A TANGIBLE MODELING INTERFACE FOR COMPUTER-AIDED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN SYSTEMS

Abstract

Computer-aided architectural design (CAAD) systems have been widely adopted in the architectural practice to improve and speed up late design phases. However, CAAD has not been successfully implemented in the early phases of design due to the overly structured nature of interactions with its interface. Current CAAD interfaces leave little room for intended ambiguity crucial to design conception and can cause obstructions to spontaneous creative thought. This research hypothesizes that architects employ tangible interactions to assist design-thinking tasks in early design phases. In doing so, architects can lessen visual overload and exploit underutilized motor skills and hand–eye coordination lacking in most CAAD systems. With this premise, a new CAAD interface is proposed, prototyped, and evaluated to validate the hypothesis. The new interface can retain functionality and accuracy of a CAAD system while also benefiting from ambiguous freehand input directly from users. This can greatly improve the interaction between designers and current computer-aided architectural design systems.