On the Correlation of Design and Computational Techniques in Architectural Education

Abstract

Many studies employ analyses of human intelligence as justification or guideline for the development of machine intelligence. The main benefit brought on by such studies has been the improvement of our understanding of both human and machine intelligence. In teaching architecture with computers the same approach can make explicit design techniques architects use by means of equivalent or similar computational techniques. Explicitation of design techniques leads to a better understanding of architects' activities, as well as to which computer tools can offer automated support to these activities. In the curriculum of the Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology, relations and correspondences between computational and design techniques form a major underlying theme in computer-aided design courses. The purposes of this theme are (i) comprehension of the computational structure of a computer design tool, and (ii) explanation of how such computational structures relate to architectural design. (correspondences between the computational principles of computer programs and design techniques are instrumental in defining the scope of each computer tool in architectural design while improving the students' understanding of architectural design as a cognitive process and thus promoting automation as a natural extension of established conventional practices. The paper outlines the correlation of computational and design techniques in the case of electronic spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are introduced through a thorough presentation of the various kinds and aspects of constraint propagation, their underlying computational principle. Numerical constraint propagation is explained by means of spreadsheet applications for simple numerical calculations. Symbolic constraint propagation is presented in the framework of machine perception. Both forms are then linked to architectural design through parametric design and the recognition of spaces in floor plans. Exercises linked to spreadsheets and constraint propagation include the parametric calculation of stairs and making parametric variations of a building on the basis of floor area calculations.