on a similarity based search utilizing the semantic fingerprint. By recommending reference projects, architects will be able to reuse collective experience which match the current requirements. The way of performing a search using a sketch as a query is a new way of thinking and working. The retrieval of 3D models based on a sketched shape are already realized in several domains. We already propose a step further, using the semantics of a spatial configuration. Observing the design process of buildings reveals that the initial design phase serves as the foundation for the quality of the later outcome. The sketch-based approach to access valuable information using the semantic fingerprint enables the user to digitally capture knowledge about architecture, to recover and reuse it in common-sense. Furthermore, automatically analysed fingerprints can put forward both commonly used as well as best practice projects. It will be possible to rate architecture according to the fingerprint of a building.
keywords	new media, case-based reasoning, ontology, semantic building design, sketch-based, knowledge management
series	CAAD Futures
email
last changed	2012/02/11 19:21

_id	caadria2008_22_session3a_180
id	caadria2008_22_session3a_180
authors	Li, Li; Jingwen Gu, Jing Ma
year	2008
title	A solution of geometric security based on autoCAD
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.caadria.2008.180
source	CAADRIA 2008 [Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia] Chiang Mai (Thailand) 9-12 April 2008, pp. 180-184
summary	There are numerous electronic blueprints used in engineering today. The geometric security of these blueprints is a big problem to be solved. Based on the research on CAD system mechanics, this paper gives a solution that makes geometric access and use secure,, and gives an implementation on AutoCAD system. It designs a new encryption system compatible with the built-in encryption according to the exploration of variants and commands mechanism in AutoCAD system, and the analysis of structure of drawing database. The solution provides a safe access to files for different level users, and it places the control of edit authority on special geometrics via adding customized objects which contains authority information and password to the graphic information database.
keywords	geometric security, order mechanism, customized object
series	CAADRIA
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:59

_id	cdc2008_229
id	cdc2008_229
authors	Asut, Serdar
year	2008
title	Rethinking the Creative Architectural Design in the Digital Culture
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 229-234
summary	This paper tries to examine the effects of emerging digital tools in architectural design. Digital tools are not only practical instruments used for drawing, but they also affect design thinking. As the ones that are used in architectural design are mostly commercial, one can say that design thinking, the identity of the design and the creativity of the designer are defined by the companies which develop these tools. Therefore architects have to be able to manipulate these tools and personalize them in order to free their design thinking and creativity. This paper addresses the open source development in order to redefine creativity in architecture of digital culture.
keywords	Design Tools, Digital Culture, CAD Software, Open Source
email
last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	ascaad2012_003
id	ascaad2012_003
authors	Elseragy, Ahmed
year	2012
title	Creative Design Between Representation and Simulation
source	CAAD \| INNOVATION \| PRACTICE [6th International Conference Proceedings of the Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design (ASCAAD 2012 / ISBN 978-99958-2-063-3], Manama (Kingdom of Bahrain), 21-23 February 2012, pp. 11-12
summary	Milestone figures of architecture all have their different views on what comes first, form or function. They also vary in their definitions of creativity. Apparently, creativity is very strongly related to ideas and how they can be generated. It is also correlated with the process of thinking and developing. Creative products, whether architectural or otherwise, and whether tangible or intangible, are originated from ‘good ideas’ (Elnokaly, Elseragy and Alsaadani, 2008). On one hand, not any idea, or any good idea, can be considered creative but, on the other hand, any creative result can be traced back to a good idea that initiated it in the beginning (Goldschmit and Tatsa, 2005). Creativity in literature, music and other forms of art is immeasurable and unbounded by constraints of physical reality. Musicians, painters and sculptors do not create within tight restrictions. They create what becomes their own mind’s intellectual property, and viewers or listeners are free to interpret these creations from whichever angle they choose. However, this is not the case with architects, whose creations and creative products are always bound with different physical constraints that may be related to the building location, social and cultural values related to the context, environmental performance and energy efficiency, and many more (Elnokaly, Elseragy and Alsaadani, 2008). Remarkably, over the last three decades computers have dominated in almost all areas of design, taking over the burden of repetitive tasks so that the designers and students can focus on the act of creation. Computer aided design has been used for a long time as a tool of drafting, however in this last decade this tool of representation is being replaced by simulation in different areas such as simulation of form, function and environment. Thus, the crafting of objects is moving towards the generation of forms and integrated systems through designer-authored computational processes. The emergence and adoption of computational technologies has significantly changed design and design education beyond the replacement of drawing boards with computers or pens and paper with computer-aided design (CAD) computer-aided engineering (CAE) applications. This paper highlights the influence of the evolving transformation from Computer Aided Design (CAD) to Computational Design (CD) and how this presents a profound shift in creative design thinking and education. Computational-based design and simulation represent new tools that encourage designers and artists to continue progression of novel modes of design thinking and creativity for the 21st century designers. Today computational design calls for new ideas that will transcend conventional boundaries and support creative insights through design and into design. However, it is still believed that in architecture education one should not replace the design process and creative thinking at early stages by software tools that shape both process and final product which may become a limitation for creative designs to adapt to the decisions and metaphors chosen by the simulation tool. This paper explores the development of Computer Aided Design (CAD) to Computational Design (CD) Tools and their impact on contemporary design education and creative design.
series	ASCAAD
email
more	http://www.ascaad.org/conference/2012/papers/ascaad2012_003.pdf
last changed	2012/05/15 20:46

_id	ecaade2008_183
id	ecaade2008_183
authors	Fricker, Pia; Wartmann, Christoph; Hovestadt, Ludger
year	2008
title	Processing: Programming Instead of Drawing
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.2008.525
source	Architecture in Computro [26th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 978-0-9541183-7-2] Antwerpen (Belgium) 17-20 September 2008, pp. 525-530
summary	The following paper essentially focuses on the innovative use of an open-source programming language, called ‘Processing’, in the architecture curriculum and the development of a line of teaching beginning with Processing and ending with object-oriented programming in Java. This represents one creative possibility through which students are able to overcome the typically difficult step of learning a programming language and simultaneously learn how to apply it as a design tool.
keywords	CAAD curriculum, CAAD research, User Participation in Design, Programming instead of Drawing
series	eCAADe
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:50

_id	caadria2008_52_session5a_426
id	caadria2008_52_session5a_426
authors	Kaga, Atsuko; Yasuko Matsunaga, Kenichi Sakai, Tomohiro Fukuda
year	2008
title	Construction of a design support system for the public space design in which a citizen participates: The interactive design system in a workshop
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.caadria.2008.426
source	CAADRIA 2008 [Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia] Chiang Mai (Thailand) 9-12 April 2008, pp. 426-432
summary	Workshops are held with local residents’ participation as one technique by which residents plan roads and places along a route. Because residents without special knowledge participate in such workshops, it is necessary to show the contents intelligibly so that all participants might grasp the plan contents and examine them. Moreover, for community planning workshops, because the time during which they can be held is restricted, within that time, plan- related information must be organized efficiently for rapid examination and searching of its contents. As an interactive system, a real-time simulation (RS) is sought that allows rapid drawing and that has a structure to display the contents of a plan using a three-dimensional space model in real time. The purpose of this research is to build a system that supports environmental space design, which uses RS in the workshop, and which is applicable for evaluation of an actual street space maintenance plan.
series	CAADRIA
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:52

_id	sigradi2008_186
id	sigradi2008_186
authors	Spallone, Roberta
year	2008
title	Questions of graphic standardization in the teaching of Computer Aided Architectural Drawing
source	SIGraDi 2008 - [Proceedings of the 12th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics] La Habana - Cuba 1-5 December 2008
summary	In this paper I want to present some considerations about graphic standards applied to CAD drawing and object of teaching in I Faculty of Architecture of Polytechnic of Turin. They concern both the specific formats of CAD’s software (as the layers, the file naming…) and the relationship between Italian and European Graphic Standards (UNI and ISO) and CAD systems of representation about the line thicknesses, the text styles and dimensions, the scales, the material renditions… Aim of the research is to introduce the students of the first year of Architecture to the problems of drawing standards applied to the architectural design. With regard to layer standards were analyzed in particular the “AIA CAD Layer Guidelines” related to the “University of Kansas Layer Standard”. Starting from these two sources I have synthesized the format of an architectural scale drawing (1:200-1:50) in a limited number of layers, useful for beginners both in architecture and in CAD. With regard, for example, to material renditions, were compared the “Basic conventions for representing areas on cuts and sections”, proposed by UNI ISO, with the hatches offered by software, and were selected and customized the most useful in architectural drawing. The results of this work, partial and continuously updated, consist of a series of proposals oriented to optimize the students’ method of CAD drawing, complying with the existent graphic standards.
keywords	Graphic standards, Teaching, Architectural design drawing
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 10:01

_id	sigradi2008_179
id	sigradi2008_179
authors	Toloudi, Zenovia
year	2008
title	Architectural Brand valuations through a tag-based learning machine.
source	SIGraDi 2008 - [Proceedings of the 12th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics] La Habana - Cuba 1-5 December 2008
summary	Brand is a set of associations related to an object from a particular source (Libai 2008). Such an object can be a product, person or service. Architecture is both service and product. However architectural Branding has never been clearly defined. This probably happens due to the lack of tools to measure the architectural Brand. This paper explores a direction to evaluate the architectural Brand by using computational methods in order to offer a better understanding regarding the awareness, reputation and prominence of the architectural firm. The methodology is based on case studies in which the brands of different types of architectural firms are analyzed, measured and compared to each other through a two-part process: a. the development of one tool to statistically measure the architectural Brand and b. the interpretation of the results of the measurements. a. Learning machine In order to make these brand measurements within a specific group of people or images, this paper develops an interactive tool that uses an image database. The tool constitutes a learning machine; it makes a hypothetic hierarchical categorization of the image database into + and – using an initial sample and it proposes to the user the first image of the list; finally, the user validates the image by confirming or not the machine’s guess. In this image database, each image is described as an array of attributes (tags). Tags can be generated either by the architectural firm itself or can emerge by users. b. Evaluation of results This interactive, user-friendly tool is drawing a user’s preference by proposing similar images from the database based on a learning process from the user input (initial sample and feedback); alternatively, it can be used as a questionnaire for quantitative research. Moreover, this tool categorizes photos of similar content. This research focuses on the following issues as parameters of the effectiveness of the process: o Simplicity of the database organization through computation. o Top-down Vs. Bottom-up tagging of works/ images mechanism. o Future use of the image database. o Transformation of the image database while becoming larger. o “Market” segmentation or not. o Combination of the tool with other Brand measurement tools. o Combination of the tool with other image databases. The outcome of this approach can provide an analysis and metric of the brand strength of different architectural firms. Furthermore, it can help architectural firms to understand better how they are perceived by others in order to improve their brand image and associations.
keywords	Branding, learning machine, image database, attribute, tag
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 10:01

_id	sigradi2018_1359
id	sigradi2018_1359
authors	Bertola Duarte, Rovenir; Ziger Dalgallo, Ayla; Consalter Diniz, Maria Luisa; Romão Magoga, Thais
year	2018
title	A window to the autism: the political role of the difference of an objectile in the homogeneous school
source	SIGraDi 2018 [Proceedings of the 22nd Conference of the Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics - ISSN: 2318-6968] Brazil, São Carlos 7 - 9 November 2018, pp. 848-853
summary	This paper approaches the insertion of an objectile in the homogeneous space of a school, looking to bring flexibility and responsiveness to assist a user with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The research concerns with photosensitivity, a problem faced by almost 25% of the children with autism (Miller-Horn; Spence; Takeoka, 2011). The study is based on the theories for ASD environments that speak of ‘sensorial perception’ and ‘thinking with imagery’ (Mostafa, 2008), and the coexistence of Sensory Design Theory and Neuro-Typical Method (Pomana, 2015). The result consists of a gadget developed in MIT App Inventor tool and a curtain that interact responsively through an Arduino code, for a new connection between the user and his surroundings.
keywords	Objectile; Responsive Architecture; Architecture and autism; ASD; Inclusive school
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2021/03/28 19:58

_id	cdc2008_377
id	cdc2008_377
authors	Conrad, Erik
year	2008
title	Rethinking the Space of Intelligent Environments
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 377-382
summary	Technologies are not mere exterior aids but interior changes of consciousness that shape the way the world is experienced. As we enter the age of ubiquitous computing, where computers are worn, carried or embedded into the environment, we must be careful that the ideology the technology embodies is not blindly incorporated into the environment as well. As disciplines, engineering and computer science make implicit assumptions about the world that conflict with traditional modes of cultural production. Space is commonly understood to be the void left behind when no objects are present. Unfortunately, once we see space in this way, we are unable to understand the role it plays in our everyday experience. In this paper, I argue that with the realization of the vision of ubiquitous computing, the fields of computer science and engineering reify the dominance of abstract space in real space. A new approach to the design of computing systems is necessary to reembody space. The social nature of the interface allows us to situate it within Henrí Lefebvre’s notions of space, providing new tools for thinking about how computing practice engages space as well as opening avenues to rematerialize the environment through embodied interaction.
email
last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	cdc2008_279
id	cdc2008_279
authors	Jensen, Ole B.
year	2008
title	Networked mobilities and new sites of mediated interaction
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 279-286
summary	This paper takes point of departure in an understanding of mobility as an important cultural dimension to contemporary life. The movement of objects, signs, and people constitutes material sites of networked relationships. However, as an increasing number of mobility practices are making up our everyday life experiences the movement is much more than a travel from point A to point B. The mobile experiences of the contemporary society are practices that are meaningful and normatively embedded. That is to say, mobility is seen as a cultural phenomenon shaping notions of self and other as well as the relationship to sites and places. Furthermore, an increasing number of such mobile practices are mediated by technologies of tangible and less tangible sorts. The claim in this paper is, that by reflecting upon the meaning of mobility in new mediated interaction spaces we come to test and challenge these established dichotomies as less fruitful ways of thinking. The paper concludes with a research agenda for unfolding a ‘politics of visibility’, engaging with the ambivalences of networked mobilities and mediated projects, and critically challenge of taken for granted interpretations of networked mobilities.
email
last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	acadia08_286
id	acadia08_286
authors	Khan, Omar
year	2008
title	Reconfigurable Molds as Architecture Machines
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.acadia.2008.286
source	Silicon + Skin: Biological Processes and Computation, [Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) / ISBN 978-0-9789463-4-0] Minneapolis 16-19 October 2008, 286-291
summary	In The Architecture Machine (1970), Nicholas Negroponte postulates the development of design machines wherein the “design process, considered as evolutionary, can be presented to a machine, also considered as evolutionary, and a mutual training, resilience, and growth can be developed.” The book, dedicated to “the first machine that can appreciate the gesture,” argues for developing machines with human like qualities. This paper aims to develop an alternative trajectory to the “evolutionary” architecture machine, this time not towards anthropomorphism but responsiveness. The aim on one level is the same: to create machines that appreciate the gesture. However our approach is tied to more modest aims and means that bring current thinking on evolutionary processes and the forming of materials together. The reconfigurable mold (RCM) is an architecture machine that produces parts that can be combined to create more complex organizations. The molds are simple analog computers that employ various continuous scales like volume, weight and heat to develop their unique components. Parametric alterations are made possible by affecting these measures in the process of fabrication. An underlying material that is instrumental in the molds is rubber, whose variable elasticity provides unique possibilities for indexing the gesture that remains elusive for industrial processes.
keywords	Casting; Digital Fabrication; Generative; Material; Morphogenesis
series	ACADIA
last changed	2022/06/07 07:52

_id	cdc2008_149
id	cdc2008_149
authors	Kolarevic, Branko
year	2008
title	Post-Digital Architecture: Towards Integrative Design
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 149-156
summary	In this paper, an alternative vision of integrated design is proposed that is more open, fluid, pliable, and opportunistic in its search of collaborative alliances and agendas. This alternative approach is referred to as integrative design, in which methods, processes, and techniques are discovered, appropriated, adapted, and altered from “elsewhere,” and often “digitally” pursued. The designers who engage design as a broadly integrative endeavor fluidly navigate across different disciplinary territories, and deploy algorithmic thinking, biomimicry, computation, digital fabrication, material exploration, and/or performance analyses to discover and create a process, technique, or a product that is qualitatively new.
last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	ecaade2008_006
id	ecaade2008_006
authors	Marin, Philippe; Bignon, Jean-Claude; Lequay, Hervé
year	2008
title	Integral Evolutionary Design, Integrated to Early Stage of Architectural
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.2008.019
source	Architecture in Computro [26th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 978-0-9541183-7-2] Antwerpen (Belgium) 17-20 September 2008, pp. 19-26
summary	This paper deals with the architectural design process and the digital tools able to support a creative activity. Evolutionary devices are expected to support the architect in the initial phase of his work in progress and to stimulate his creativity through analogical thinking. An experimental tool is described, this one is using a genetic algorithm to explore the solution space, and it is based on both solar passive qualities and subjective interaction.
keywords	Architectural design process, evolutionary design, genetic algorithm, analogical thinking, environmental parameters
series	eCAADe
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:59

_id	caadria2020_242
id	caadria2020_242
authors	Martin Iglesias, Rodrigo, Voto, Cristina and Agra, RocÃo
year	2020
title	Design in the Age of Dissident Cyborgs - Xenofuturism as caring-curing practices
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.caadria.2020.2.233
source	D. Holzer, W. Nakapan, A. Globa, I. Koh (eds.), RE: Anthropocene, Design in the Age of Humans - Proceedings of the 25th CAADRIA Conference - Volume 2, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 5-6 August 2020, pp. 233-240
summary	This paper synthesizes several years of research in the field of the theory of architecture and design, and its subsequent undergraduate and graduate teaching. Specifically, it is a work that reflects on how architecture and design should face the three most important paradigmatic phenomena of our present and near future. Paradigms as things we think with, rather than as things we think about (Agamben, 2008), or in other words, it matters what ideas we use to think of other ideas (Strathern, 1992). These phenomena refer to environmental, technological and anthropological aspects, and the strategies to cope with them, involving alternate design thinking and practice in which futurabilities and futurizations depart from the displacement generated by post-utopian visions based on dissidence and subalternity.
keywords	Chthulucene; Cyborg Design; Dissident Futures; Futurization; Xenofuturism
series	CAADRIA
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:59

_id	caadria2008_57_session6a_472
id	caadria2008_57_session6a_472
authors	Prats, S. Lim, M.; S. Chase, S. Garner
year	2008
title	Sketching in Design: Formalising a Transformational Process
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.caadria.2008.472
source	CAADRIA 2008 [Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia] Chiang Mai (Thailand) 9-12 April 2008, pp. 472-478
summary	The process of sketching can support the sort of transformational thinking that is seen as essential for the interpretation and reinterpretation of ideas in innovative design (Suwa 2003). In this paper, the initial outputs and findings of an ongoing project called Design Synthesis and Shape Generation are described based on experimental investigations of the mechanics of sketching from practicing architects and industrial designers as they responded to a series of conceptual design tasks. Preliminary analyses of the experimental data suggest that the interactions of designers with their sketches can be formalised according to a finite number of generalised shape rules. These rules formalise the transformations and reinterpretation of shapes for example through deformation or restructuring.
keywords	Sketching; Exploration; Computer supported design; Shape rule
series	CAADRIA
email
last changed	2022/06/07 08:00

_id	ecaade2008_135
id	ecaade2008_135
authors	Riether, Gernot
year	2008
title	New Nomadism
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.2008.413
source	Architecture in Computro [26th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 978-0-9541183-7-2] Antwerpen (Belgium) 17-20 September 2008, pp. 413-418
summary	We live in a digital world. This article proposes using digital media to intensify our perceptions. An architectural navigation aid by coupling digital media with cognitive processes, a design process will be suggested that requires a shift in thinking from tool to media, from descriptive geometry to constructive geometry, and from stirring media to media that does the stirring.
keywords	Digital media, emergence, cognition, design process
series	eCAADe
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:56

_id	sigradi2008_180
id	sigradi2008_180
authors	Vincent, Charles
year	2008
title	Gulliver in the land of Generative Design
source	SIGraDi 2008 - [Proceedings of the 12th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics] La Habana - Cuba 1-5 December 2008
summary	The current trend in architectural design towards architectural computing has been treated both from a philosophical standing point and as an operational systems’ problem, in a quest for explications which could at last break ground for a more broad development and adoption of design tools. As Kostas Terzidis (2007) puts it, the intuitiveness that architects have put on so high a pedestal seems to be the central issue to be dealt with by both views. There seems to be no apparent shortcut toward the reconciliation between traditional practice and new media and most certainly it is not only a problem of interface design, but one of design method clarification and reinterpretation of those methods into computing systems. Furthermore, there’s no doubt left as to whether computing systems can generate such new patterns as to impact our own understanding of architecture. But even if computer algorithms can make possible the exploration of abstract alternatives to an abstract initial idea, as in Mathematica and Processing, the issue of relating abstract and geometric representations of human centered architecture lays in the hands of architects, programmers or, better yet, architect-programmers. What seems now to be the relevant change is that architectural design might escape from the traditional sequence embedded in the need – program – design iterations – solution timeline, substituted by a web of interactions among differing experimental paths, in which even the identification of needs is to be informed by computing. It is interesting to note that the computational approach to architectural design has been praised for the formal fluidity of bubbles and Bezier shapes it entails and for the overcoming of functionalist and serialization typical of modern architecture. That approach betrays a high degree of canonic fascination with the tools of the trade and very little connection to the day to day chores of building design. On the other hand, shall our new tools and toys open up new ways of thinking and designing our built landscape? What educational issues surface if we are to foster wider use of the existing technologies and simultaneously address the need to overtake mass construction? Is mass customization the answer for the dead end modern architecture has led us to? Can we let go the humanist approach begun in Renascence and culminated in Modernism or shall we review that approach in view of algorithmic architecture? Let us step back in time to 1726 when Swift’s ‘Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver’ was first published. In Swift’s fierce critic of what seemed to him the most outrageous ideas, he conceived a strange machine devised to automatically write books and poetry, in much the same generative fashion that now, three centuries later, we begin to cherish. “Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas by his contrivance, the most ignorant person at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politicks, law, mathematics and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study. He then led me to the frame, about the sides whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty foot square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficies was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a dye, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered on every square with paper pasted on them; and, on these papers were written all the words of their language in their several moods, tenses, and declensions, but without any order. The professor then desired me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work. The pupils at his command took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of words was entirely changed. He then commanded six and thirty of the lads to read the several lines softly as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn the engine was so contrived, that the words shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside down.” (Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, A Voyage to Balnibarbi) What astonishing forecast did Swift show in that narrative that, in spite of the underlying incredulity and irony, still clarifies our surprise when faced to what might seem to some of us just an abandonment of all that architects and designers have cherished: creativeness and inventiveness. Yet, we could argue that such a radical shift in paradigm occurred once when master builders left the construction ground and took seat at drafting boards. The whole body of design and construction knowledge was split into what now seem to us just specialties undertaken by more and more isolated professionals. That shift entailed new forms of representation and prediction which now each and all architects take for granted. Also, Cartesian space representation turned out to be the main instrument for professional practice, even if one can argue that it is not more than the unfolding of stone carving techniques that master builders and guilds were so fond of. Enter computing and all its unfolding, i.e. DNA coding, fractal geometry, generative computing, nonlinear dynamics, pattern generation and cellular automata, as a whole new chapter in science, and compare that to conical perspective, descriptive and analytical geometry and calculus, and an image begins to form, delineating a separation between architect and digital designer. In previous works, we have tried approaching the issues regarding architects education in a more consensual way. But it seems now that the whole curricular corpus might be changed as well. The very foundations upon which we prepare future professionals shall change, not only in College, but in High School as well. In this paper, we delve further into the disconnect between current curricula and digital design practices and suggest new disciplinary grounds for a new architectural education.
keywords	Educational paradigm; Design teaching; Design methods;
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 10:02

_id	cdc2008_129
id	cdc2008_129
authors	Breen, Jack and Julian Breen
year	2008
title	The Medium Is the Matter: Critical Observations and Strategic Perspectives at Half-time
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 129-136
summary	This paper critically re-views the professional impact and functionality of the pervasive digital ‘matter’ we have come to believe we can no longer do without. On the basis of a playful exploration of the first ‘half-century’ of our digital age, an attempt is made to draw new perspectives for the next ’level’ of our digital culture in a broader (multi)media perspective and more specifically: the domains of Architecture. To stimulate an open-minded ‘second-half’ debate, the paper puts forward some potentially promising (and hopefully provocative) conceptions and strategies for imaginative interface applications and game-based architectural study initiatives. Furthermore, the paper proposes the establishment of a new cultural platform for the exchange of Critical Digital hypotheses and the evolvement of visionary design concepts through creative digital innovation, with the (inter)active involvement of older and younger team-players…
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last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	sigradi2008_077
id	sigradi2008_077
authors	Briones, Carolina
year	2008
title	A collaborative project experience in an architectural framework, working with Open Source applications and physical computing [Diseño de Plataformas Digitales e Interactivas: una experiencia educativa trabajando colaborativamente con aplicaciones de Código Abierto y Computación Física]
source	SIGraDi 2008 - [Proceedings of the 12th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics] La Habana - Cuba 1-5 December 2008
summary	Nowadays, thanks to the telecommunication revolution and therefore the massive spread of Internet, we have seen the come up of international architectural offices with branches located in different continent, working in a collaborative fashion, surpassing physical and time frontiers. At the same time, the multidisciplinary work between designers, architects, engineers, programmers and even biologist, between others, have been taking place in the new network society. All transformations also supported by the arising of FOSS (Free Open Source Software) and the virtual communities behind them, which allow the creation of non-traditional or specific software, the association between disciplines, and also, the formation of meeting scenarios for a mixture of individuals coming up with multiple motivation to coexist in collaborative environment. Furthermore, it is possible to argue that Open Source applications are also the reflection of a social movement, based on the open creation and exchange of information and knowledge. Do the appeared of FOSS compel us to re-think our working and teaching methods? Do they allow new modes of organizing and collaborating inside our architectural practices?. This paper would like to address these questions, by presenting the results of the “Experience Design” course, which by implementing teaching methods based on Open Source principles and cutting-edge tools, seeks to approach students to these new “way of do”, knowledge and methodologies, and overall, focus them on the science behind the computer. This paper describes the “Experience Design” course, in which architectural graduate students of Universidad Diego Portales (Chile), put for first time their hands on the creation of interactive interfaces. By acquiring basic knowledge of programming and physical computing, students built in a collaborative way a responsive physical installation. The course use as applications “Processing” and “Arduino”. The first one is an Open Source programming language and environment for users who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It has a visual context and serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is a project initiated by Ben Fry and Casey Reas, at the MIT Media Lab (www.processing.org). The second is an Open Source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino has a microcontroller (programmed with Processing language) which can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators (www.arduino.cc). Both environments shared a growing community of people working in related projects and extending useful assistance for beginners. In this paper it is presented the current state of the pilot course and some of the initials results collected during the process. Students and teacher’s debates and evaluations of the experience have been exposed. Together with a critical evaluation in relation to the accomplishment of the effort of place together different disciplines in one collaborative project akin, architecture, design, programming and electronic. Finally, futures modifications of the course are discussed, together with consideration to take in account at the moment of bring Open Source and programming culture into the student curriculum.
keywords	Physical computing, teaching framework, Open Source, Interactive Installation
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:47

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