Chapter 9 - Design aids

Abstract

This chapter focuses on design aids. Design-aid programs still offer relatively little to the architect. In certain situations, however, especially when dealing with large buildings where human intuition is less effective, valuable gains can be made by the careful use of these programs. There are two ways of using the computer in design: (1) in a generative way, where a design is produced from the basic input data, and (2) in an analytical way where the user proposes a design and the computer checks its viability. Although the generative approach is one that has received a great deal of attention, it has been almost completely abandoned in its purer forms by practising architects, because the results produced are inadequate. This is because it is not possible to build into a computer program many of the most important factors that must be considered in a design. The analytical approach is now more favoured; if the architect produces a design and the computer checks such aspects of it as it is able to, it is possible to create a powerful symbiosis of man and machine. The difference between the generative and the analytical approaches can be illustrated at a simple level by the example of window design.