Computational Design Tools and Education: The Smartgeometry Case

Abstract

Computational design has brought in novel concepts to architecture and design disciplines. Computational design thinking has evolved due to the potentials of contemporary tools and methods. Experiential learning environments such as computational design workshops offer strategies for a better understanding of the contemporary needs of the computational design education. Smartgeometry (SG) is a computational design organization that operates through workshops of interdisciplinary teams. SG uses and teaches the state-of-the-art computational design tools and methods. Instead of teaching the novel computational design tools in an instructive manner, SG workshops focus on using the potentials of these tools through personal discovery and experimentation. Besides enabling responsive design outputs, tools for sensing, computing and materializing lead to various learning strategies such as learning-by-doing, interdisciplinary collaboration and community building by democratization. This study aims to unravel the impacts of the novel computational design tools and strategies on computational design education through an in-depth qualitative analysis of the SG workshops.