Outline

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Ø The term ‘Digital technology in architecture’ is defined as the usage of digital technology in architecture.

Ø Architecture has now evolved into something that was unimaginable 50 years ago.

Ø Great ideas and concepts came across many architects’ minds but were left unbuilt due to limitations of technologies in the past.

Ø Many architects and designers had a hard time expressing crazy ideas in their design using manual drawing skills.

Ø These new technologies are helping to transform architectural surfaces far beyond the traditional norms of architecture.

Ø The main instrument used is of course, the computer which hence gave birth to a new term in the industry, which is Computer Aided Design.

Ø Aims and objectives

-To examine how digital technology (design software) has helped architects and designers in their design process, which includes generating ideas in the conceptualization stage, 3D modeling and visualization.

-To study how digital technology has possibly changed the way architects and designers think and work, with various design software available to be explored.

-To study and identify the impact of digital software on the architects/designers and their creativity is also one of the aims that I would want to achieve.


CHAPTER 2.0 BACKGROUND

ARCHITECTS AND THEIR 1960S DREAMS

Ø Archigram, a renowned British Architectural group believed that modern technology would bring about a new era in building design.

Ø Big dreams they had, coming out with inventive sketches and articulate essays but the world simply wasn’t ready for their ideas.

Ø Later in the 1990s, it is only with recent advances in computer science and technology that many of these ideas and structures became relatively possible.

Ø Subsequently, architects and engineers began to harness the powerful software to achieve their somewhat ‘impossible’ attempts

Ø ‘Imagination creates reality’ and ‘Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real'

Ø Peter Cook and Colin Fourniew, former Archigram colleagues can now fulfill their boyhood ambitions and build their dreams.

Ø It was a chance to make good on the promises sketched out all those years ago in order to recapture their 1960s dreams.

 

CHAPTER 3: DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGNER’S CONCEPTUALIZATION PROCESS

3.1 CONCEPTUALIZATION USING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY BY FAMOUS ARCHITECTS

Ø Digital technology has enabled the extensive exploration of form in the conceptualizing stage

Ø Digital technology or design software has helped many designers in terms of conceptualization for example Frank Gehry’s design, which is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and also in most of Zaha Hadid’s elaborate architecture.

Ø Gehry’s design first began as a series of freehand sketches that he made by standing on the riverbanks overlooking the site.

Ø Back in his studio, he transformed the energetic lines into countless number of models, created by folding, twisting, and crumpling paper and card to create the apparently random forms that crystallized to become a building.

Ø However, the design was only made possible by the extensive use of CATIA

Ø Digital technology or computer technology which is the new design tool have had an important and increasing influence on Zaha Hadid’s work over the past 10 years.

Ø In the early years of Zaha Hadid’s work, early modes of drawing did not allow her to deal with different aspects of her design.

Ø She had to look at drawing from a new perspective by utilizing new technologies in 3D computer modelling.

Ø Helps in the handling of increasingly complex geometries within the designs and fluidity of forms in her works

3.2 CONCEPTUALIZATION PROCESS IN THE PAST AND THE PRESENT BY DESIGNERS

Ø Research yet to be conducted 

 CHAPTER 4: THE DESIGN PROCESS OF DESIGNERS AFFECTED BY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

4.1 DESIGN PROCESS FOR DESIGNERS MADE EASY

Ø In the work place, technology has significantly change the way we go about our everyday jobs, in design the introduction of design software has identified new and exciting ways to go about the design process.

Ø This computing evolution has precipitated a fundamental re-evaluation of space and time.

Ø On paper sketching is limited to 2D projection

Ø Changing and editing of plans became more efficient

Ø Architect and designer’s work involves mostly visually represented data hence problem are outlined and dealt with a graphical approach, which can be made easy using design software.

Ø The overall benefits that are derived from the CAD drawing make the very concept and usage of paper drawings somewhat outdated and unnecessary.

Ø CAD draws our attention to the integrated system for design and documentation, the use of computer as a management tool.

Ø The development and maintenance of a series of databases that describe the building and its systems, with input of product information

Ø One can easily get the idea, how the end product will look at the end of production within minimum time period as the design process is accelerated

4.2 LOOKING INTO THE CLIENTS' PERSPECTIVES

Ø Looking into the perspective of the consumers or client, many of them cannot envision the end product of a project and therefore have a hard time signing off on a contract.

Ø Design software or program that creates realistic two dimensional or three dimensional images of what the clients proposes can make help make the sale.

Ø Consumers might not see the charm of a hand-drawn design and consider CAD drawings more professional and easily understandable

Ø Digital 3D walk-through which allows the designers and consumers to have a mutual understanding and experiences the virtual space, design approach and end product

Ø The connection and relationship between design and functionality can be quickly tested once a building is ‘constructed’ in CAD

4.3 ZAHA HADID IN HER OWN WORDS AND POINT OF VIEW TOWARDS THE USAGE OF DIGITAL MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY IN HER WORKS

Ø In an interview with the Chairman of the Architectural Association School of Architecture Mohsen Mostafavi on the role of design media in general and digital media, Zaha Hadid stated that computer was already involved in her latest projects. 

PARAPHRASE: (ZAHA HADID)

‘The computer shows what you might see from various selected viewpoints but that this doesn't give you enough transparency; it's much too opaque. Also, I think it is much nicer on the screen than when it is printed on to paper, because the screen gives you luminosity and the paper does not unless you do it through a painting. Further I think if you compare computer renderings with rendering by hand I must say that you can improvise much more with hand drawing and painting. As you go along, there is another layer of operation, while you're working on the drawing which is somehow missing in the computer rendering. Some people still have this raw talent. Some people can do drawings and plans (by hand or by computer). They can manipulate them so much. Some people have an incredible way of dealing with 3-dimensional modeling in the computer; but they don't have the same value. You can achieve certain things through technology. But you can't abstract in the same way. When drawing a perspective by hand you can decide that you want to show and edit out some other things. It's not about wire-framing. Rather you can decide to focus on the thing you want study at the time as you're doing the drawing. It focuses you more on certain critical issues. However, because I'm sitting there with 15 or 20 computer screens in front of me and I can see them all at the same time, it gives me yet another repertoire. You can see at the same time the section, the plan and several moving 3-D views, and in your mind you can see them in yet a different way. So I'm not sure if it weakens or strengthens your view. I just think it's a different way. And we still do physical models all the time, and I still do the sketches.’ 


 CHAPTER 5: DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE EXECUTION AND CONSTRUCTION STAGE

 5.1 CONSTRUCTION IN THIS NEW DIGITAL ERA

Ø Digital technology is the common ‘language’ among suppliers, contractors, architects and designers in order to improve productivity and smooth production

Ø Digital technology has assisted architects and engineers by using smart rules and algorithms for calculation and checking against constraints.

Ø CAD/CAM extends the management and documentation idea to the production of intricately interlocking custom-built components, of the kind seen in the spectacularly formed buildings of Frank Gehry. 

5.2 CONSTRUCTION OF GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM WITH THE AID OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

Ø This can be seen in the implementation of digital technology on the Guggenheim museum.

Ø The basic structure is formed from steel I-section beams that are used to construct a grid of sections approximately 3meter square. Each of the components was cut by computer-controlled numeric cutters (CNC), using the data straight from the architect’s model.

Ø The sections were bolted, rather than welded together, as the holes could be pre-drilled to an unparalleled degree of accuracy.

Ø The building was divided into contoured layers and the numbered sections brought to the site for assembly

Ø A projecting layer of curved steel tubes attached to the I-beam skeleton smoothed it faceted edges into graceful forms.

Ø To these contours were fixed vertical bars and over the bars, the final layer of overlapping titanium sheets, held by stainless-steel screws, created the building’s shimmering skin. 

-Yet to be refined-