Contemporary Architecture and the Digital Design Process introduces the reader to new developments in the computer modelling of design form in contemporary architectural practice through a series of detailed case studies. The book illustrates how evolving design practices use and exploit the potential of new computing technologies in a wide range of areas and application. A central thesis of this book is that technology follows design demand, rather than design adjusting to available new technology. Designers are not merely passive recipients of prescribed computing tools and techniques. Instead, they are increasingly able to express their intuitive design ideas through the rational medium of computing. The book features several contemporary building projects, each of which introduces a range of CAD and computing issues based upon the work of creative architectural and engineering design practices. These include the offices of Frank O. Gehry, Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, Anthony Hunt Associates, Peter Hubner, Szyskowitz-Kowalski, and Faulkner Brown. All these examples show what architects need to know and the skills they need to acquire to use advanced CAD technology.

Contemporary Architecture and the Digital Design Process introduces the reader to new developments in the computer modelling of design form in contemporary architectural practice through a series of detailed case studies. The book illustrates how evolving design practices use and exploit the potential of new computing technologies in a wide range of areas and application. A central thesis of this book is that technology follows design demand, rather than design adjusting to available new technology. Designers are not merely passive recipients of prescribed computing tools and techniques. Instead, they are increasingly able to express their intuitive design ideas through the rational medium of computing. The book features several contemporary building projects, each of which introduces a range of CAD and computing issues based upon the work of creative architectural and engineering design practices. These include the offices of Frank O. Gehry, Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, Anthony Hunt Associates, Peter Hubner, Szyskowitz-Kowalski, and Faulkner Brown. All these examples show what architects need to know and the skills they need to acquire to use advanced CAD technology.

This book shows how to best present theoretical-technical information, data and images, making this title itself a cutting-edge additon to literature on the subject. The impact of digital technology on architecture has reshaped how may architects and designers work, software and hardware developments allow a greater degree of articulation and experimentation, advance visualisation of contextual impact and use can help to solve or avoid problems, and the technical advantages of applied digitisation are many and take many forms. These issues examined and discussed fully in this volume.

A comprehensive overview of new design methods and techniques that are emerging in the field of architecture.

Architecture in the Digital Age addresses contemporary architectural practice in which digital technologies are radically changing how buildings are conceived, designed and produced. It discusses the digitally-driven changes, their origins, and their effects by grounding them in actual practices already taking place, while simultaneously speculating about their wider implications for the future. The book offers a diverse set of ideas as to what is relevant today and what will be relevant tomorrow for emerging architectural practices of the digital age.

these days a computer is as much a part of every household's standard equipment as a refrigerator, and yet the explosion of computer technology in the last several decades has transformed the daily life of every member of society far more than even utopians would ever have allowed themselves to dream. No wonder, then, that from design to production, architecture too is becoming more and more subject to digital influences. The range of those influences stretches from the classical computer programs used in design and presentation to media-supported design processes all the way to computerized production techniques, to say nothing of industrialized bricklayer "robots." From measurement to planning and production, architecture is the product of a closely coordinated digital process chain. What influence do digital design digital design and production methods have on contemporary architecture? How are these methods changing architecture and the way it ist created? Where does the potential of digital media for architecture lie? What are the areas in which every individual firm can begin to use them? What are the advantages of working electronically? How and at what cost can these methods be integrated into the day-to-day work of the professional architect? This publication offers answers to these and many other questions on all aspects of the digital design and construction process.

Today, with the advent of digital media technologies and the ability to conceptualize, express and produce complex forms using digital means, the question of the status of the architectural form is once again under consideration. Indeed, the computer liberated architecture from the tyranny of the right angle and enabled the design and production of non-standard buildings, based on irregular geometry. Yet, the questions concerning the method of form expression in contemporary architecture, and its meaning, remain very much open. Performalism takes up this discussion, defines it and presents changes in form conception in architecture, followed by their repercussions. The book is supported by a wealth of case studies from some of the top firms across the globe and contributed to by some of the top names in this field. With a unique and insightful emphasis on professional practice this is essential reading for all architects, aspiring and practicing.