Unde et Quo

Abstract

To begin with, I would like to say a few words about the problem of alienation of modern technologies which we also inevitably faced while starting teaching CAD at our department. Quite often nowadays a technology becomes a fetish as a result of lack of clear goals in human mind. There are multiple technologies without sense of purpose which turned into pure experiments. There is always the danger of losing purposeness and drifting toward alienation. The cause of the danger lies in forgetting about original goals while mastering and developing the technology. Eventually the original idea is ignored and a great gap appears between technical factors and creativity. We had the danger of alienation in mind when preparing the CAAD curriculum. Trying to avoid the tension between technical and creative elements we agreed not to introduce CAD too soon then the fourth year of studies and continue it for two semesters. One thing was clear - we should not teach the technique of CAD but how to design using a computer as a medium. Then we specified projects. The first was called "The bathroom I dream of" and meant to be a 2D drawing. The four introductory meetings were in fact teaching foundations of DOS, then a specific design followed with the help of AutoCAD program. In the IX semester, for example, it was "A family house" (plans, facades, perspective). "I have to follow them - I am their leader" said L.J. Peter in "The Peter's Prescription". This quotation reflects exactly the situation we find ourselves in teaching CAAD at our department. It means that ever growing students interest in CAAD made us introduce changes in the curriculum. According to the popular saying, "The more one gets the more one wants", so did we and the students feel after the first semester of teaching CAD. From autumn 1991 CAAD classes will be carried from the third year of studying for two consecutive years. But before further planning one major steep had to be done - we decided to reverse the typical of the seventies approach to the problem when teaching programming languages preceded practical goals hence discouraging many learners.