Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design

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

Does advance technology help architects think better?
And, does technology improve our skills to design and experiment better?

In this paper I shall not try to answer these questions but instead present a pos-
sible structure to analyse the influence of technology in the design process. I would
argue that the use of technology does not substitute the moment of invention. But,
it contributes for the exploration of solutions that are beyond what one had started
at the beginning.
To evaluate if 3D and 4D are helping architects designing better I suggest the
identification of two distinctive moments in the creative process: the moment of
invention and the moment of discovery. They are both part of the design process,
they are complementary and yet distinctive.
Invention is identified here, as one moment, happening at one shot when an idea
or a concept appears. Students invent solutions in many different ways using various
tools. In general, they cannot fully understand what they are inventing and it becomes
necessary to know deeper what is being invented.

Discovery follows the first moment. That is to say, once the invention has taken
place the student seek to know and explore the design proposal with 3D models and
4D video. Engaging the process of exploration and discovery, the student has the
opportunity to design using the computer as one more tool. It is at this stage that
experimenting with computers benefits design.
It is my perception that within this theoretical framework we may question if
computers are helping students thinking better in both, the moment of invention and
the moment of discovery. Or computers are constrained to help students exclusively
at the second moment of discovery?

Frank O’Gehry, defends that it would have been impossible to explore with models
what he had imagined without the support of computers. Relevant to say that Ghery
has been using cutting edge technology since the late 80s.

Philip Jodidio, an art critic, in his book on new shapes in architecture, states the
following “change occurs precisely when computers started to offer new hypothesis of
project and clearly emphasized the emergency of a whole new range of architectural
solutions that could not have been imagined earlier.”
What Jodidio calls new range of architectural solutions, includes the invention and
discovery of architecture that emerge from advanced technology. In short, computers
are seen not just as one more tool for better development of design and exploration
but are influencing architects. In this case, computers are helping students to think
better. If this is true, how can we relate to ranges of architectural solutions produced
before computers such as Horta, Gaudi, Lloyd Wright, Saarinen and many others?

To illustrate another perception of the invention’s moment quote a Team X member
responding to the question:
“How do you invent your architecture? The other day, I slept at a hotel. When I woke
up, I noticed the pattern of the rug and the plan of the project I was imagining at