The Impact of using Computer-Aided Design (CAD) on the Creativity of Architecture Students

The architectural design process is based on imagination where creativity is highly valued. Contemporary goals in higher education and particularly architectural design education include giving students tools to stimulate the search for creative solutions to problems. One of those tools is the Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tool. The use of CAD in the latter stages of the design process for efficiency purposes has become common. However, the integration of CAD into the early, schematic stages of the design process has initiated some debate where empirical evidence regarding the impact of CAD on the creativity of architectural design solutions and the influence on the creative mental process of students is lacking. The aim of this paper is to determine whether the use of CAD effectively enhances students' creative concepts. Other than descriptive-analytic methodology, the study was divided into two stages: an experimental study and a questionnaire. The first stage aimed to examine the effect of using pencil-based and computer-based methods on the creativeness of architectural solutions in the preliminary design phases. The second stage aimed to gather rich descriptions of how CAD is used in architectural design education. The respondents of these two stages were students of the Department of Islamic Architecture, Umm Al-Qura University, KSA.The study concluded that the use of CAD did not significantly inhibit, nor did it enhance creativity in the preliminary design stage compared to the pencil-based design method