Introduction
Design advice and the critical evaluation of building proposals often address the means adopted to meet objectives. The advice explains how to design and build appropriately: what procedures to follow and checks to make, what materials to use, where a building should be oriented, how to construct features that are held to have desirable characteristics. An evaluation of a design checks that these means have indeed been adopted in the design (Sebestyén 1998). The preparation and presentation of almost all such design advice or prescriptive evaluation checklists are based on a premise of universality. It is assumed that it is possible to present information about how environmental issues should be addressed in building design in terms of solutions that are not specific to a time, place or client. This creates a theoretical image that such information can be applied directly, or adapted, to a variety of design situations (Sebestyén 1998). The idea of meeting needs has a resonance with thinking on building design, because the idea that buildings must satisfy users’ needs has been part of this discourse over many years. An architect’s images about a good design often relate to the satisfaction of the users needs (Sebestyén 1998). In architecture and construction of facilities various methods are used to come up with the best design. Various methods are used to analyze the scenarios that might happen before, during or after the design of buildings. The onset of computers paved the way for better architecture of buildings. This paper intends to discuss about the latest research and development of applications and implementation of computer technology in architectural design.
Background: application of computer in architectural design
One of the most noticeable developments in personal computers in recent years has been the widespread deployment and use of graphical user interfaces. Rather than typing commands and instructions, users are presented with a range of devices, such as windows, icons, menus and cursors, through which they operate the system. Particular activities on the computer, like word processing, organizing electronic files, navigating around the system and switching tasks have been considerably transformed by the introduction of interfaces on which graphical objects are displayed and are manipulated around the screen. Although graphical interfaces appear to be easier to use, it is not clear what the reasons for this might be (Heath & Luff 2000). With their straightforward presentation of a drawing and capabilities to easily manipulate its components, recent Computer-Aided Design (CAD) packages provide typical examples of graphical user interfaces. Indeed, many require only minimal recourse to other ways of using the computer, often needing little to be typed and most actions being performed by selecting, moving and shaping objects on the screen with an electronic mouse (Heath & Luff 2000).
Computer-Aided Design is now widely used in a variety of diverse fields such as hardware development, product design and civil engineering, and perhaps, most familiarly, in architecture. The potential of computers to support design has been the subject of a number of empirical studies over the past decade, particularly as design activities serve as examples of the forms of collaborative work which could be supported through advanced technologies (Heath & Luff 2000). Traditionally, architects and other designers have used drawings as the primary vehicle for creative design: They produce drawn ideas for consideration, then discuss and analyze them. In recent decades, computer-aided design systems have replaced hand-drawing techniques in many of the routine aspects of design, but they have not proven capable of providing effective support for creative design. Designers tend to develop ideas through hand sketching, then use a computer-aided design system for recording and developing established concepts (Mansell & When 1998). It is a short step from recognition that structure is important to the idea that a CAD system should automatically maintain specified aspects of topological and geometric structure as a designer manipulates a geometric model. If a column is moved, a beam that it supports might be correspondingly lengthened, so preserving an interpretation of the assembly as a frame capable of supporting a roof. The idea of modeling in terms of geometric elements, combined with maintenance of explicitly-specified relationships between elements, proved to be a useful and durable one. But its inherent limitations began to show up when attempts were made to use CAD systems for design exploration, rather than just representation of completed designs (Mansell & When 1998). The creation of computers and related technology paved the way for faster and more efficient means of architecture and design. Computers help designers speed up processes and it helps reducing the need for corrections that take some time. Computers gave a more distinct idea of how a design would look like and what can still be done to improve the design.
Computer Aided Design and how it changed architecture
The concept of computer-aided design was first introduced in the USA. Britain began experimenting with interactive graphics in the 1960s using mainframe computers, but since the introduction of micro-computers in the early 1970s these techniques have advanced at a tremendous rate. Computer-aided manufacture works on the basis of CAD-produced tapes that numerically control machine tools by drawing cutting paths around a two-dimensional drawing. With the technology of computer-operated component machining and the development of mechanical handling and inspection machinery controlled by the same numerical method, the process of fully automatic manufacture is achievable (Brookes & Poole 2003). Despite the rate of technological advance, it is important to remember that the scale of growth is initially limited by the desire and capacity of people in the industry to adapt. Computer technology has perhaps played its most significant role in the design of complicated structures. Many complex forms formerly precluded by an inability to reproduce accurate models can now be modeled with ease and their structures may undergo rigorous testing before they become a reality (Brookes & Poole 2003).
These new experimentation and fabrication attitudes, and also advanced computer-aided design a new creative weapon that cutting-edge designers are using very well-are together allowing the designer to invent, explore and create things that he or she could not countenance ten years ago. Architects always had creative powers but didn’t necessarily have the appropriate circumstances or the best tools with which to explore those powers. Now, advanced computing power allows the designer to really explore an idea while it is still an idea and to express that idea via the machine. The computer allows architects to describe complex shapes and geometries relatively easily, saving much time. Advanced CAD in the right creative hands is a real extension of the mind, the eye and the hand. Computer-aided design has not only flourished as a creative tool for architects but has also come of age as a creative and flexible production tool (Nicholson 1992). From the architect’s eye to the finished product is now one process. Competent and confident exploitation of quality assured CAD data and other information exchange based on new technology leads to innovative development, lower costs and reduced construction programs, whilst minimizing liability and maintaining copyright and other intellectual property. Until recently information technology (IT) has been slow to influence the business of the architect other than, perhaps, in the areas of computer aided design and word processing. This environment is now changing with clients, contractors and other professionals using more IT for both technical and management purposes (Nicholson 1992).
Under this pressure and, in an evolving construction industry, architects must invest wisely in IT to ensure that the systems they implement are usable and support their professional and business activities. Implementing any computer system must contribute to enhancing one or more of a range of driving factors influencing most architects practices, these are likely to include improving the running of the practice, delivering quality buildings to increasingly demanding clients, improving communications between all members of the building team. The modern architect must assess the use of IT on the types of projects in which they are engaged and how IT can help in the internal management of a modern practice. Organization of and access to massive databases are perhaps the most fundamental concerns faced by the construction industry. Unlike a physical library where every book has a spatio-temporal location and competent individuals can easily build and retain a mental map of where required items are. However, many of the new interfaces access massive databases in a manner similar to the way professionals think about design and make construction itself (Farmer & Louw 1993). Point and click on a roof component of a drawing held in the CAD system, becomes the search string which retrieves structural characteristics, manufactures’ specifications and optional products. In advanced systems such objects are automatically recorded and any updates are communicated to the designer by color changes in the relevant components. A turning point has been reached in the history of the computer’s involvement in architectural design and construction. New interpretations of its potential have produced technologies which can be truly informing (Farmer & Louw 1993). Computer Aided design ensure that architects can have manageable means to change an aspect of their design. Computer Aided design lessen the need for restarting a draft whenever there is something wrong with the design. Computer Aided design can be used to share data among various designers; this is done through information systems.
Information systems and architecture
Information systems are not created for their own sake. They serve or support people engaged in what for them is meaningful action. Now, when one system is thought of as serving another, it is a fundamental principle of systems thinking that in order to think carefully about, and conceptualize the system which provides the support, it is first necessary to define carefully the nature of the system served. This is necessary because how people see the system served will define what counts as support to it. The information systems needed to support a manufacturing operation will be very different if it is conceptualized as a system to optimize the use of a production facility rather than as a system to meet a market need (Currie & Galliers 1999).Any information system will deliver output which is meaningful in the way the designers of the system defined, users of the system will, as autonomous human beings, still be free to assign their own meanings to it. The output from the organizational information system which consists of collated information about sales of the new product will mean different things to the managing director concerned with the company’s share price, the salesmen on the road seeking bonus payments, the production planner working on raw material requirements, and the director whose private agenda is to subvert the whole project (Currie & Galliers 1999). Information systems are designed to create reports, report-generating systems, decision systems, work flow systems, group systems, and enquiry systems of all sorts. The categories, classifications, measurements, codings, and summarizing techniques employed by a particular information system are a function of its design, and the direction of research in information systems is towards making the possibilities for creating representations as open ended and flexible as possible (Hart & Prakash 2000). Information systems are used by business to process different records, data and information used by the company in making decisions and strategies. Information systems evolved into technologies that made business grow faster. Information systems relate to different business processes. Information systems were developed from various desires to improve service and improve the life of people in a certain region. Through information systems such as networking and the internet architects can deliver a certain design made from CAD systems. Architects can ask other designers located in far places for advice or ideas on how their design should be improved. Architects can compare notes on their designs and innovations they believe can fit their design.
Conclusion
The creation of computers and related technology paved the way for faster and more efficient means of architecture and design. Computers help designers speed up processes and it helps reducing the need for corrections that take some time. Computer Aided design reduced the need for restarting a draft whenever there is something wrong with the design. Without computers the design process would take more time because of constant revisions to the draft. The revisions would mean that one has to start drawing all over again. Without computers architects may have not thought of advanced design styles that will benefit people and businesses.
References
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Farmer, B & Louw, H (eds.) 1993, Companion to contemporary
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Hart, JA & Prakash, A. (eds.) 2000, Coping with
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Heath, C & Luff, P 2000, Technology in action, Cambridge
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Mansell, R & Wehn, U (eds.) 1998 Knowledge societies:
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