Alternate Means of Digital Design Communication

This thesis reconceptualises communication in digital design as an integrated social and technical process. The friction in the communicative processes pertaining to digital design can be traced to the fact that current research and practice emphasise technical concerns at the expense of social aspects of design communication. With the advent of BIM (Building Information Modelling), a code model of communication (machine-to-machine) is inadequately applied to design communication. This imbalance is addressed in this thesis by using inferential models of communication to capture and frame the psychological and social aspects behind the communicative contracts between people. Three critical aspects of the communicative act have been analysed, namely (1) data representation, (2) data classification and (3) data transaction, with the help of a new digital design communication platform, Speckle, which was developed during this research project for this purpose. By virtue of an applied living laboratory context, Speckle facilitated both qualitative and quantitative comparisons against existing methodologies with data from real-world settings. Regarding data representation (1), this research finds that the communicative performance of a low-level composable object model is better than that of a complete and universal one as it enables a more dynamic process of ontological revision. This implies that current practice and research operates at an inappropriate level of abstraction. On data classification (2), this thesis shows that a curatorial object-based data sharing methodology, as opposed to the current file-based approaches, leads to increased relevancy and a reduction in noise (information without intent, or meaning). Finally, on data transaction (3), the analysis shows that an object-based data sharing methodology is technically better suited to enable communicative contracts between stakeholders. It allows for faster and more meaningful change-dependent transactions, as well as allow for the emergence of traceable communicative networks outside of the predefined exchanges of current practices

Logic and intuition in architectural modelling: philosophy of mathematics for computational design

This dissertation investigates the relationship between the shift in the focus of architectural modelling from object to system and philosophical shifts in the history of mathematics that are relevant to that change. Particularly in the wake of the adoption of digital computation, design model spaces are more complex, multidimensional, arguably more logical, less intuitive spaces to navigate, less accessible to perception and visual comprehension. Such spatial issues were encountered much earlier in mathematics than in architectural modelling, with the growth of analytical geometry, a transition from Classical axiomatic proofs in geometry as the basis of mathematics, to analysis as the underpinning of geometry. Can the computational design modeller learn from the changing modern history, philosophy and psychology of mathematics about the construction and navigation of computational geometrical architectural system model space? The research is conducted through a review of recent architectural project examples and reference to three more detailed architectural modelling case studies. The spatial questions these examples and case studies raise are examined in the context of selected historical writing in the history, philosophy and psychology of mathematics and space. This leads to conclusions about changes in the relationship of architecture and mathematics, and reflections on the opportunities and limitations for architectural system models using computation geometry in the light of this historical survey. This line of questioning was motivated as a response to the experience of constructing digital associative geometry models and encountering the apparent limits of their flexibility as the graph of dependencies grew and the messiness of the digital modelling space increased. The questions were inspired particularly by working on the Narthex model for the Sagrada Família church, which extends to many tens of thousands of relationships and constraints, and which was modelled and repeatedly partially remodelled over a very long period. This experience led to the realisation that the limitations of the model were not necessarily the consequence of poor logical schema definition, but could be inevitable limitations of the geometry as defined, regardless of the means of defining it, the ‘shape’ of the multidimensional space being created. This led to more fundamental questions about the nature of Space, its relationship to geometry and the extent to which the latter can be considered simply as an operational and notational system. This dissertation offers a purely inductive journey, offering evidence through very selective examples in architecture, architectural modelling and in the philosophy of mathematics. The journey starts with some questions about the tendency of the model space to break out and exhibit unpredictable and not always desirable behaviour and the opportunities for geometrical construction to solve these questions is not conclusively answered. Many very productive questions about computational architectural modelling are raised in the process of looking for answers

A typology of design space explorers

The act of design is a complex of actions and abilities that is evolving and often highly individual. Given the context of human-computer interaction, and a commitment to the model of design space exploration, we identify two axes that help position efforts to realize this model: the spectrum of strengths and needs that stretches from the machine to the human, and the time scale of events in design. Considering a section of each reveals a landscape that prefers certain activities and gives rise to particular emphases. This paper places the other authors in this Special Issue upon this map, and argues the value of typed feature structures and information orderings to the endeavor of realizing design space explorers