Scenario of an integrated design support for architects

The FABEL system is a research prototype which demonstrates an integrated support for architects and civil engineers in building design. On the basis of a modern computer-aided architectural design tool (CARD) the FABEL prototype offers several tools to supply useful cases, adapt cases to current needs, assess design fragments, or generate parts of a building plan. The use of the system and the scope of its support is illustrated. Its hybrid nature and the integration of different tools is commented on. The tools are assessed with respect to their extensibility within the present domain or to other design domains.     

Modeling and image‐making as a two‐way process in architectural design studies

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of modeling and image‐making on architecture design. This paper studies the construction process of geometric objects and images in either direction. Relevant modeling issues include cost, scene and object, and structural and amount of visual detail. A method integrating between model and image is proposed toward solving conflict problems between the algorithmic and design processes. The conflicts are related to the need for a two‐way process and meta‐level manipulation between modeling and rendering. Segregation between modeling and image‐making is connected to achieve effective communication between designer and designed objects.     

Trends in architectural design methods—the ‘liability’ of public participation

This paper looks at developments in architecural design techniques over the past few decades. It challenges some recurring assertions about participatory design in architecture. In particular, it responds to a critical debate at the Design Research Society conference held at Portsmouth (UK) in December 1980, by suggesting that if participatory design methods have shortcomings these should not automatically be levelled at the tenets of public participation, but primarily at the means currently employed to involve building users int he architectural design process. In conclusion, a redefinition and a diversification of participatory architectural design methods in suggested.     

Urbigraph: a computer aid for design participation

This paper describes a computer-aided architectural design technique called Urbigraph system. The system has been developed as a support for participatory planning. It consists of a set of two simulation games, and a computer is used as a communication medium. The paper presents some practical aspects of its implementation and working experience with the digitiser as gained in Poland.     

Frames of reference in architectural design: analysing the hyperacclamation (A-h-a-!)

The discovery of a creative solution occasionally corresponds to the sudden attainment of a mental insight. Our purpose is to formally describe this phenomenon and the cognitive mechanisms that lead to it. The approach is based on the replicability of just such an insight which underlies the solution to a well known puzzle: the nine-dot puzzle. The insight coincides with the realization that the problem can only be solved when a spurious constraint is removed. Two experimental results are reported: one on the nine-dot puzzle and the other on an architectural sketch design problem. The sketch design problem was structured with several restricting frames of reference to create a situation analogous to the nine-dot puzzle. Subjects' design behaviour was analysed to identify the mechanisms used in achieving the mental insights which allow designers to go beyond the implicit restrictions of these frames. A general model, called SMI-GI, of the mental insight based design and discovery process is described. This model foresees a computer system that can be used to simulate the mental insight mechanism and consequently lead to the systematic examination of this aspect of design creativity.     

What do architects and students perceive in their design sketches? A protocol analysis

The present research aims at examining what information architects think of and read off from their own freehand sketches, and at revealing how they perceptually interact with and benefit from sketches. We explored this in a protocol analysis of retrospective reports; each participant worked on an architectural design task while drawing freehand sketches and later reported what she/he had been thinking of during the design task. This research lies within the scope of examinations of why freehand sketches as external representation are essential for crystallizing design ideas in early design processes.