COMPUTERS AND ARCHITECTURE

To realize an example of architecture, the object must be described. However, this in
itself is insufficient—the process of realizing the object must itself be supported. It is in
both these dimensions that computers have been of benefit in the practice of architecture
in the 20th century. The use of computers in architectural design has been motivated by a
number of factors and driven by others, and has come to reflect the evolution of practice
through the last half of the 20th century.
The work of an architect started the century relying heavily on teams of
colleagues, employees, consultants, and contractors; by the close of the
century, although the practice of architecture was much the same, the
picture had changed to include computing tools in almost every team and
every practice, drawing the participants closer together through the whole
sequence of events leading to the construction of a building. As this
change took place, the challenge with the use of computing tools came to
be recognized as the challenge of management, not technology.
Describing the Building
Buildings can be described in two ways. They can be described by performance
(including quantities), or they can be drawn. Initially, computers were seen as
manipulators of data in the simplest sense: calculators and organizers. Thus, when
computers were first made accessible to designers, it was largely in the areas of planning
and engineering that applications were first undertaken. In these fields, design could be
seen to rely on the handling of large data sets as well as the manipulation of equations in
the calculation of quantified results. More traditionally, a building is drawn: The
geometries of the building are set forth by means of lines, straight or curved, or volumes.
A second application of computers is in the creation and manipulation of graphics.
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Although computers could be applied to data manipulation and calculation with more
simple interfaces of card readers and printers, architectural graphics required more
sophisticated user interfaces such as display screens and input devices supporting
pointing and drawing. Because the practice of architecture relies heavily on graphic
communication, the development of computer graphic devices was highly influential on
the spread of computer use in design. The evolution of computer graphics can therefore
be considered discretely when reviewing the history of computer-aided architectural
design.
Computer Graphics
The first implementation of such systems supporting what we might recognize as a
computer graphics system can be found in 1950, when MIT’s Whirlwind computer
system was used to support a refreshed vector screen for display of graphics. This system
can be considered a first-generation computer, running with vacuum tubes and
consuming considerable space and power. Limitations in the interfaces as well as costeffective
access to computational systems meant that it was not until 1963 that Ivan E.
Sutherland presented Sketchpad, the first full-fledged, operational computer-aided design system.
This system ran on second-generation TX-2 computers, using transistors for computation,
and refreshed vector displays and light pen for the user interface. Several other
implementations of computer graphic systems were developed in academic settings
during the early 1960s, leading to the conference “Architecture and the Computer” in
1964.
In late 1964 IBM demonstrated their DAC-1 system to support graphic interaction in
automobile design. From the introduction of this system came increasing use of
interactive computer-aided design systems by automobile and aerospace firms, so that by
end of the 1960s, commercial use of computer graphics was proven, although only in
applications that supported high-cost factors. The first computer graphic tool specifically
for architectural application was ARK-2, introduced in the early 1970s.
General use of computers in architectural design had to wait until the early 1980s,
when computer systems had reduced in cost by a factor yet again to make it feasible for
large practices to purchase workstations. The final impetus for widespread use of
computer graphics came when miniaturization of computer circuits was achieved and
computing systems dropped by yet another factor. The personal computer was introduced
(1982) and software developers provided tools that could be used in a normal office
environment at a lower cost. As hardware became cheaper and hence more accessible,
computers came to be widespread and were common tools in every design practice and
activity.
Software developed initially to describe buildings as threedimensional data models,
but as workstations became more common, users demanded simpler two-dimensional
descriptions for drawing, rather than digital modeling. As personal computers were
adopted in practice, the most popular computer tools in practice were drafting systems.
As the smaller workstations became more powerful, more complex software could be
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developed for use on these cheaper platforms, and rendering and presentation software
became widely available. Initially capable of displaying only simple forms and colors,
these software systems evolved to portray lighting, surface textures, and colors more
accurately. By the 1990s such systems were being used in architectural practice to
prepare animations of design ideas for presentation to clients, regulators, and potential
users.
Traditionally, building designs are communicated visually by two-dimensional
descriptions, such as in drawings, as well as by three-dimensional descriptions, such as
models. From the start computer graphic systems supported three-dimensional
descriptions, although it was not easy to convert these to paper-based drawings.
Computer graphics thus came to be categorized into distinct tool sets: drawing tools in
which two-dimensional descriptions are created and virtual reality systems in which the
user interacts with three-dimensional representations. Some software avoids the problems
of full three-dimensional representation with simulating three-dimensional forms by
extruding two-dimensional shapes or assembling (as in a card model) two-dimensional
drawings in a three-dimensional space. Virtual reality systems have proved to be
cumbersome and overly complex for either designers or clients to use and, after 30 years
of development, have not yet realized the benefits anticipated in architectural design.
As computers came to be used in design, it was found to be possible to
describe forms digitally that may not be apparent or obtainable through
manual methods of working. For example, parametric design came to be
used—a method in which particular properties of a shape, dimensional or
otherwise, could be adjusted as the design progressed. If the parameters
were geometric, for example, the shape of a design might change
according to other properties such as time or capacity. Using these
computational attributes, designers have explored forms that are
sufficiently complex to require computer-driven digital output devices
such as robotic cutters or rapid prototyping machines. By use of these
devices, a more sculptural architecture came to be explored by the end of
the century (see, e.g., Gehry’s works from the late 1990s). These
sculptural forms also pushed the use of robotics in manufacturing of
architectural components.
Nongraphic Descriptions
Graphic descriptions of a building are not sufficient to erect or maintain a building. Many
aspects of design rely on quantitative analysis, such as the prediction of the energy
consumption of a particular design. These quantitative design procedures typically lend
themselves to automation and were the first type of design activity to which computers
were applied. Numerous computer programs have been written to help designers estimate
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the cost of their design—its performance in various parameters such as energy, wind,
noise, and structural behavior, among others. Later, these nongraphic analyses came to be
integrated with graphics and the results of the calculations displayed on the digital model
of the building proposed. Thus, the results of a structural analysis program can be shown
with the building bending in digital wind.
The construction of a building is supported not only by drawings but also by textual
descriptions, such as specifications of tabular quantifications of materials (e.g., bills of
quantities). Computers are particularly useful in organizing and accessing large quantities
of data; that is, as database management tools. In early software developments,
applications were created that linked geometric descriptions to nongeometric
descriptions, permitting the generation of text descriptions directly from graphical
descriptions; for example, the automated printing of draft construction specifications.
With the recognition of the programmers that building design itself
represents only a small portion of the life cycle of a building, computers
have come to support facilities management through the remainder of the
life cycle, tracking building use and maintenance. Computers now are
extensively used in the management of buildings, both for monitoring and
operating particular equipment within a building (which processes
generate data that can be used in design analysis for subsequent designs)
and for tracking usage and scheduling maintenance and replacement of
elements.
Supporting the Process
The use of computer tools in architecture can be seen to track architectural theory in the
20th century, although perhaps time shifted by a few decades at the start. Initial
applications of computers were quantitative and focused on calculating answers to
specific questions arising in design. In the 1960s this application of computers fit well
with the attitude that design was a problem-solving task in which specific design
questions could be isolated and solved and the results integrated to produce a final
answer. Design could be considered an optimization of solution searching in a welldefined
problem space (see Simon 1981 for a particularly clear exposition of this
perspective). In this approach to design, the architect can structure the problem space and
inform the computer of the data to be considered, and the computer can search, through
calculation and data manipulation, all possible permutations of solutions and identify the
optimal answer. Computational tools were developed through the 1960s to solve
particular problems, such as needs analysis and schedules of accommodation,
minimization of energy consumption, optimization of space layouts, traffic flow analysis,
and plan layouts based on synthesis of quantified factors. Applications were used in
producing optimized standard plans for hospitals and schools, in designing industrialized
construction methods, and in planning new urban centers and housing areas.
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After a decade or more of such use, it became obvious that approaching design as
segmented questions to be solved through individually optimized solutions did not
adequately address the broader synthetic aspects of successful design. At the same time,
computer tools had developed to the point that large databases could be stored for online
access and querying. Research in artificial intelligence has led to successful rule-based
computer programming tools to query databases and to simulate reasoning. This led to
design applications being developed to support knowledge-based design processes.
Drawing on successes in technical applications such as oil exploration, rule-based expert
systems were developed for architectural design. In these, expert knowledge and
reasoning processes were captured from successful designers and design domains to
create knowledge bases in particular. The shift to knowledge-based design reflected a
broader perception that architectural design needed to incorporate a wide range of issues,
not merely those expressible in simple computational terms.
The third fundamental shift in computer-aided architectural design came
about when the Internet provided widespread connectivity. Architectural
design has always been practiced in teams, requiring that team members
collaborate on the evolving description of a building and communicate
these descriptions to one another to ensure that all team members work
toward the same goal. By the mid-1990s such teams were commonly
communicating by sending data between team members on disks or tapes,
thereby bringing together the work of team members through the computer
and facilitating the division of work to permit concurrent activities. On the
advent of the Internet, communication moved away from physical media
and toward purely digital forms, allowing projects to be built with the
majority of communication in digital form. Thus, the computer and its
connectivity came to support the collaborative production of buildings,
bringing together not only architects but also consultants and contractors
and enabling team members to proceed on their own tasks while
maintaining close coordination of the parts.
Supporting the Business
The business of architecture has adapted to accommodate the use of computers. Tasks
and duties in architecture extend beyond design and include project management,
research, and construction administration. In these functions as well as design, computers
have come to be essential tools. For example, in construction administration Internetbased
communication enables the construction administrators to observe construction
progress using Web-cam video images transmitted from the site back to the office.
Robotics is being applied to particular construction projects to execute procedures not
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easily carried out by hand, to speed up construction times, or to reduce the dangers to
which people are exposed on-site. Workers in remote site offices can access online
drawings and documentation as easily as their colleagues in the main office. Project
managers can access online current financial information and use this to complete
projects on budget and schedule. Using digital technologies, team members, including
clients, have been drawn together and coordination has been improved through better
communication. By the end of the century, several e-commerce web sites were actively
supporting design communication, component sourcing, and construction processes.