Computer-aided architectural design (CAAD)

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

programs are the repository of accurate and comprehensive records of buildings and are used by

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s and architectural companies for

architectural design Building design, also called architectural design, refers to the broadly based architectural, engineering and technical applications to the design of buildings. All building projects require the services of a building designer, typically a licen ...

and

architectural engineering Architectural engineering or architecture engineering, also known as building engineering, is a discipline that deals with the engineering and construction of buildings, such as environmental, structural, mechanical, electrical, computational, e ...

. As the latter often involve

floor plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

designs CAAD software greatly simplifies this task.

History

The first attempts to computerize the architectural design date back to the 1960s: * CRAFT (1963) was one of the first systems to automate an architectural design task (optimizing the layout of a manufacturing plant); *

Sketchpad Sketchpad (a.k.a. Robot Draftsman) is a computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 in the course of his PhD thesis, for which he received the Turing Award in 1988, and the Kyoto Prize in 2012. It pioneered human–computer interaction ...

(1963) was the precursor of the

computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

programs, it computerized the drawing and allowed setting of parametric relationships between objects via a

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

; *

DAC-1 DAC-1, for ''Design Augmented by Computer'', was one of the earliest graphical computer aided design systems. Developed by General Motors, IBM was brought in as a partner in 1960 and the two developed the system and released it to production in 1963 ...

(1963-1964) was a CAD-like program developed by

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

. The first attempts to separate the CAAD from generic CAD were made in the 1970s. The practical commercial tools for architecture design and

building information modeling Building information modeling (BIM) is an approach involving the generation and management of digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of buildings or other physical assets and facilities. BIM is supported by vario ...

appeared a decade later, in the 1980s. Due to availability of the tools, computerized design in architecture became a distinct field within the architecture. The intervening years were characterized by the rapid growth in the research: the Design Methods conference (1962) had put the

design research Design research was originally constituted as primarily concerned with ways of supporting and improving the process of design, developing from work in design methods. The concept has been expanded to include research embedded within the process of ...

on the map, the 1st International Congress on Performance (1972) discussed the early approaches to computerizing the

building performance Building performance is an attribute of a building that expresses how well that building carries out its functions. It may also relate to the performance of the building construction process. Categories of building performance are quality (how well ...

simulations. New research journals had focused on the subject in the 1990s and 2000s:

Automation in Construction ''Automation in Construction'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Elsevier covering research on all aspects of advanced automation methods and computing methods for construction and management of the built environment. Mirosław J ...

(1992), International Journal of Architectural Computing (2003), Journal of Building Performance Simulation (2008). Architectural Design and Design Studies, established in 1979, gradually moved to CAAD.

Computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

also known as CAD was originally the type of program that architects used, but since CAD could not offer all the tools that architects needed to complete a project, CAAD developed as a distinct class of

Terminology

Use of terms in the field of computer design is not consistent. Caetano et al. analyzed the language of architectural research publications and noted the following trends: * Some authors use the term " computational design" (CD) as any activity involving the CAD tools, thus making it a synonym of ''digital design''. Other researchers exclude the automation of drafting from the definition of CD. * The terms

parametric design Parametric design is a design method in which features, such as building elements and engineering components, are shaped based on algorithmic processes rather than direct manipulation. In this approach, parameters and rules establish the relatio ...

(PD),

generative design Generative design is an iterative design process that uses software to generate outputs that fulfill a set of constraints iteratively adjusted by a designer. Whether a human, test program, or artificial intelligence, the designer algorith ...

(GD), algorithmic design (AD) are very popular for the non-drafting uses of the CAAD tools (3 out of top 4 CAAD design definition terms), frequently used together and confused with one another. * performance-based design is the 3rd most popular term, independent of PD, GD, and AD.

Overview

All CAD and CAAD systems employ a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

with geometric and other properties of objects; they all have some kind of

graphic user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation. In many applications, GUIs are used instead of te ...

to manipulate a visual representation rather than the database; and they are all more or less concerned with assembling

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

s from standard and non-standard pieces. Currently, the main distinction which causes one to speak of CAAD rather than CAD lies in the domain knowledge (architecture-specific objects, techniques, data, and process support) embedded in the system. A CAAD system differs from other CAD systems in two respects: *It has an explicit object database of building parts and

construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...

knowledge. *It explicitly supports the creation of architectural objects. In a more general sense, CAAD also refers to the use of any computational technique in the field of architectural design other than by means of architecture-specific software. For example, software which is specifically developed for the

computer animation Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating Film, moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation refers to moving images. Virtu ...

industry (e.g. Maya and 3DStudio Max), is also used in architectural design. These programs can produce photo realistic 3d renders and animations. Nowadays

real-time rendering Real-time computer graphics or real-time rendering is the sub-field of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term can refer to anything from rendering an application's graphical user interface ( GUI) to ...

is being popular thanks to the developments in graphic cards. The exact distinction of what properly belongs to CAAD is not always clear. Specialized software, for example for calculating structures by means of the

finite element method Finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat tran ...

, is used in architectural design and in that sense may fall under CAAD. On the other hand, such software is seldom used to create new designs. In 1974 Caad became a current word and was a common topic of commercial modernization.

Three-dimensional objects

CAAD has two types of structures in its program. The first system is surface structure which provides a graphics medium to represent three-dimensional objects using two-dimensional representations. Also algorithms that allow the generation of patterns and their analysis using programmed criteria, and data banks that store information about the problem at hand and the standards and regulations that applies to it. The second system is deep structure which means that the operations performed by the computer have natural limitations. Computer hardware and machine languages that are supported by these make it easy to perform arithmetical operations quickly and accurately. Also an almost illogical number of layers of symbolic processing can be built enabling the functionalities that are found at the surface.

Advantages

Another advantage to CAAD is the two way mapping of activities and functionalities. The two instances of mapping are indicated to be between the surface structures and the deep structures. These mappings are abstractions that are introduced in order to discuss the process of design and deployment of CAAD systems. In designing the systems the system developers usually consider surface structures. A one-to-one mapping is the typical statement, which is to develop a computer based functionality that maps as closely as possible into a corresponding manual design activity, for example, drafting of stairs, checking spatial conflict between building systems, and generating perspectives from orthogonal views. The architectural design processes tend to integrate models isolated so far. Many different kinds of expert knowledge, tools, visualization techniques, and media are to be combined. The design process covers the complete life cycle of the building. The areas that are covered are construction, operations, reorganization, as well as destruction. Considering the shared use of digital design tools and the exchange of information and knowledge between designers and across different projects, we speak of a design continuum. An architect's work involves mostly visually represented data. Problems are often outlined and dealt with in a graphical approach. Only this form of expression serves as a basis for work and discussion. Therefore, the designer should have maximum visual control over the processes taking place within the design continuum. Further questions occur about navigation, associative information access, programming and communication within very large data sets.

References

External links

{{commons category, CAAD Several organisations are active in education and research in CAAD:
Homepage
ACADIA: Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture.
Homepage
ASCAAD: Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design
Homepage
CAAD Futures: Computer Aided Architectural Design futures foundation.
Homepage
CAADRIA: Association for Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia
Homepage
eCAADe: Association for Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe
Homepage
SIGraDi: Sociedad Iberoamericana de Gráfica Digital.
Homepage CumInCAD
Cumulative index of publications about computer aided architectural design. Computer-aided design software Architectural design