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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Reformat results as: short short into frame detailed detailed into frame

_id	sigradi2008_103
id	sigradi2008_103
authors	Baltazar, Ana Paula; Maria Lucia Malard, Silke Kapp, Pedro Schultz
year	2008
title	From physical models to immersive collaborative environments: testing the best way for homeless people to visualise and negotiate spaces
source	SIGraDi 2008 - [Proceedings of the 12th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics] La Habana - Cuba 1-5 December 2008
summary	This paper describes an experiment to investigate the best way for lay people to use representation to visualise and negotiate space. It was motivated by our observations in workshops for digital inclusion in the context of a housing project for a homeless association. Computers were used to make it easier for the community to understand and change the spaces in real time. The first workshops proved that our approach was efficient as an exercise but not certainly effective concerning the understanding of spatial qualities. So we have designed an experiment to compare the usability of different media in participatory design processes. For that we have adapted the ‘Usability’ methodology, which is fully described in the paper. We started with three main questions. The first concerned the effectiveness of different media to represent spatial quality; the second concerned the best way for novices to approach space, whether by refurbishing a pre-existing space or by starting from the scratch; and the third concerned the effectiveness of negotiation by means of discourse and by means of or action. We also had two main hypothesis: one coming from research on digital environments and stereo visualisation, indicating that the more people feel immersed in the represented environment the more they are able to correlate it with physical space; and the other coming from our own observations in the participatory design workshops, in which the collective decision-making was manipulated by those people with more advanced communication skills who use their ability in an authoritative way regardless of the relevance of what they have to say. This paper describes the whole experiment, which was an exercise of spatial negotiation in 5 versions. In the first version we provided fixed digital views of a room in plan and axonometry; for another two versions we provided a physical model of the room in 1:10 scale, with some pieces of the existing furniture in different scales. This was done to check if people were just playing with a puzzle or actually grasping the correspondence between representation and the object or the space represented. One version proposes refurbishment and the other starts from the scratch. And the last two versions repeated the same task made with the physical model, but this time using a 3D interactive digital model. People were required not only to organise the furniture in the space but also to build a full scale cardboard structure and organise the real furniture reproducing their proposed model. Their comments on the spaces they had built confronted with what they had imaged when working with the model has enabled us to compare the different models, as also the different ways of negotiating spaces. This paper describes this experiment in detail concluding that 3D digital interactive models are far more effective than physical models and 2D drawings; when negotiation happens by means of action it provides more creative results than when the discoursive practice prevails; people are more creative when they start something from scratch, though they spend more time. The results of this experiment led us to formulate a new hypothesis leading to the development of an immersive collaborative environment using stereoscopy.
keywords	Visualisation, negotiation, immersive environment, digital interfaces, homeless people
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:47

_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	sigradi2008_012
id	sigradi2008_012
authors	Dokonal, Wolfgang
year	2008
title	What is the state of digital architectural design?
source	SIGraDi 2008 - [Proceedings of the 12th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics] La Habana - Cuba 1-5 December 2008
summary	What is the state of digital architectural design? The ubiquity of the computer in architecture can be seen in the many computer based presentations from famous architectural practices. BIM (Building Information Modelling) is the key word and we can see implementations in very ambitious projects all over the world. Glossy magazines show the results of this kind of architecture and predict that this is the future of our profession. But when we go out into the “small world” (in Europe) and talk with architects in small firms, there is a very different reality – at least at the moment. Although they all agree that the computer is crucial for their work, it is a love/hate relationship for many them. Most still use the computer purely as a drafting device and AutoCAD is still the dominant tool. Although many of them agree with the statement that you can use the computer for design, only a minority really use the computer as a design tool in the early design stages. To find out more about the reality of the use of computers in design in “small town Europe” we have been undertaking two different kinds of research over the past 4 years. The first one is an educational experiment using first year’s students to find out about the different qualities of designing with and without the computer. The results have been presented at previous conferences and, since we are doing a last run of these experiments this year, we will update and finalise our findings in this paper. To make it comparable to previous years, we use largely the same settings using the same type of student (first year) and the same project/site. We will also be comparing the results for students designing ‘freestyle’ ie in the way that they want against the previous years controlled groups. The second strand of research we have followed is a survey amongst practitioners and some of the above statements came out of this survey. We did this survey using a web questionnaire and focused on a particular region of Europe. Although the numbers of participants for this survey were quite satisfying we are re-running the survey in a different region and country to see whether there are significant differences. The results of our research and our experience as teachers and architects leads us to the main question of how we can give recommendations on how to teach design the new generation of architects. In many aspects most of the teaching that is done in our faculties is still strictly divided into teaching design and teaching computer skills. The crucial question for architectural education are the implications of the ubiquity of the computer will have especially in the field of design. We will try to give some suggestions for these effects this could have on our teaching. In the long run, this is the only way to avoid some of the pitfalls and bring the benefits of computers in design to our small architectural firms. The paper will present a summary of the results of our research and try to propose an answer to the question: “What is the state of digital design in small town Europe?”
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:50

_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…
email
last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	acadia08_088
id	acadia08_088
authors	Hynes, Hugh
year	2008
title	When The Going Gets Tough, The Pluripotent Get Going: Resilient Developmental Models
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.acadia.2008.088
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, 88-93
summary	Mechanisms of biological development, such as in embryogenesis, offer promising models for resilient architectural systems well-suited to volatile or unpredictable contextual conditions. The resilience of embryonic development as a process is such that successful development—“success” defined here as that which results in the birth of an organism that can survive—can sustain extreme shifts in a normal developmental process, triggered by mutations, environmental pressures, injury, or experimental intervention. More specifically, biological development combines mechanisms of standardization with mechanisms of customization to create open-ended or what biologists call pluripotent systems—poised (“-potent”) to develop into a wide range (“pluri-”) of potential forms—which we can endeavor to reproduce mimetically. ¶ This paper considers biomimesis less a matter of replicating these developmental mechanisms physically or formally, but rather borrowing aspects of the mechanisms’ operation in order to test project outcomes digitally. The discipline of developmental biology affords a virtually ready-made conceptual framework and terminology to guide an open-ended digital methodology, in the hope of incorporating increasing degrees of resilience into the resulting design work. Searching for a capacity to sustain a similar fluidity of differentiation afforded by organisms in early development, we explore a pluripotent architecture for which differentiation might occur over time, and which might be better able to absorb volatility.
keywords	Adaptation; Differentiation; Morphogenesis; Resilience; Scenario
series	ACADIA
last changed	2022/06/07 07:50

_id	cdc2008_243
id	cdc2008_243
authors	Loukissas, Yanni
year	2008
title	Keepers of the Geometry: Architects in a Culture of Simulation
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 243-244
summary	“Why do we have to change? We’ve been building buildings for years without CATIA?” Roger Norfleet, a practicing architect in his thirties poses this question to Tim Quix, a generation older and an expert in CATIA, a computer-aided design tool developed by Dassault Systemes in the early 1980’s for use by aerospace engineers. It is 2005 and CATIA has just come into use at Paul Morris Associates, the thirty-person architecture firm where Norfleet works; he is struggling with what it will mean for him, for his firm, for his profession. Computer-aided design is about creativity, but also about jurisdiction, about who controls the design process. In Architecture: The Story of Practice, Architectural theorist Dana Cuff writes that each generation of architects is educated to understand what constitutes a creative act and who in the system of their profession is empowered to use it and at what time. Creativity is socially constructed and Norfleet is coming of age as an architect in a time of technological but also social transition. He must come to terms with the increasingly complex computeraided design tools that have changed both creativity and the rules by which it can operate. In today’s practices, architects use computer-aided design software to produce threedimensional geometric models. Sometimes they use off-the-shelf commercial software like CATIA, sometimes they customize this software through plug-ins and macros, sometimes they work with software that they have themselves programmed. And yet, conforming to Larson’s ideas that they claim the higher ground by identifying with art and not with science, contemporary architects do not often use the term “simulation.” Rather, they have held onto traditional terms such as “modeling” to describe the buzz of new activity with digital technology. But whether or not they use the term, simulation is creating new architectural identities and transforming relationships among a range of design collaborators: masters and apprentices, students and teachers, technical experts and virtuoso programmers. These days, constructing an identity as an architect requires that one define oneself in relation to simulation. Case studies, primarily from two architectural firms, illustrate the transformation of traditional relationships, in particular that of master and apprentice, and the emergence of new roles, including a new professional identity, “keeper of the geometry,” defined by the fusion of person and machine. Like any profession, architecture may be seen as a system in flux. However, with their new roles and relationships, architects are learning that the fight for professional jurisdiction is increasingly for jurisdiction over simulation. Computer-aided design is changing professional patterns of production in architecture, the very way in which professionals compete with each other by making new claims to knowledge. Even today, employees at Paul Morris squabble about the role that simulation software should play in the office. Among other things, they fight about the role it should play in promotion and firm hierarchy. They bicker about the selection of new simulation software, knowing that choosing software implies greater power for those who are expert in it. Architects and their collaborators are in a continual struggle to define the creative roles that can bring them professional acceptance and greater control over design. New technologies for computer-aided design do not change this reality, they become players in it.
email
last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	sigradi2008_166
id	sigradi2008_166
authors	Papanikolaou, Dimitris
year	2008
title	Digital Fabrication Production System Theory: Towards an Integrated Environment for Design and Production of Assemblies
source	SIGraDi 2008 - [Proceedings of the 12th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics] La Habana - Cuba 1-5 December 2008
summary	A Digital Fabrication Production System (DFPS) is a concept describing a set of processes, tools, and resources that will be able to produce an artifact according to a design, fast, cheap, and easy, independently of location. A DFPS project is a complex assembly of custom parts that is delivered by a network of fabrication and assembly processes. This network is called the value chain. The workflow concept of a DFPS is the following: begin design process with a custom geometric form; decompose it into constructible parts; send the part files for fabrication to various locations; transport all parts at the construction site at the right time; finally, assemble the final artifact. Conceptually it means that based on a well structured value chain we could build anything we want, at anyplace, at controllable cost and quality. The goals of a DFPS are the following: custom shapes, controllable lead time, controllable quality, controllable cost, easiness of fabrication, and easiness of assembly. Simply stated this means to build any form, anywhere, accurately, cheap, fast, and easy. Unfortunately, the reality with current Digital Fabrication (DF) projects is rather disappointing: They take more time than what was planned, they get more expensive than what was expected, they involve great risk and uncertainty, and finally they are too complex to plan, understand, and manage. Moreover, most of these problems are discovered during production when it is already late for correction. However, there is currently no systematic approach to evaluate difficulty of production of DF projects in Architecture. Most of current risk assessment methods are based on experience gathered from previous similar cases. But it is the premise of mass customization that projects can be radically different. Assembly incompatibilities are currently addressed by building physical mockups. But physical mockups cause a significant loss in both time and cost. All these problems suggest that an introduction of a DFPS for mass customization in architecture needs first an integrated theory of assembly and management control. Evaluating feasibility of a DF project has two main problems: first, how to evaluate assemblability of the design; second, how to evaluate performance of the value chain. Assemblability is a system’s structure problem, while performance is a system’s dynamics problem. Structure of systems has been studied in the field of Systems Engineering by Network Analysis methods such as the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) (Steward 1981), and the liaison graph (Whitney 2004), while dynamics of systems have been studied by System Dynamics (Forrester 1961). Can we define a formal method to evaluate the difficulty of production of an artifact if we know the artifact’s design and the production system’s structure? This paper formulates Attribute Process Methodology (APM); a method for assessing feasibility of a DFPS project that combines Network Analysis to evaluate assemblability of the design with System Dynamics to evaluate performance of the value chain.
keywords	Digital Fabrication, Production System, System Dynamics, Network Analysis, Assembly
series	SIGRADI
email
last changed	2016/03/10 09:57

_id	acadia08_472
id	acadia08_472
authors	Key, Sora; Mark D Gross; Ellen Yi-Luen Do
year	2008
title	Computing Spatial Qualities For Architecture
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.acadia.2008.472
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, 472-477
summary	Computational representation of spatial qualities can lead us to a better understanding of how we construct spatial concepts. Analyses of spatial qualities can support architects in reasoning about the form of a configuration, helping them predict the consequences of a design. ¶ In this paper we present three definitions (enclosure, viewfield, continuity) that describe experiential qualities of architectural spaces. Our project aims to provide computable definitions to these qualities to describe common spatial experiences that are implicitly understood by architects. The description, using familiar terms, reveals the analytical structure of spatial qualities that is based on the geometry of the physical elements. ; We therefore introduce a graphic editor, Descriptor, that provides visualization of spatial qualities as the designer diagrams building elements. The system calculates perceived relationships (surrounded, visible, nearby, nearest) between a viewpoint and the architectural elements based on their geometric properties such as location and distance. The relationships are the components of the three qualities we define. We also present a use scenario to demonstrate how one might use our Descriptor system during early design. ¶ Descriptor is an attempt to formalize descriptions of the spatial qualities to help beginners understand how to make design decisions. In the future, we plan to extend the set of qualities and add detailed attributes of the physical elements to the system.
keywords	Analysis; Computation; Environment; Representation; Spatial
series	ACADIA
last changed	2022/06/07 07:52

_id	acadia08_000
id	acadia08_000
authors	Kudless, Andrew; Neri Oxman, and Marc Swackhamer, editors
year	2008
title	Silicon + Skin: Biological Processes and Computation
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.acadia.2008
source	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
summary	Biological processes, computing and design make an inconvenient mix, a mix that challenges us to broaden our academic horizons at a time when we are thirsty for creative solutions to unprecedented global problems and opportunities. More than a mixture, it is about forming rhizomatic connections between these three systems of knowledge, brought together through design, mediated by computing and inspired by the wisdom ensconced in biological processes that have evolved over billions of years. The last few years together represent a watershed time for ACADIA. Themes ranging from digital fabrication, smart environments, expanding bodies, and synthetic landscapes have been taken up in the recent past. This year’s conference marks yet another year of pushing the envelope with a subject matter that is still on the frontiers of the emerging (and emergent) knowledge. ACADIA is proud to play a vanguard role in leading and facilitating this discourse. To this end, the outstanding team of conference chairs has put together a unique and exciting program. I would like to thank the chairs for their boldness, hard work and resourcefulness in bringing together a remarkable array of people, things, systems, and topics to the table. All evidence points to the emergence of ACADIA as THE forum for vanguard explorers from multiple disciplines. I hope that the seeds of discourses sown at this remarkable conference at the University of Minnesota will grow into significant movements in the future. Thank you!
series	ACADIA
last changed	2022/06/07 07:49

_id	ecaade2009_123
id	ecaade2009_123
authors	Achten, Henri; Beetz, Jakob
year	2009
title	What Happened to Collaborative Design?
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.2009.357
source	Computation: The New Realm of Architectural Design [27th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 978-0-9541183-8-9] Istanbul (Turkey) 16-19 September 2009, pp. 357-366
summary	In this paper we present the results of a comprehensive literature survey on the development of collaborative design. We reviewed 324 papers on collaborative design, taken from various sources (conferences, journals, and PhD-theses). We grouped the papers based on common themes, and in that way derived a classification of themes through the last 25 years (1983-2008). Each category is described, its development, and key publications are identified.
wos	WOS:000334282200043
keywords	Collaborative design
series	eCAADe
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:54

_id	ijac20086405
id	ijac20086405
authors	Ahlquist, Sean; Fleischmann, Moritz
year	2008
title	Elemental Methods for Integrated Architectures: Experimentation with Design Processes for Cable Net Structures
source	International Journal of Architectural Computing vol. 6 - no. 4, 453-475
summary	Tension active systems are compelling architectural structures having an intimate connection between structural performance and the arrangement of material. The direct flow of structural forces through the material makes these systems attractive and unique from an aesthetic point of view, but they are a challenge to develop from a design and an engineering perspective. Traditional methods for solving such structural systems rely on both analog modeling techniques and the use of highly advanced engineering software. The complexity and laborious nature of both processes presents a challenge for iterating through design variations. To experiment with the spacemaking capabilities of tension active systems, it is necessary to design methods that can actively couple the digital simulation with the analog methods for building the physical structure. What we propose is a designer-authored process that digitally simulates the behaviors of tension active systems using simple geometric components related to material and structural performance, activated and varied through elemental techniques of scripting. The logics for manufacturing and assembly are to be embedded in the digital generation of form. The intention is to transform what is a highly engineered system into an architectural system where investigation is as much about the determination of space and environment as it is about the arrangement of structure and material.
series	journal
last changed	2009/03/03 07:48

_id	cdc2008_111
id	cdc2008_111
authors	Dounas, Theodore
year	2008
title	Algebras, Geometries and Algorithms, Or How Architecture fought the Law and the Law Won
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 111-114
summary	An Architect is required to deal quite often with a restrictive piece of Building Code during his/her practice, especially in traditional and hence protected environments. The paper examines the algorithmic nature of such a Building Code and in particular the President's Decree governing the design and architecture of traditional housing in the Old Town, “Ano Poli”, in Thessaloniki Greece. The nature of the constraints and descriptions the Decree contains is algorithmic, which means that the descriptions of the constraints is procedural with a specific start and a specific finish for a house design. The problem with such descriptions in a Law is that, although an architect can develop his/her own interpretations of the traditional language of the area, or even be able to trace his/her designs using shape grammars derived from traditional buildings preserved until today, the final result cannot be approved for a building permit since it does not comply with the Presidential Decree. We suggest that the nature of such legislation should be algebraic in nature and not algorithmic, since algebras allow an amount of freedom in development of architectural language while also permitting the restriction of scale, height and so on. This coupling of architectural design freedom and effective restriction on metrics of new buildings contained in algebraic systems can be shown to be much more effective than the established algorithmic system. The Decree's content comprises of regulations concerning the volume, form and use of new buildings in the protected and conserved built environment of “Ano Poli” in Thessaloniki.
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	cdc2008_181
id	cdc2008_181
authors	Kaijima, Sawako and Panagiotis Michalatos
year	2008
title	Simplexity, the programming craft and architecture production
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 181-194
summary	In resent years, digital design tools have become prevalent in the design community and their capabilities to manipulate geometry have grown into a trend among architects to generate complex forms. Working as computational design consultant in an engineering firm, between architecture and engineering we often come across the problems generated by a superficial use of digital tools in both disciplines and the incapacity of the current system to cope with their byproducts. Here we will discuss the problems we see with the current system and the opportunities opened by digital design tools. Two guiding concepts are simplexity [the desire to fine tune and build a system that yields a solution to a specific design problem by collapsing its inherent complexity] and defamiliarization [a side effect of having to represent things as numbers]. They can both affect the designer as an individual who chooses to engage with digital media as well as the production system in which he/she is embedded since he/she will have to find new channels of communication with other parties. To demonstrate our strategy and the obstacles faced we will examine our involvement in the development of a computational design solution for a small house designed by Future Systems architects.
email
last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	cdc2008_383
id	cdc2008_383
authors	Kallipoliti, Lydia and Alexandros Tsamis
year	2008
title	The teleplastic abuse of ornamentation
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 383-392
summary	Is it possible that psychoanalysis, a discipline that allegedly deals with abstract or invisible entities, and entomology, a discipline that predominantly taxonomizes insects by type, can offer us an insight into the nature of digital design processes and emergent material phenomena? One of Roger Caillois’ most controversial psychoanalytic theories, “teleplasty,” shows that psychoanalysis and entomology can indeed suggest an alternative perspective of how bodily or other material substances are initially fabricated by insects and how they can further transform. In several of his case studies, Caillois claims alliances between material and psychical structures in his psycho-material teleplastic theorem and eventually questions spatial distinctions: distinctions between geometry and material, purpose and function, cause and effect, between the imaginary and the real. Can digital media help us redefine the static relationship between a window and a wall as an interaction of chemical substances rather than a process of assembling joints and components? Can we perceive material, not as an application to predetermined geometries, but as an inherent condition, a subatomic organization of matter that precedes geometry? The aim of this paper is to problematize such distinctions as a discussion emerging through the prolific use of digital design processes.
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last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	cdc2008_023
id	cdc2008_023
authors	Karandinou, Anastasia; Leonidas Koutsoumpos and Richard Coyne
year	2008
title	Hybrid Studio Matters: Ethnomethodological Documentary of a Tutorial
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 23-34
summary	This paper looks into the electronically augmented, or ‘hybrid’ contemporary environment, through the spatial and temporal thresholds or ‘seams’ that it encompasses. Electronically augmented environments have been studied increasingly within the past few years. The question of how architects respond to the new spatial conditions, how they interpret and design space, is a major emerging issue. Within these broad questions, we conducted an ethnomethodological analysis of a particular environment-example: the architectural design studio, through the documentation and analysis of an episode in an architectural tutorial. The analysis of this case-study is based upon the seams, the thresholds or ruptures that occur between different media. We argue that the shift or transition from one medium to another can be smooth and un-noticed, whereas, in other instances, it shifts completely the centre of attention, the flow of the tutorial or the perception of the means (and other elements) engaged. The transitions, occurring within the recorded tutorial, are studied in relation to the notions of engagement, immediacy and continuity. We consider that these three notions bring forth the complexities, conflicts and richness (of the hybrid environment) that the tutorial recording reveals.
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last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	cdc2008_245
id	cdc2008_245
authors	Kim, Simon and Mariana Ibanez
year	2008
title	Tempus Fugit: Transitions and Performance in Activated Architecture
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 245-251
summary	Meaning in architecture has isotropic instances of realization, one that can unfold during the design process and one that can be layered onto the artifact of the building; its components and forms constitute a communication flow that emerges from an abstract form of description to its physicality. The internal cognition of this condition situates the subject as the third element, one that identifies the meaning from the extant building to its proxy meaning. In this manner, narrative and aesthetics perform the actualizations (the spatial and physical sequences) so that the occupant may understand its implications.1 Architecture is thus a one-directional flow of information (the building is an inert object from which meaning is derived, its physicality is static). Even in process-driven design, the synthesis of the many and the ordered, is evident in the materiality of the architectural manifestation; the building, although presented as a result of process cannot be separated from the reading of the generative operations. 2 Rather than continue in this manner of constructing meaning from an extensive coding (joining a concept to an object) or the instantiation (producing one from a larger field of possibilities) from a version, we suggest a dialectic that is bi-directional, or even multinodal, that is, continually self-renewing in meaning and material configuration with the active participation of the occupant. This representation is one that is time-based.
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last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	cdc2008_341
id	cdc2008_341
authors	Kotsopoulos, Sotirios
year	2008
title	Games with(out) rules
source	First International Conference on Critical Digital: What Matters(s)? - 18-19 April 2008, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge (USA), pp. 341-348
summary	Fifty years after the first attempts to introduce algorithmic methods in design we have reached a point where we might ask if design has become not a game in which the designers play with the notion of rule, but a game where they play according to rules.
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last changed	2009/01/07 08:05

_id	ecaade2008_069
id	ecaade2008_069
authors	Mark, Earl; Gross, Mark; Goldschmidt , Gabriela
year	2008
title	A Perspective on Computer Aided Design after Four Decades
doi	https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.2008.169
source	Architecture in Computro [26th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 978-0-9541183-7-2] Antwerpen (Belgium) 17-20 September 2008, pp. 169-176
summary	We offer a summary view of competing theories that have guided and inspired the development of computer aided design over the past forty years with attention to how they support design processes. We identify eight distinct approaches to design. We then speculate on what a collective view of these schools posits with respect of the next generation of tools. This perspective reflects our view as teachers and researchers at institutions with different curricula, a first-hand role in the development of computer aided design technology, and specialization in design theory and methods.
keywords	Design theory and methods, computer aided design software, constraints, parametric variation
series	eCAADe
email
last changed	2022/06/07 07:59

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