October 22, 2007

Computing in digital architecture


Computing has revolutionized architecture, raising deep philosophical issues that are forcing a paradigm shift in the profession. Computers enable interactive design and analysis, giving designers immediate feed back on the spatial configurations. Computer technology is the latest step in this progression, adding ‘virtuality’ as another dimension to the architect's drawings. Further, computers initiate the development of extraordinarily complex building systems, expanding the possibilities to building interface. Technological advances have helped to manifest these explorations in ever-increasing fidelity, adding dimensions and influencing the way in which the design process is conducted.

Design as a process requires not just the conception and development of design ideas at an individual level, but also the more important aspect of communication and effective expression. Computing has developed a domain where in such reproduction can be made extremely precise or rather ‘super’ precise (beyond reality). CAD tools are increasing their expressive and geometric power to enable a design process in which the computer model can be used throughout the whole design process for realizing the design.

The computer-aided design of buildings is concerned with the creation of three-dimensional objects in space. Two-dimensional drawings are inadequate in fully conveying the conceptual ideas of spatial arrangements. 3-D physical models and virtual prototypes at various scales and levels are important which allow spatial experience and analysis.

Relying on computer generating techniques, we can also obtain multiple architectural manifestations in terms of form, space, structure and materials. Parametric design hence continues to optimize performance of architecture within a more expansive social-economic system. For architectural design, in a time when standard geometric forms almost have been used up by masters, the emergency of computer generating techniques enhance the architects' creative imagination ability and expedite the design process.


The “Kunsthaus Graz” designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, characterized geometrically by its blob-like form is a non-Euclidean object such that cannot be designed and represented by means of conventional plans, sections and elevations. The form of the building has more to do with the ‘strength of the inevitable’, than with aesthetic rhetoric. The development of the form did not arise out of the definition of algorithms and computational methods that automate the generation of architectural form alone, but automated generative approach was the direction for its moving. 3-D models were generated for different aspects such as structure, cladding systems, ventilation and development of the material. The development of an enclosure without recognizable roofs, walls and floors depended on the manipulation of digital 3-D surfaces. The Kunsthaus Graz was designed through a process of deformation of a digital model of a sphere.

Just as with the sketches, physical models are vehicles for developing and assessing design proposals. The role of physical modeling is significant in the evolution of design and as a medium of human interaction. Digital technology has reached a level of embeddedness in architecture at which it is possible and feasible for designers to express design intentions directly without being distracted from the project.

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