The end of drawing?

These days, technology is readily available that can radically change the very fundamentals of architectural design. But are we ready to think and view differently?

Following the first phase of CAD implementation into architectural offices over a decade ago - which saw the computer begin to replace traditional drafting tools - architects have been gradually adopting this new 3D modeling approach to designing and viewing building structures. Two-dimensional design is fast becoming a redundant art-form as we can now even step beyond the 3D Virtual Building™ concept.

Digital support

The computer is being used to its full potential, allowing the creation of complete virtual buildings with data that is so versatile that it can be automatically translated into technical drawings, building elements databases and high-definition renderings. And with the intelligent building model, early experiments with energy and acoustics are possible, clashes detected and concept variants considered. John Messner, Director of the Computer Integrated Construction Research Group at Penn State University, views this as the natural way forward: "The ability to get many disciplines involved in the early stages of design with adequate visual information could greatly improve integration. With current practices, the input from other professionals is frequently obtained too late, partially due to the lack of a visual model that simulates feedback."

MacBouwDesign, The Netherlands. "Future Hospitals"

However, as a result of a typically classical education, architects can rarely conceive of the act of designing without resorting to manual drafting at some stage. The pencil becomes the extension of the brain and creativity, and through this appendage the architect often explores design alternatives from the first step of a project to its very detailing. Despite the power of 3D modeling solutions, the humble pencil still conspires to pin down imagination and artistic freedom to a horizontal pad.

But there is no reason to assume that drafting is really the ideal tool to assist architectural design. Come to think about it, sculpture is much nearer architecture because it deals with volumes, space, materials and light. Present day computers and software allow us to build virtual models, from an early designing stage, thus exploring 3D solutions in real time and with absolute precision. Exponential progress of processor speed, graphic cards and memory space enable us to manipulate very complex virtual objects on a simple desktop computer.

However, few improvements have been made at the interface level. Most of the architectural offices that have subscribed to the Virtual Building concept are still using interface hardware that was originally developed for text processing: "QWERTY" keyboard, mouse, bi-dimensional displays. There comes a point where the architectural software itself is limited by this ubiquitous hardware baggage. Therefore, while we have the ability to create stunning 90-story virtual buildings and explore them in real time, we are forced to do so through 30" monitors - and only then if we're extremely well kitted out! This may be an acceptable process to visualize small hand-size objects or highly machined vehicle parts a pioneered in the auto industry, but it is arguably wholly inappropriate to convey the sensations of being inside a building space.

Picture perfect

The interior space of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt. Designed by Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta

Any good visualization instrument or medium will have to represent the third dimension, and not just suggest it. Photographs, drawings and even movies simulate tri-dimensionality through the ingenious resort to perspective, in which remote objects appear smaller than the foreground and the color shading adjusts to the depth of field. While an image may say a thousand words that hint at depth and realism, it can in no way describe and represent reality. Just imagine a movie clip trying to convey a cathedral's complex spatiality. You soon realize that bi-dimensional images have strong limitations.

"There are existing technologies that allow users to enter into building models at full scale," says Messner. "Virtual reality display systems allow for a more natural interaction with the model and allow users to see and feel the model. I hope that owners start to push for the adoption of these technologies. While everyone in the project can gain from the use of the technologies, ultimately, the benefit is gained by the owner who will receive a higher quality product at a lower cost."

Fortunately, a new family of computer peripherals has emerged on the market that will bridge the gap between virtual buildings and their creators. These instruments have the ability to convey, with a high degree of realism, the tri-dimensionality of space. These displays provide to each eye with a slightly different image, horizontally displaced, thus simulating depth of field.

The applications are, of course, endless. "I think we can also see a time when house builders potentially no longer have to build a show house, but they will be able to have immersive realistic VR simulations to show potential buyers what a house or even a whole development may look like," says Dr. David Heesom, the Virtual Reality Enterprise Centre at the UK's University of Wolverhampton. "We have done work in the past in our VR Centre with local authorities whereby we have built an entire town centre in realistic VR so that the planning committee could see how proposed developments might look in the future."

From the simpler devices, like red and blue-lensed eye glasses, to more complex virtual reality displays that have been used for some time now on professional flight simulators and fire control simulations, there is already an array of devices ready to be used by Computer-aided Architectural Design software. The most promising appears to be head-mounted displays. These are two small screens attached to a head-band with motion sensors that transmit to the computer the head movements. They show parallatically distinct images.

Inside Penn State's Immersive Environments Lab (IEL), US

The Virtual Reality Enterprise Centre at Wolverhampton University, UK

Also, there are "CAVEs™", which are 4, 5 or 6-projection screens arranged in a cube formation, about 3 meters long on each side, in which the user views synchronized projections on all sides. Then there are wands, in other words three-dimensional mice, that allow us to manipulate virtual objects in space. Or even gloves with sensors, which detect all the hand movements.

All this technology is not science fiction. It has been commercialized for some years now, been tested and perfected in other areas such as in medicine, aeronautics and engineering. The glove approach is being used in sculpting artistic figures and shapes remotely.

A challenge ahead

The architectural design sector always been more reserved in adopting new methodologies than other areas due to the demands of creativity and litigation, among others. Although personal computers have existed for more than 20 years now, only in the last five to 10 years have we witnessed total implementation of CAD systems within design practices. And even those are mainly used as drafting aids which simply replace analog pens. While other areas of design and engineering have readily taken a hi-tech leap forward, architects have often shown strong resistance to change.

In place of a mouse and a keyboard, a pair of gloves that detect every hand and finger movement. Instead of a desktop display, eye glasses that show three-dimensional images that fill the whole field of vision, with sensors that update the images as you move your head. Instead of keyboard shortcuts, you'll have voice-activated commands. Instead of current software systems that require hundreds of learning hours, an intuitive interface that obeys our generic orders and learns from our personal habits. Only then will the architect be able to truly enter his design, maybe accompanied by a client and colleagues, and manipulate all the construction elements as if he was grasping real walls, windows and stairs. And critically, all this in real time, in real (and possibly massive) scale, and with a visual realism that will eventually become undistinguishable from reality.

When this tool becomes as versatile and intuitive as using a pencil, then maybe drawings will become merely blunt alternatives.

As software and hardware increasingly influence architectural production, it would only be natural that architects are moving to decide what kind of tools they want to use. Unfortunately, many CAD programs and devices are usually produced by non-architects who are in no position to understand what designing space is all about. The design process is not something that you can explain or teach, only experience. Information Technology could become a amazingly production tool, as long as it improves on traditional methods. But software limitation as much as culture is holding up this process - key 3D design solutions today have their roots in mechanical engineering rather than building design and often hidden constraints binding together parts of the model lead to unpredictablity and some steps backward. Perhaps its inevitable that in many innovative practices, still only a few aspects of 3D funcationality are being used in conjunction with traditional drafting processes.

Two dimensional excuses

Obviously, all this hardware and software conjugation will only happen if there is profit involved. No company will invest in R&D if the final product isn't potentially sellable and its resources go up in smoke. From this viewpoint, architects have claimed very little. With many convinced that the computer only represents a threat to their creativity, the profession has gradually accepted tools that were often developed for other areas - like two-dimensional CAD systems or "QWERTY" keyboards. In my view, Architecture is nostalgically mourning the pull of the modern world - and building owners alike - which is dragging it away from its paper and pencil roots with calls for seamless flythroughs, usable construction data and trackable building energy efficiency.

But a resigned acceptance of tools that programers are giving us means that we, the architect, are not receiving what we need. I'm not hoping for an impossible return to the past, but a future where we can design with more rigor, with better teamwork, and explore new forms that now we can only imagine. The computer can really be more productive, more fun and ultimately more rewarding to use than using a pencil.

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"As a practising architect and a CAD - well, more Virtual Building or BIM university professor in Portugal," Miguel Krippahl says, "I am very concerned and excited over the future of Architecture. Not architecture as an object, but as a process. Will computers radically change the art, and if so, will architects be in any position to have a say in this?"