Chapter 3.1

3.1 CONCEPTUALIZATION USING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY BY FAMOUS ARCHITECTS

Conceptualization is often regarded as the most crucial stage in the design process of a designer as it involves inventing or contriving an idea or explanation and formulating it mentally. Great works often arise from great concepts which shine and stand out from the rest. In this digital era, due to the availability of various digital computations and methods, designers tend to be more adventurous and adaptive towards the usage of digital technology in terms of coming out with a good concept to ensure their whole design process goes smoothly. Among the great architects in around the world, Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid are the perfect examples of architects which incorporated digital technology and design software in the conceptualization stage of few of their iconic works.

In the 1980’s, Frank Gehry, the gifted architect had begun to utilized digital technology in his work. His design works were bold, valiant and revolutionary which can be seen in his representational ‘art piece’, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. His design first began as a series of free hand sketches that he made by standing on the riverbanks overlooking the side. His adventurous nature had made him go all his way out to think out of the box and create forms which he had always dreamed of without any restrictions. Pleated cardboards and crushed paper-towel tubes, the materials which we would never think of had been made use by Gehry to transform the energetic lines into countless number of models. In the article ‘Art Crimes and Art Historical Mysteries’ by Noah Charney, Gehry always works with models, using scraps of ‘’whatever is lying around’’ and on one occasion a Perrier bottle is even used. He also told Charney that he moved a piece of paper and struggle over it for a week, but in the end it was a matter of getting the stuff built.

Gehry’s spontaneous and genuine work was only being able to be realized at its most by bringing the CATIA software into play. The CATIA, also known as Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application was a new French computer advancement borrowed from the aviation industry that was previously used to design the Morage jet fighter and Boeing 777. This software had made his imagination come true. It was developed in the 1980s, allowing architects to manipulate three-dimensional solid models and most importantly encouraged the curve trend to boom in architecture as the architects in the past used to deal in angles which were way more challenging. 'The computer is a tool that lets the architect parent the project to the end, because it allows you to make accurate, descriptive, and detailed drawings of complicated forms', Gehry said. 

-to be continued-