328 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy
and visual input. In our process, the students built their seeds visually and mixed
them numerically using the Morpher Modifier.
- Tools
We came to the studio unknowing of what type of tools would work best for the
studio. We embarked on a process of exploration with the students. We did not
approach the studio with prefixed ideas of what tool would work best in our context.
We embarked on a series of explorations with the students that led us to a specific
computation tool.
In studios that require high technical skills, students usually spend much of their
time learning tools. The issue was how to shorten this period and make the students
feel comfortable and capable with the tool very quickly.
- How not to get stuck
An important issue for us was how to offer a framework that allows the students
not to get stuck at any point in the design process. As we said before, design is an
iterative non-linear process in which many shifts of perspective occur. We sought
after a computational system that can accommodate these shifts of perspective in
the design process without having to rebuild your system every time. In our case,
the morphing process was not limited to the original seeds. Students would take any
of the resultant hybrids, modify it and use it as a seed for the next generation. The
process was not linear by any means. This fluidity allowed the students to keep the
design process flowing.
Through rigorous studies in form generation, coupled with systematic hybridization,
students were able to produce proposals that are formally intriguing while generating
architecture that is optimized to 'perform' at the highest level.