What’s the difference between drawings by hand and drawings done on the computer? Drawings by hand, while outdated and time consuming, show a level of work and commitment that is easily overshadowed by computer-aided design. Clients will want to see more return for their money, and by taking advantage of the available technology, architects and designers can produce more for the same amount of work. “ A machine could procreate forms that respond to many hereto un-manageable dynamics. It would present alternatives of form possibly not visualized or not visualizable by the human designer.” (D’Arcy Thompson)
The introduction of technologies, or Information Age, is challenging not only the way we do architecture, but also how we manufacture and construct our buildings. Manufacturing advancements already achieved in automotive, aerospace and shipbuilding industries lend themselves to the field of architecture, and open up new dimensions for architectural design. “Architecture is recasting itself, becoming in part an experimental investigation of topological geometries, partly a computational orchestration of robotic material production and partly a generative, kinematic sculpting of space.” (Peter Zeliner, Hybrid Space)
Over the past few years, computer aids for design have been getting widespread use; CAD, CAM, Rhino, and Maya are only a few of the programs that architects use to expedite the design to construction process. They open up new opportunities by allowing production and construction of very complex forms that were, until recently, very difficult and expensive to design, produce and assemble using traditional construction technologies. “The contemporary digital architectures find their legitimization in their exploration of the latest technological advances, new digital means of conception and production, and corresponding aesthetic of complex, curvilinear surfaces. As a manifestation of new information driven-processes that are transforming cultures, societies and economies on a global scale, they are seen as a logical and inevitable product of the digital zeitgeist.”
These digital advancements open up new territories for conceptual, formal and tectonic exploration through digital morphogenesis, or form origination and transformation. These computational concepts include topological geometries, isomorphic polysurfaces, motion kinematics and dynamics, keyshape animation, parametric design, genetic algorithms, and performance. Modern architecture is characterized by a curving, always moving design. The introduction of digital modeling software into architectural design provided a departure from the Euclidean geometry of discrete volumes represented in Cartesian space and made possible the present use of "topological" geometry of continuous curves and surfaces that feature prominently in contemporary architecture.
