CHAPTER 2.1 TIMELINE OF THE EMERGENCE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN ARCHITECTURE
CAD drafting history is practically as old as the first computers. The ideology of contemporary CAD (computer-assisted design) drafting programs is rooted in early advancements in computer programming in the 1960s and '70s. The true breakthrough regarding CAD technologies could be credited to the SKETCHPAD which is a drafting tool developed at MIT by Ivan Sutherland in 1963. It did not only enable designers to draw on their monitors by using a pen of light but also further demonstrated that computers could be used for drafting and modelling. However, due to the high expense associated with the technology, CAD software was predominantly used and developed by large private businesses such as GM and Renault. During the 1970s, CAD drawings were largely a variation of traditional drafting, as drawings could be produced only in two dimensions and primarily intended to automate repetitive drafting tasks.
Following the lead of aerospace and automotive engineers, architects began using CAD technology in the 1980s. Subsequently, the transformation from 2D to 3D began. This is the time where solid modelling and 3D software were invented in the 1980s which revolutionized design and manufacturing industries. The year 1990 is also significant for the development and implementation of digital technology and one major breakthrough in the architectural field is the emergence of rendering 3D design. Architectural practice without graphic software had become unimaginable. The fact that digital culture has been made possible by the emergence of an information-based society at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is generally agreed by historians. This era was a major transformation that corresponds roughly to what specialists of technology often call the Second Industrial Revolution.
Speaking of the evolution of CAD software, the Sketchpad which was the pioneer of all is already a major breakthrough in digital technology. At that time, it utilized a complete graphical user interface, using an x-y point plotter display and the recently invented light pen. The clever way the program organized its geometric data is by pioneering the use of "objects" and "instances" in computing and pointed forward to object oriented programming. The main idea was to have master drawings which one could be duplicated instantly. If the user changed the master drawing, all the instances would change as well. However, its limitation is to 2D drawings as the first CAD systems served as mere replacements of drawing boards. The design engineer still worked in 2D to create technical drawing consisting from 2D wireframe primitives for example line, arc and B spline. 3D rendered images or visualization started off extremely rudimentary by today's standards and consisted of wire frame representations of various geometric shapes when it was first introduced. On the other hand, 3D visualizations today are almost to perfection and realistic, besides being less geometrical in the interfaces compared to those in the past which shows that the evolutionary of 3D visualisation software is somehow enormous.
Over the years, CAD software had succeeded to assist designers in creating wide frame geometry, modelling using 3D parametric feature, the ability to use again the design components, generate automatically the design standard components, producing amazing 3D visualizations and other capabilities that you never could think will be able to make designing easier for designers.
CHAPTER 2.2 ARCHITECTS AND THEIR 1960s DREAMS
Archigram, a renowned British Architectural group believed that modern technology would bring about a new era in building design. Big dreams they had, coming out with inventive sketches and articulate essays but no clients dared to commission them. The world simply wasn’t ready for their ideas. Later in the 1990s, the world had become a totally different place with great technologies, which some people would never imagined back then. It is only with recent advances in computer science and technology that many of these ideas and structures became relatively possible. Subsequently, architects and engineers began to harness the powerful software to achieve their somewhat ‘impossible’ attempts, which brought architecture to a whole new level, a quantum leap to the unknown. This is when the quotes ‘Imagination creates reality’ and ‘Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real' comes into the picture.
Peter Cook and Colin Fourniew, who are the former Archigram colleagues, who once foresee the future in architecture with technologies, can now fulfill their boyhood ambitions and build their dreams. It was a chance to accomplish their mission, by making good on the promises sketched out all those years ago in order to recapture their 1960s dreams.
CAD drafting history is practically as old as the first computers. The ideology of contemporary CAD (computer-assisted design) drafting programs is rooted in early advancements in computer programming in the 1960s and '70s. The true breakthrough regarding CAD technologies could be credited to the SKETCHPAD which is a drafting tool developed at MIT by Ivan Sutherland in 1963. It did not only enable designers to draw on their monitors by using a pen of light but also further demonstrated that computers could be used for drafting and modelling. However, due to the high expense associated with the technology, CAD software was predominantly used and developed by large private businesses such as GM and Renault. During the 1970s, CAD drawings were largely a variation of traditional drafting, as drawings could be produced only in two dimensions and primarily intended to automate repetitive drafting tasks.
Following the lead of aerospace and automotive engineers, architects began using CAD technology in the 1980s. Subsequently, the transformation from 2D to 3D began. This is the time where solid modelling and 3D software were invented in the 1980s which revolutionized design and manufacturing industries. The year 1990 is also significant for the development and implementation of digital technology and one major breakthrough in the architectural field is the emergence of rendering 3D design. Architectural practice without graphic software had become unimaginable. The fact that digital culture has been made possible by the emergence of an information-based society at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is generally agreed by historians. This era was a major transformation that corresponds roughly to what specialists of technology often call the Second Industrial Revolution.
Speaking of the evolution of CAD software, the Sketchpad which was the pioneer of all is already a major breakthrough in digital technology. At that time, it utilized a complete graphical user interface, using an x-y point plotter display and the recently invented light pen. The clever way the program organized its geometric data is by pioneering the use of "objects" and "instances" in computing and pointed forward to object oriented programming. The main idea was to have master drawings which one could be duplicated instantly. If the user changed the master drawing, all the instances would change as well. However, its limitation is to 2D drawings as the first CAD systems served as mere replacements of drawing boards. The design engineer still worked in 2D to create technical drawing consisting from 2D wireframe primitives for example line, arc and B spline. 3D rendered images or visualization started off extremely rudimentary by today's standards and consisted of wire frame representations of various geometric shapes when it was first introduced. On the other hand, 3D visualizations today are almost to perfection and realistic, besides being less geometrical in the interfaces compared to those in the past which shows that the evolutionary of 3D visualisation software is somehow enormous.
Over the years, CAD software had succeeded to assist designers in creating wide frame geometry, modelling using 3D parametric feature, the ability to use again the design components, generate automatically the design standard components, producing amazing 3D visualizations and other capabilities that you never could think will be able to make designing easier for designers.
CHAPTER 2.2 ARCHITECTS AND THEIR 1960s DREAMS
Archigram, a renowned British Architectural group believed that modern technology would bring about a new era in building design. Big dreams they had, coming out with inventive sketches and articulate essays but no clients dared to commission them. The world simply wasn’t ready for their ideas. Later in the 1990s, the world had become a totally different place with great technologies, which some people would never imagined back then. It is only with recent advances in computer science and technology that many of these ideas and structures became relatively possible. Subsequently, architects and engineers began to harness the powerful software to achieve their somewhat ‘impossible’ attempts, which brought architecture to a whole new level, a quantum leap to the unknown. This is when the quotes ‘Imagination creates reality’ and ‘Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real' comes into the picture.
Peter Cook and Colin Fourniew, who are the former Archigram colleagues, who once foresee the future in architecture with technologies, can now fulfill their boyhood ambitions and build their dreams. It was a chance to accomplish their mission, by making good on the promises sketched out all those years ago in order to recapture their 1960s dreams.
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