INTRODUCTION

Since the eighties, the dissemination of the computer started to affect the practice of architecture in many ways. From the automated production of drawings and virtual simulation to the more recent computer-based design techniques, the fascination with the power of the digital media lead architects to the exploration of alternative conceptual and material strategies. In a more advanced level, architects began to consider digital design processes that embraced variation and adaptation (i.e. parametric, generative, evolutionary…) while recurring to digital fabrication processes (CNC machines) to materialize them.Today, following the example of other areas, the integrated use of CAD/CAE/CAM processes are progressively employed in building industry, defying new production possibilities in architecture, at the conceptual, material and performative levels. Almost all buildings that are culturally relevant in contemporary architecture scene, involve in many stages of their development process, the use of advanced computational processes that are not exclusively committed to representation and communication tasks. Crossing different scales and programmatic requirements, buildings like the Walt Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry, the skyscraper Swiss Re by Norman Foster in London or the small Serpentine Pavillion by Alvaro Siza clearly illustrate this condition.