ABSTRACT
This paper proposes a framework for
understanding the integration of design and digital technologies in practice
and academia.A compelling narrative is developed based on “contextual inquiries”
and “exploratory observations” of a six-year research.The model is devised
to submerge the reader into understanding not only how we use the technology,
but also how we consume it.
Two parallel stories are presented.One story is that practice has “consumed”
the technology to modernize its skills, and then later revamps their design-build
work processes.The other story is that an emerging portion of academia
is presenting a broader critique.Classrooms are computerized in an attempt
to expand the realm of architectural design into the various spatial dimensions
of digital phenomena.
INTRODUCTION
How are Architects using computers?What
are the real benefits of the technology?How should designers and academicians
use computers?These are some of the questions practicing architects and
architectural professors are facing today as they implement computers into
practice and education.A common mistake, when evaluating the impacts of
information technology, is that it is usually seen as an isolated subject
related to mere technical competence.But, are computers part of a larger
phenomenon, one that will ultimately change the design-build processes,
organizational structures, and design cultures?
This paper addresses the “computerization” process of architectural practice
and education during the past three decades.The concepts developed here
are part of a four-year research effort with the U. C. of Berkeley and
Taisei Corporation, Japan, followed by an academic survey and interviews
conducted at the University of Cincinnati. During this research, we reviewed
existing literature and conducted interviews at more than 140 U.S. and
Japanese firms, and universities that are using computer technology in
design.The groups visited a range of well-known schools of architecture
and design firms such as Frank O. Gehry & Associates, to large corporations
such as Gensler, Nikkei Sekkei, and some of the top ten design-build contractors
in the world.During this period we have also studied several schools of
architecture in the USA, Japan, Latin America and Europe; and studied companies
in related design industries such as Sony and Toshiba in Japan and Boeing
in the US.
METHODOLOGY
The research began in 1991 in pursuit
of an answer to the following major question: How could we discover the
discourse of “computerization” in architectural practice and education?Our
focus was not on computer technology, but on comprehending how and why
architects use it.
The problem with reading the social and practical consequences of technologies,
such as computers in any industry or particular social group, is that its
capacity and effects cannot be fully identified by any particular observer.The
observer usually has to perform an "interpretation" of the phenomenon.And
like any act of "interpretation," in research, the results rest heavily
on the context and the methods chosen by the researchers.
We have chosen a methodology of research called “reconstructive interpretivism”
which is part of one of the most recent trends in the social sciences studies
of technology.It is named “reconstructive interpretivism” because researchers
in this category attempt to observe and reconstruct, through different
methodologies, what is occurring in every day practice (Kling 1991).[i]
Research techniques that are often referred to by anthropologists as "exploratory
observation,” "contextual inquiry" (Benett et al. 1990, Bullen and Bennett
1991), or "situated observations" (Suchman 1987, 1988) allow researchers
to become immersed in the environments, which enables them to understand
how computers are not only used but also “consumed.”[ii]
The observations and analysis of these contextual inquiries provide the
basis for developing several leads, which gradually build a "reconstructed
interpretation" of the phenomenon.The final narrative and the thesis of
the research emerges and is gradually refined as different rounds of interviews
and more controlled investigations are performed through visits to trade
conventions, product reviews, and literature search.
The purpose of this paper’s framework is not to present a model of the
real world.But to assist architects with understanding how they “consume”
computers and the available visions regarding “computerization.”As any
other categorization, it oversimplifies the information for analysis purposes.We
do not believe there is only one clear pathway to computerization.The levels
or groups we refer to, in our framework, clearly overlap; but we discovered
professionals and academicians will find it useful and will benefit from
the conclusions as they compare their own experiences with the developed
discussion.It can serve as a heuristic model, one that can lead architects
to important questions about their technological strategies.
IMPACTS OF COMPUTERS ON ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICES KILLS (1974 through the
early 1990’s)
Initially the introduction of mainframe
computers, and later the inexpensive PCs, typically impacted the professional
practice of architecture at the "skill" level.We consider these changes
to be at the "skill" level because, during this period, computers primarily
transformed the way architects produce working documentation such as drawings
or written reports.Computers were used to automate routine manual tasks,
such as word processing, spreadsheet databases, and drafting.However, according
to the study, the story of the computerization of architectural manual
“skills” was not simple.The process took more than 20 years in which firms
adapted their technological “skills” during three distinctive periods or
eras:
First, “The CAD on Mainframe Era”:
during this phase, large “in-house” CAD systems emerged during the
1970’s in the Unites States and during the 1980’s in Japan.These firms
developed a behavior that tried to buy "the best," "the latest," and "the
largest" systems that they could afford.Large systems, in-house programmers,
independent information technology groups, and software attempted to be
“total solutions” which were predominant characteristics in the early period
of “skill” computerization in architectural practice.Typically,
the high cost of purchasing and maintaining CAD's mainframe hardware and
software, which averaged $50,000 to $200,000 per seat, kept the number
of CAD users low and made it accessible only to very few large firms.These factors made it impossible
for AEC firms to widely diffuse the technology in their firms.The average
percentage CAD was used, for projects, during this period was only 5 to
10%.
Second, “The CAD Operator Era”:as
faster PCs and better off-the-shelf software entered the market in the
mid-eighties, the large, in-house CAD systems such as “ARK2” from Perry, Dean and Steward, “AES” from Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and “HOKdraw-HOKimage” from Helmut,
Obata and Kasabaum became obsolete.A second era
of "skill" changes emerged in the second half of the 1980’s
in the United States and early-1990’s in Japan.The information system department and their mainframes were
replaced, during this period, with PCs and CAD operators.However, soon
architectural offices began to realize the redundancies of this emerging
approach; architects and CAD operators would draw information twice, first
by hand and the second time using CAD.During this phase, the firms using
computers typically drew only 10 to 20% of their projects using the CAD.
Third, “The High Computer Literacy
Era”: during this era of change in the "skill" base of architectural
practice emerged as soon as firms realized the redundancies involved in
having professionals work by hand and later having operators input the
same information in the computer.Simply, during this period cheap PCs and
easier software emerged from the isolated IT rooms and/or CAD operators
hands and where placed on the traditional architect’s drafting desk.Ironically,
the transition of professionals into the PC era was easier for smaller
firms than for larger ones.The larger firms' sizable investments in large
CAD systems made them initially more reluctant to switch to another type
of technology.
The major turning point, during this
third period of skill change in professional architectural firms, in the
United States, occurred by the end of the 1980’s and during the beginning
of the 1990’s when most institutional and corporate clients began to require
that final drawings be delivered in digital format.Upper management was
forced to view CAD technology in their operating strategies.Managers were
confronted with the need to distribute the technology among all their professionals.As
the labor force was not yet prepared to absorb the demand of computer skilled
professionals, firms started company-wide in-house CAD training.Worried
senior management became “executive champions” that clearly promoted CAD
literacy programs in their firms.Computer literate professionals at the
time became the “CAD champions” or agents that distributed the technology
within the firms.By 1995 most large and medium US firms had high levels
of computer literacy with approximately 75 to 100% of their drawings executed
using CAD.
WORK PROCESSES (early-1990’s through mid-2000)
If PC CAD was the most important
piece of technology implemented in architectural practices between the
mid-1970’s to mid-1990’s, then our study shows that networking technology
is the most important development of the decade to come.Organizations have
discovered that although operations such as drafting became more efficient
with PC CAD, the whole design-build process did not.New methods of networking,
sharing, and coordinating information, through computers, will change the
ways designers, engineers, and contractors collaborate.The changes will
pose new problems as well as provide many new opportunities that will ultimately
bring into question centuries-old design-build processes in the Architecture,
Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry.Two major types of impacts
from networked technology on their every day “work process” began to emerge
in the 1990’s:
First, “The Data-Networks” era: from 1993 to 1998, U.S. firms adopted
"data networks" such as LAN, WAN, and the Internet, within their companies
mainly for the purpose of economically improving computer capabilities
such as document management, printer and plotter sharing, system maintenance
and better software administration.[iii]These initial "data-sharing" activities
encouraged increased attentiveness, to issues of interdisciplinary cooperation,
which will become even more critical as the AEC industry continues to strive
for better integration.[iv]The rapid
expansion of "data networks" and "collaborative environments" technologies
led people to believe electronic connectivity would automatically improve
organizational effectiveness.A tactical assumption was made in that there
was a direct correlation between the quantity, transmission speed and availability
of information, and an organization's gains in productivity.However, during
this period, which the benefits of computerization in the AEC industry
are not directly related to how fast and efficient people are able to connect,
but to how effectively designing and building are when performed by professionals.This
means improved attention to how professionals organize, perform, and manage
the whole design-build processes.
Second, “The Concurrent Design Era”: as the fever for “Data-Networks”
emerged in the early 1990’s, a parallel vision of technology began to sweep
through many other industries, in the United States.The idea was that computers,
by themselves, do not offer major benefits if they are not accompanied
with fundamental changes of people’s work process performance.Coined concepts,
such as "concurrent engineering," "design for manufacturing," and "reengineering,”
became extremely popular throughout the 1990’s in corporate America, and
gradually entered into the realm of the AEC industry.The basic idea, of
these concepts, was to constantly improve the product time-quality cycle
by gradually eliminating coordination problems and communication barriers
that existed among different disciplines.
The goals were to dramatically improve the efficiencies and qualities of
the “process” of product development by aligning technological solutions
with lowering costs, reducing time to market and improving product performance.In
short, the basic idea was to analyze, and evaluate, then later to significantly
redesign procedures through which firms executed business and satisfy customers'
needs.The premise was that information technology would not significantly
improve an organization's effectiveness if it only automates existing tasks.
Although these ideas spread quickly among AEC professionals via conferences,
magazines, and meetings with clients; the concepts seemed to be more difficult
to implement in the construction industry than in industries such as manufacturing.Business
consultants, professors, business gurus, and researchers in these other
industries said these efforts should start with a holistic understanding
of the business enterprise when implementing computer technology.This means
initially considering the overall business strategy, and then subsequently
fitting more effective business processes enabled by an adequate design
of information technology.The study observed that AEC firms could not develop
holistic approaches to redesigning business processes when implementing
information technology.The AEC industry structure is very fragmented and
seasonal.Products—buildings—are not only individually shaped but are also
costumed, managed, and executed according to many varying external factors
such as local practices, business realities, legal structures, and traditions.
Instead, business processes, in AEC firms, are transformed gradually through
the incremental implementation of information technology in every day practice.Moreover,
the study discovered that these changes evolve gradually from particular
design-build projects, or tasks, but the new evolving changes take long
periods of time to be implemented throughout the entire enterprise.
Among the offices visited, during the research, the architectural office
of Frank O. Gehry & Associates is perhaps one of the most important
examples of this new period of architectural computerization.The Santa
Monica office began using computers heavily during the early 1990’s as
a way to solve many of the geometric and construction problems that Gehry’s
designs posed.Gehry’s office, during that period, was in the process of
a major transformation.The commissions were getting larger and the designs
more complex.Initially, the use of computers at Gehry’s office was associated
with pushing the limits of what could be built, not about producing traditional
drafting documentation.Some of the first buildings in which the technology
was pushed in Gerhy’s office were the fish sculpture for the Olympic Village
in Barcelona (1992), and the 200,000-square-foot Disney Concert Hall, currently
being constructed.The Disney Concert Hall was one of the largest commissions
of Gehry’s office.The exterior design included a series of dramatically
shaped curvilinear stonewalls.It would have been impossible to describe
the shape of stonewalls with traditional two-dimensional drafting techniques.Thus,
the usual design documentation was never used for this project.Instead,
Frank Gehry's large cardboard models were scanned directly by three-dimensional
optical and mechanical digitizers.Once the model was transferred to the
computer, Gehry's architects were able to develop the shop drawings for
each individual stone using a software called Catia—a numerically controlled
(NC) software used in the aerospace and car manufacturing industry.They
had learned that the NC software offered them many new possibilities such
as sending information to the contractor.They could also send the information
to the fabricator running the cutting and milling machines—linking the
design directly to fabrication and construction (Novitsky 1992, Novitsky
1994).
After almost a decade of experimentation, Gehry & Associates now routinely
use information technology to link the architect much closer to the complete
process of building and construction.They have used automated milling and
cutting machines to cut the stone and metal directly from the computer
models generated by designers.They have also used laser positioning which
can be read from digital models, and have placed on the construction site
3D computer models to explain the building process.The effort has also
led them to consider new organizational and legal arrangements such as
including contractors early in the design process and, in some cases, eliminate
bidding post-construction documents.
Virtual design-build studios linked via computers and scattered around
the globe are a recent phenomenon, but one that is spreading very fast
in design organizations of many industries.Design-manufacturing processes
at companies such as Texas Instrument, Timex, and Whirpool have already
benefited from these developments.A new breed of B2B solutions deployed
by companies such as Cephren, Buzzsaw, and Bidcom are also reattempting
to aid AEC firms in their desires of improving not only communication transmission
problems but also their “work process.”
IMPACTS OF COMPUTERS ON ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION:DESIGN METHODS
(1960’s through 1990’s)
The first attempts to build a relationship
between the disciplines of architecture and computer science date back
to the late-1950’s, when most of these pioneering attempts were born inside
academia and were direct descendants of the "problem-solving" or “systematic
methods” tradition that dominated the computer science community during
the 1960’s (Simon 1969).Computers were seen then as “giant brains;” machines
that eventually could achieve human intelligence.In the process of capturing
human intelligence, researchers ended up with a large number of models
and theories about the rationale of designers, of which they intended to
automate (Jones and Thornley 1963).A complete set of research, regarding
the “computability of architectural design” can be found in the architectural
academic community during the 1960’s and the early 1970’s (Reynolds 1980).The
considerable criticism of the old methods like scale drawing, the emergence
of a new systematic approach to design, and the development of the field
of computers brought a considerable enthusiasm for the emerging field of
“Design Methods” in academia.Among the most celebrated were Christopher
Alexander's “misfit variables,” Nicolas Negroponte’s “architectural machine,”
M. Asimow's design elements, Christopher Jones' “factors,” Bruce Archer's
“sub-problems,” Nigel Cross’ “automated architect,” and Horst Rittel’s
“issue based information systems.”These academic endeavors generated not
only the theory but, in fact, created the basis for many of the first architectural
softwares.[v]
However, after almost two decades of increasing expectations, the “Design
Methods” projects, theories, and gurus began to quietly retreat to only
a small number of courses in architectural and design schools, in the U.S.
and Europe, during the second half of the 1970’s.A minute amount of those
projects that survived became the foundation for the first commercial CAD
systems.
CAD VISUALIZATION: Following the Footsteps of Practice (late-1970’s through
today)
From mid-1970 to mid-1980, the computer
field was dominated in academia by professors and researchers that were
developing software for architects as extensions of “Design Methods” models
and/or were working the pioneering in-house CAD software.These efforts
were usually very much isolated and separated from design studios or other
traditional courses.Ratios of computer station per student during this
period were approximately 1:50.To the surprise of the “Design Methods”
researchers most of the successful emerging new CAD systems of the 1970’s
and the early 1980’s did not have any thought about “systematic” methods
in their software.Instead these so called “CAD packages” focused on the
computer graphic capabilities of the software.As these new off the shelf
software, and cheaper PCs emerged full force, in the late-1980, most academicians
in the area were forced to abort their own software development and to
adopt the emerging CAD standards.
The first open computer lab began to emerge in the mid- to late-1980.Computer
station per student ratios began to drop between 1:30 to 1:20.CAD literacy
courses began to emerge as part of schools’ curriculum. However, during
the late 1980’s, it was still very much resisted by large proportions of
traditional design studio professors.Studio professors’ fears were based
in many fronts.Anecdotal accounts report that one of the strongest arguments
formulated by these studio professors’ was that computer drawing were taking
away the suggestive nature of hand drafting and hand modeling which were
very important elements in developing rationalizations and in the design
process.Professors hired to deliver computer literacy were usually recent
graduates and only a few of them were considered for tenure-track lines.
It was not until the early 1990’s that CAD literacy courses became widely
recognized and were included in the core of architectural education in
most of the schools we surveyed.Professors and students, in most of the
surveyed schools, developed an attitude of “practical realism” as they
reacted to what was occurring in practice, since most of the medium and
large practices had high computer literacy. CAD proficiency became a requirement
in order to receive the first job after graduation.As CAD became more powerful
and widespread in the 1990’s, most of the schools of architecture had at
least one tenure-track computer position per 200 students.Computer station
per student ratios began to drop to an average of 1:20 to 1:10.The “practical
realism” attitude among architectural faculties can also be described in
the choice software and hardware.Most of these schools have used a hybrid
system, however, the most widely used software are AutoCAD, Microstation,
and 3D Studio, and the hardware platform of choice was PC stations.As for
the integration of computers in studio classes the story again follows
a similar trend to what occurs in professional practice.Unlike the previous
decade, most design studios are willing to encourage students to engage
digital tools into their process.However, more than a century old, studio
methods of developing design rationalizations through plans, sections,
elevations, and models have been hardly touched by the new tools.Usually,
the initial drafting and modeling is done manually when most of design
rationalization occurs and computer drawing and rendering are mostly used
for final presentations and project documentation.
PAPERLESS STUDIOS (early 1990’s through today)
While the “practical realism” attitude, in many schools, seems
to have locked the field of computers in design into the magic of AutoCAD,
Microstation, and 3D Studio, a new set of preoccupations have captured
the imagination of a handful academic institutions in the 1990’s.Led by
the School of Architecture at Columbia, and professors such as Hani Rashid,
Greg Lynn and Scott Marble, design studios began to work with high-end
rendering software, used by the movie industry for animation, such as Alias/Wavefront,
Softimage, and Maya.The paperless studios emerged initially in the early
1990’s and were characterized by eliminating, as much as possible, hand
drawn designs, and developing strong dependencies upon the usage of high-end
software.Software ability to create fluid diagrams, character animations,
and other special effects, first thought to be un-useful in architectural
design, proved to be extraordinary tools to test unproven architectural
speculations.Circulation and mobility studies, building program variations,
quick diagrammatic ideas allowed paperless studio students to explain and
experience in a totally new way their design formulations.“The software
soon proved to be more useful than a mere rendering tool; it started to
inform, and transform, the design process” (Cramer, Guiney 2000).
These paperless academics began to observe that traditional methods of
modeling, plan, section, and elevation drafting were based on a century
old academic process of form rationalization and communication.Most of
that rationalization process created language that was based on two premises:
1. The limitations of Cartesian visualization in the analog world
of students in the last century; 2.The physical materiality to which
real architecture was constrained in the industrial era.The rationalization
language used in the well-established systems of desk and final critics
helped professors and students understand and explain NOT what was evident
on the model but precisely what could NOT be depicted by these analog modes
of representation.In digital systems, the process of academic rationalizations
or language, to describe architectural concepts, are less needed.Visualizations
and effects can be tested immediately and decisions can be developed
immediately (Lynn, 1995).Materiality suffers a similar distortion:
“The current generation of (digital) architects is already free.We have
already forgotten history, shaken the metaphors belonging to wood, bricks,
and steel.We have already seen emptiness.Now it is time to redefine materiality.Let’s
rethink materials in relation to organizational structures” (Van Berkel,
Boss 1999).
Digital pioneering firms such as Greg Lynn Form, NOX, Reiser + Umemoto,
O.C.E.A.N., Neil Denari and UN Studio, built considerable reputations and
fame just by publishing their hallucinogenic designs as quickly as they
could invent them.The new architectural imagination promoted by these new
young firms created a whole range of new adepts across the world.But has
also incurred resistance in two fronts.
In the first resisting front, the more professional ranks of architectural
academia and practice have distained these efforts as “eye candy,” or just
as unbuildable spatial exercises.The lack of built projects has in fact
been haunting this generation of academic-architects.The pioneering School
of Architecture at Columbia has taken this challenge seriously.In 1999,
in an effort to overcome this deficiency, they contracted Frank Gehry to
the status of distinguished professor.Gehry, after all, has been the most
productive architect in building large non-Euclidian architecture in the
world, in the past century.At the same time these young digital pioneers
have taken the challenge upon them and are beginning to construct their
first amorphous buildings and/or large installations.They are experimenting
with an entirely new set of materials, developing new engineering elegance,
and finding new intellectual satisfaction in construction.
The second front, of criticism, is emanating from between the same camp
of adepts to paperless design and digital culture.The critique says that
these efforts far from pushing architectural practice or academia into
new directions, they are just locking the discipline into endless aesthetic
experiments.No different from the excessive avant-garde formal preoccupations
of the pre-computer era.This critique claims that architects that engage
in understanding the impacts of digital space must not only get involved
into the formal territory but must also observe how the architecture of
human activity constantly link the real and the virtual in this new era.“Space
is no longer the final frontier, but the porous measure of electronic forms
of localizations, digital territorialization, and the legitimation of a
communication matrix (Druckery 1999)”
MIXED REALITY AND INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE (from mid-1990’s to the future)
The second level of criticism to
the paperless studio experience, as previously described, is also part
of an emerging paradigm in education, research, and extreme architectural
practice today.The premise of this new paradigm is that there may be a
parallel way of practicing architecture.A new branch that can create space
not only physically
but also communicatively and psychologically; an architecture that goes
beyond exclusive concerns for buildings and enters into the realm of a
mixed urban reality: both real and digital.Adherents of this new paradigm
observe that many human activities such as banking, working, studying and
shopping, which are migrating from pure functional physical buildings into
more distributed hybrid “cyber/real” spaces.They argue that architects
can bring more than 2000 years of experience in developing spatial design
into cyberspace.Advocates of this view claim that today’s virtual environments,
such as the ones found on the Internet, are a very primitive manifestation
of digital space.Users tend to surf in random ways;
they easily lose their sense of destination and time and seldom can track
down or remember the locations of visited sites.

Figure 1.Above is the cover of the September 2000 Architecture
magazine.The 1990’s success of blob design is already an architectural
myth.Stated in the article: “rarely in any generation does a single academic
institution have a sweeping effect on the profession at large, the way
Harvard did in the ‘50s under Walter Gropius – and the way Columbia has
over the past six years.”Source: Architecture Magazine 2001.
Today architects tend to affect urbanity
only by constructing single buildings in a very fixed period of time.“Brick
and click” architects can affect urbanity over longer periods of time by
manipulating image, memory, and usability of real buildings via networked
software.The virtual environment, offers a parallel level of reality,
one in which space can be manipulates by the user.Once the visitor becomes
acquainted with the environment one can develop short cuts, which will
allow quick access to the information and events that occur in a particular
building.The field of “Cyber/Real Architecture,” “Mixed Reality” or “Information
Architecture” began to be formulated in theoretical writings between the
early- to mid-1990 (Mitchell 1995, Castell 1989, Boyer 1996, Benedickt
1991, Bradford and Wurman,
1996).But it was not until the late 1990s that it began to emerge in professional
practice in works such as Asymptote’s NYSE Virtual Stock Exchange (Guzman
1999) and Guggenheim Virtual Museum, Rem Koolhaas new AMO office (Wolf
2000), ETHWorld cyber/real university campus, ModernCool & 2069, Inc.
drive-thru shopping centers (Andia 1998), Trans-ports (Oosterhuis 2000)
and Lennon & Associates’ emergency rooms.New technologies such as Web3D
and the rise of broadband network give this paradigm an emerging sense
of urgency.
Initially in academia, the subject became popular during semester long
lecture courses and studios such as the “The Future of 20th
Century Architecture” at University of Cincinnati, in 1996; “Theories of
Digital Space” and “Internet and Architecture” at Harvard University, during
1996 –1998; and regular studios such as the “home shopping studio” at Rensselaer Polytechnic, in 1996; “220 Minutes
Museum” at Columbia University, in 1999; or “Extreme Shopping” at Florida
International University, in 2000. The subject is not only gaining followers
but it is also creating new departments and degree programs inside schools
such as the “CAAD postgraduate programs and several learning environment”
at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ); “infARC” program
at Bauhaus-Weimar; The “New Cybernetic Design” program at Universidad Internacional
de Cataluyna, Spain; and the “Informatics
Architecture” program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Figure 2.Images of some of the finalists for the design
competition for a Cyber/Real Campus forETH University, Zurich.The project
is an information infrastructure project for ETH Zurich. The existing physical
locations, ‘Zentrum’ and ‘Hönggerberg’, will be augmented by a virtual
space, which can be regarded as a virtual campus.All members of ETH will
have the opportunity to input structure into this virtual space, and make
it flexible and equipped for future needs. This information space extends
the existing infrastructure and supports research, teaching and learning,
as well as service and administration, at ETH Zurich.
CAAD departments inside Weimar and
ETHZ have completed almost half a decade of work in this field and are
positioned to become the “academic source” of the “Information Architecture”
paradigm.At ETH, a large number of Ph.D. students support, with their research
highly computerized teaching environment such as “Alterego”.“Alterego”
is a web site that supports several courses such as DreamScape, Territorium,
Connectionz, and Roomz (Engeli 2001).Each one of these courses lasts approximately
six weeks and more than 100 students attend each one.The only software
a student needs is a web browser with “cookies” enabled and a VRML 2.0
plug-in.Each one of the students enters the highly automated learning space
via the web.A personal agent inside the site guides the students and reflects
on their action during the course.Students develop, in these modules, spatial
exercises, which resemble the “Graphic Communication” courses in which
students, work with cardboard or balsa wood cubes, in traditional undergraduate
education.For example, in some of the exercises students are asked to model
basic spatial forms based on the word “immersion” or design a small room
or house based on an exert from a Jorge Luis Borges novel.Here there are
no cubes of balsa wood but there are cubes in 3D VRML, which allows for
quick moves and editing.Moreover, the spatial experience is digitally enhanced
as one can develop texture and even animation over the surface.The final
product is no longer an inert space but a moving environment.The learning
space is completely designed at ETH and each teaching environment is part
of an ongoing research. The environment does not resemble any commercial
software and students therefore have to learn and comprehend the limitations.
The work at these architectural schools raises important questions about
this emerging paradigm.Can architects become good designers in both the
physical world and the digital world?Will it be possible to become technologically
proficient in both?The evidence at Weimar and ETH is that it is too soon
to form a conclusion.However, both schools have had experiences regarding
the subject for only the past five years.The results, during that period,
have been extraordinary, and are bound to attract much more attention in
the near future from other academic communities as Web3D and mixed reality
technology matures, and broadband internet becomes the most important technological
improvement in the next ten years.
VIRTUAL STUDIOS (early 1990’s through today)
The Virtual Studios or Internet Studios
explore the asynchronous and synchronous techniques in remote design collaboration.By
using technologies, such as videoconferencing (PictureTel, Polycom IP,
VocalTec, Cuseeme, Real Audio), Internet publishing, e-mail, Web3D, and
digital modeling, students gain an increasing understanding of the new
modes of collaboration and media integration in design practices.The experience
also enriches the architectural experience since it is able to open studios
to different design cultures and to a larger context of design feedback.
The first Virtual Design Studios (VDS) were attempted at the University
British Columbia, during the early 1990’s, in collaboration with other
schools of architecture such as Harvard, MIT, Washington University, Cornell
University, and Hong Kong University (Wojtowicz, 1994).These early experiences
relied heavily on asynchronous communication technologies that supported
e-mail, bulletin boards, FTP, and Internet publishing.Usually, students
publish and share information on the Internet and present final projects
via live ISDN and IP videoconferences.One of the greatest drawbacks, of
the initial VDS, was that they had extreme technical difficulties in obtaining
synchronous communication. Therefore they had to depend on very structured
environments to share design work via servers and the incipient Internet.Since
structured experiences in design studios are very consuming, for professors
and students, usually these experiences lasted only two to three weeks
during the early 1990’s.

Figure 3.Some of the automated 3D Internet environment
screen images in which ETH students develop basic design skills for the
architecture of cyberspace.A six-week long course to create modules, such
as “roomz”, “eventspaces,” and “connectionz,” to aid students with the
development of spatial exercises that resemble traditional “graphic communication”
architectural exercises.However, this time the course is interactive and
the projects free from physical materiality.
Between the mid- and late-1990’s, as collaboration technologies evolved
and became available to the masses, virtual studios at Florida International
University (Andia 2001) and Texas A & M University (Vasquez de Velasco
1998) began to foster more international experiences that lasted a complete
semester.Most of the studies report that the cross-cultural and global
nature of the experience usually motivates students.Others see this accessibility
to design can promote a more “democratic” and “populist” dimension of architecture,
an attitude that may help community design efforts in some schools.Also
several interdisciplinary experiences emerged in the mid-1990’s as students,
from architecture, engineering, and building construction, from institutions
such as U.C. Berkeley and CIFE at Stanford University, collaborated in
virtual studio experiments (Kalay 1995).
Despite the surge in distance education, in many other disciplines in the
United States during the past five years, architectural schools have been
hesitant to use this type of teaching methodology.While an increasing number
of programs in media, arts and crafts become virtual, Internet Studios
remain isolated efforts inside traditional schools, and making it difficult
to conduct a serious evaluation of the experience.Perhaps one of the most
extraordinary results of the “Virtual Studios,” for academia, is that the
participants can quickly witness the design biases of the different schools.
Traditionally, architectural schools from all over the world, develop a
design culture that evolves very slowly through the years.This new mode
of collaboration may help increase the transmission of ideas and architectural
progress.One of the greatest negative comments, this type of experience
has received, refers to the digital burden that it has placed on the student’s
education.The learning of the software and the updating of information
usually occupies between 20% and 30% of the student’s time.Another comment
usually heard is the need to develop better tools for collaboration.Tools
that allow for quick and automated web course management such as Electronic
pin-ups databases, programming-tools, and Electronic review spaces.
THE FUTURE.
To complete the discourse, about
the “computerization” process of architectural practice and education,
it is important to consider also some visions of the future.It is reasonable
to believe that the future of the ideology of digital architecture will
be greatly related to the “speed” in which the technology matures.One can
observe the evolution of computing speed by studying the development of
hardware and software power in upcoming decades.In this century digital
technologies will enjoy an exponential growth in hardware power.Ray Kurzweil
(Kurzweil 1999) describes this acceleration by comparing the power of today’s
$1,000 desktop computer and projecting it into the future.A $1000 computer
in 2000 “can achieve memory capacity and computational ability” of one
insect brain.He estimates that at the current rate of hardware explosive
growth by 2020 a $1,000 computer will reach the computational ability of
one human brain and by 2060 the capacity of all human brains on earth.The
speed of development is much more slow for software, in fact, many argue
that in the past decade software power has barely evolved and that trend
will continue in the future.
Another way to observe technological
evolution is by looking at technological trends.
I would like to propose that two parallel visions and technological trends will guide the future of computerization: A. The blurring of hardware and software into new “immersive”
and “mixed-reality” devices; B.More ubiquitous cyberspace over gigabit-network.
The first condition refers to the possibility of liberating cyberspace
from the computer monitors and virtual reality glasses.Holographic, autostereoscopic,
mixed reality interfaces, digital prosthesis, haptic devices, retinal VR
and virtual smell are among the prototype technologies that are emerging
with strength in the developed world.It will probably take a decade until
these technologies reach the level of commercial production.However, as
we begin to observe that cybernetics investigation in this area is advancing
with speed and has begun to explore more explicitly all five human senses.In
Architecture and Urban Planning academia we can find first an emergence
of a new generation of design process tools such as “TheOtherSide” and
“Built-it” from ETH (Engeli 2001), “Illuminating Clay” and “Future of Urban
Planning" from MIT (Ishii and Underkoffler 1999).This emerging work explores
new mixed-media interfaces in which designers engage in real time between
analog and digital environments.On the Computer Interface and interactive
art community there is also an explosion of experiments that began with
the MIT Media Lab and without a doubt enter into the realm of mixed reality
space design.
The second important trend refers to the need to obtain ubiquity in cyberspace.This
can only be achieved with networks that are universally accessible and
with high levels of bandwidth.A number of research projects are beginning
to emerge in this area such as “Tele-immersion” (Lanier 2001) and “Star
Tap” at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois
(Leigh et. al. 1999) and will define how long it will take for us to have
true 3D telephony in high bandwidth networks.
Most visions of cyberspace architecture today and virtual world communities,
such as blaxxun worlds or Alpha worlds, are based on the IP paradigm.Current
IP networks use one or two flux of information at the same time.For example,
in e-mail, the flux of information is only text, in chat worlds is both
text and web3D or VRML graphics files, and in a videoconference is both
audio and video.In the current IP paradigm architects usually see an opportunity
for designing 3D graphics worlds that are manipulated by users remotely;
the architectural gesture is thus reduced to the aesthetics and memory
impact of the form.

Figure 4.Images from “Internet Studios” between FIU, Miami;
UBC, Canada; U. UNIACC, Chile; U. Tecnica F. Santa Maria, Chile; U. Buenos
Aires, Argentina; and U. Central de Venezuela.
3D telephony is more complex, it is basically a world in which users can
remotely interact and perform events that manipulate the world at the same
time.It uses several types of information flux that must be coordinated
at the same time.This information flux has different types of bandwidth,
latency, security, and tolerances.The organization and administration of
this information flux is much more complex given the international distances
and the capacities of world networks.As the international network increases
to capacities of 40 or 200 Gigabits per second exponentially escalation
of problems, algorithms and switches necessary to harmonize the multiple
information flux will occur.In 3D telephony environments also increased
is the complexity of the interactive experience and space goes beyond form
and spatial memory but design becomes essentially “event” driven.
Initial research in academic “information architecture” or “cyberspace
architecture” has been based on the current hardware and IP network paradigms.However,
in this early research about cyberspace design, we began to observe clear
positions regarding several common themes in this emerging field: a positive
attitude about architectural principles influencing the “envisioning of
Cyberspace” (Anders 1999, Engeli 2001), design must discover usability
behaviors, this means to design in space and time to construct not only
a form in space but a “place.”This research also encourages architectural
designers to consider the issue of implementation of these types of projects.As
they become more complex “information architects” will need to exercise
a managerial expertise similar to the one exercised in the construction
industry today.However, despite the growing enthusiasm about these new
visions for architecture, many in practice and academia consider these
endeavors outside the realm of the discipline.As the technology evolves
the ideological separation will increase and important cultural conflict
may affect the profession as it occur at the beginning of the 20th
century.
CONCLUSION
Our study recognizes that professional
practice and architectural education are developing different discourses
of computerization.Professional architects more than “revolutionizing”
the profession they are “modernizing” it, by integrating digital technologies
to effectively improve all what conventional architecture has represented
during the past century.While in academia many support this “modernizing”
view, an increasing number of universities are becoming test beds for new
visions of design imagination, materials, and the realm of the discipline.
Professional architects are integrating information technology into their
practice in two different ways: first, the computer as simply a better
tool for doing existing manual work, and second, the computer as a vehicle
for changing the relationships among partners in the design process, which
in turn may drive new design-build documentation and bidding process, organizational
culture and structure.The modes of computerization of architectural practices
today are very similar to the discourse developed in other industries,
however, the level of change is not as dramatic since the industry is more
fragmented, project specific, and organized around very fragile contractual
arrangements.
In architectural education there are five interrelated, but divergent, discourses of computerization.The first
one, “Design Methods Software,” focuses on the creation of intelligent
software that can aid, enables, and/or even replaces certain elements of
intelligence in the design process.This tradition has a history that dates
back to the early 1960’s, to early the beginning of computational history.
The second approach, “CAD Visualization,” focuses on the development of
an architectural education that explores the use of CAD software as “visualization
tools” of traditional modes of teaching and practicing architectural design.This
tradition is well entrenched in architectural schools and is connected
to the long-established vision that professional architecture has had of
computers during the past 15 years.
A third attitude, called “paperless or blob architecture,” concentrates
on the use of existing high-end computer graphics to transform design techniques,
architectural imagination, and influence the built environment with a completely
new design vision.This is an emerging popular paradigm in design studios
across the United States.This approach is almost entirely an academic phenomenon
as most of its adepts have very close ties to schools of architecture.In
a way this field grows from the avant-garde tradition in architectural
history, which has always resisted a conventional architecture and has
searched for new formal expressions.
In a fourth posture, “mixed reality architecture” or “information architecture,”
is seen as an arena to explore the new virtual and physical dimension of
urban habitation.It attempts to remove design studio preoccupation from
only the physical world of buildings, and attempts to reposition it to
look at its relation to virtual architectures.This area emerges from a
resistance to the apparently exclusive aesthetic objectives of “paperless”
architects and the extraordinary enthusiasm brought by promising new 3D
networked spaces.It is born academically with the tools and the cybernetic
tradition that promotes a more hybrid nature of urban functions and spaces.
Finally, a fifth academic experience, “Virtual Studios,” explores a parallel
dimension of architectural communication in the digital era.These events
have the potential to become agents of extraordinary cultural change in
the traditionally protected academic environments in architecture.As in
physics or mathematics, these new academic networks can propel much quicker
progress and exhaust more quickly any of the computerization experiences
described above.
NOTES
[i] The purpose
of this type of social study is to achieve a direct impact in key industry
discourse about the technology.The idea is to "create a credible and compelling
social narrative about the social role of technologies...reconstructive
interpretivists can see technologies and associated social practices and
structures as temporally solidified, packed and black-boxed at the same
time that they acknowledge the artifice in their contextual constructions.Sociologists
of technology should be able to legitimately construct compelling narratives
about the use of technologies and their social consequences" (Kling 1991).
[ii] "The technique
focuses on interacting with people in their own context as they do actually
work.The goal of data gathering is to obtain insights through observations,
interviews, and interaction.The challenge of this methodology is that
it relies on the skill of the observer to report and interpret accurately,
while allowing unexpected phenomenon to emerge from the examples studied”
(Bullen and Bennett 1991).
[iii]A/E/C SYSTEMS
Computer Solutions magazine described how one architectural firm integrated
its different data types as follows:
On Bloomington, Minessota’s Mall
of America project, the project team successfully shared CAD files during
design, construction and leasing.They achieved unusual teamwork and rapid
construction but only by moving three-dozen people to the site hundred
miles away.What did Plus Four Architects decide to do on the next multi-use
mega-plex?Mark Brody, their project systems director, says they are expanding
the sharing of data beyond CAD to include one integrated schedule, one
document control database, e-mail and possibly cost control.They are creating
a “virtual office” with fiber-optic connections from four major sites
to a regional server.Is integration paying off for Plus Four? Brody says,
“Yes.The more urgently a client needs a finished project, the greater
the payback from integration, because integration speeds decisions and
delivery” (Stowe, 1993).
[iv] An example
of this emerging attitude can be found in the cover story of ENR magazine
in June of 1993:
The technology offers more than speed.Networks
can remove the traditional delineation between design and construction...Joel
M. Koppelman, president of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., software vendor Primavera
System Inc., says "engineers, constructors and owners will begin to think
about projects as an information sharing process so that things get done
right the first time.That's were the technology will take us.It will get
us away from the adversarial approach [within AEC professions] and the
'over-the-transform' approach.The better and easier you can exchange information
the more likely you'll get it done right the first time.The will be less
rework and arguing about whose fault it is"(Wright & Setzer 1993).
[v]Some examples
of these earlier computer programs are:
-In 1963 Alexander using an IBM 7090
develops one of the first computer programs for design.The program was
based on his model to develop rational city designs.
-Alexander and Manheim develop HIDECS
in 1962 and Milne develops CLUSTER in 1970, two computer programs used
to compute hierarchically decomposed design problems.
-In 1973 The Design Research at the
Royal College of Art in England finished two computer models, SHADO and
SIGMA based on a Analysis-Synthesis-Evaluation model of Bruce Archer.
-A computer program was made to aid
the AIDA method developed by Luckman in 1967.J. Luckman, "The Management
of Design," Operational Research Quarterly4, (December 1967).
-Maver (1970-72) made a program based
on a general model of the activity of design proposed by Markus (1969).
-In 1973 The Hungarian Institute for
Building Science find out that it was necessary to develop a system to
study the information flow in the design process in order to develop a
CAD system for structural design and construction.G. H. Weber, "Computer
Aided System for structural design and construction,"Hungarian Academy
of Sciences and Hungarian Institute for Building Science (1971) Budapest.G.H.
Weber, "A System Study of Information Flow in the Design process," RCA/Hungarian
Institute for Building Science (1973).
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