Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe)

Abstract

The theme of this conference builds on and investigates the pre-existing and endlessly unfolding relationship between two domains of scientific inquiry: Architecture, urban design and planning, environmental design, geography and Social theory, media and communication studies, political science, cultural studies and social anthropology. Architectural design involves communication and could thus be partly considered a communicational activity. Designers (or not) see architectural designs, implicitly, as carriers of information and symbolic content; similarly buildings and urban environments have been “read” and interpreted by many (usu- ally not architects) as cultural texts. At the same time, social and cultural studies have studied buildings and cities, as contexts for social and cultural activities and life in general, from their mundane expression of “everyday life” (Highmore, 2001) to elite expressions of artistic creativity and performance. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) support both of these levels of scientific inquiry in many ways. Most importantly however, ICTs need design studies, architectural and visual design, social and cultural studies in their quest to create aesthetically pleasing, ergonomically efficient and functional ICT sys- tems; this need for interdisciplinarity is best articulated by the low quality of most on-line content and applica- tions published on the web.