Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design

150 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy

the design, engineering and manufacturing process. Advanced simulation techniques

can be used as design investigation tools providing significant feedback related with

structural behavior and material performance.

Digitally enabled parametric design [Fig. 14] allows for a new manufacturing

approach, towards mass customization rather than mass production, addressing the

needs of differentiated target groups, creating a more sophisticated user, while

demanding a designer with differentiated skills (programming skills) and competences

(analytical thinking).

And while digital databases [Fig. 15] constitute an important tool in managing

information flow about systems and materials, information management skills next

to evaluation skills are necessary towards a resourceful development and creative

use of such tools.

Digital technology has given a whole new meaning to the notion of interactivity,

while the new term of performativity has been introduced, associated with the new

interactive 3D model, with new intelligent materials and structures, with responsive

building skins, with new ways to create a design concept, with the new participatory

role of the user, with the new active role of the student.

But what can be more of a performative character than the actual act of building,

the actual construction process?

Putting together a design-built workshop, where the final product is the built

project, is like setting up a performance. And while project management is like

directing a play by organizing time schedules, allocating people, materials, tools

and means, preparing design schemes and solving construction issues, construction

management IS the actual performance.

Digital technology can assist in creating possible scenarios or recording the play,

but the actual play, the construction process, can be rarely compared with virtual

Fig. 14
New materials and new technologies: studies on parametric design – S. Koutlaki, C. Tsimourd-
agkas

Fig. 15
New materials and new technologies: studies on databases – Papagianni, F. Stefanakaki