Different era’s of architecture like Post-modernism, Modernism, Industrial Revolution had made a mark in the history of architecture because of their uniqueness. Today a different and new approach is coming up towards the process of designing. This is known as Computational Architecture which is a part of ‘Digital Architecture’. Computer has created its own world in such a short time and has a great impact on architecture profession. The role of computer went on changing from the day it was introduced in the field of architecture.
With new software's which are very much different from the 2D drafting and 3D modelling software's, the architect can imagine beyond his capacity, which will actually help the architectural mind to explore and be innovative during the design process.
The conventional form finding process starts with the architect's creativity, arrives at a stage of freezing the design and the practicality and ends up with the approval of the client. The only role which computer plays in this conventional method is replicating those ideas into drawings and 3d renderings.
Whereas, the new design process starts with a research work on the context of the project, comes up with some specific parameters which sets the ground to build up the concept. At this important stage, the new parametric software's plays a major role to explore the possibilities. This kind of research work happens at every stage of the design process which filter's out the ideas and we get the best out of it.
One point of criticism could be ' If the computer is generating the form what role does an architect plays in the whole process?'
The answer to this question is ' The architect discover's the strength of the new software's, explores it at every stage by setting the parameters. Its about controlling by parameters and allowing at some stage, to use the strength of those software's.
What is achieved as a result is the systematic complexity. Not a single form in the nature is simple. The complexity in those forms is a result of a response to a dynamic, changing environmental conditions around those forms, at every stage of its development.
The biological and environmental software's helps the parametric form to analyse on these lines at every stage of the form development. This is a 3 stage process DISCOVER - ANALYSE - REVISE and for all the 3 stages what an architect needs is the helping hand of these software's.
So which are these software's?
Me and my students of SCOA, Pune of the MArch in Digital Architecture course are trying to explore the software's like Generative Component, Grasshopper plugin for Rhino, Paracloud, CATIA Environmental software's like Ecotect, Ansys which is a structural analysis software, TAD software and many more to come.
I will be posting the experiments and the description of it. It will be great if i get some reply, criticism from the intelligent minds out there which will help us to improve....the aim is
'WE DISCUSS TO SOLVE'
