Panel Assesses Current and Future Role of CAD in Architecture Schools Worldwide
Budapest, September 29, 1998
In an afternoon of revealing debate, an international panel of CAD educators gathered at Graphisoft Technology Park to present the current state of CAD use in schools and offer their views on the future role of CAD in the education of
architects.
The first International Education Symposium, hosted by Graphisoft R&D
Rt, was held on September 18 as part of the celebration to formally open the
company’s new corporate headquarters in Budapest, Hungary.
The distinguished panel was composed of Jonas Klercker, Architect SAR and associate professor in CAAD at Lund University and Institute of Technology, Sweden; Darlene Brady, author and visiting professor of architecture at University of Illinois/Champagne; Olivier Celnick, principal of Studio M, architect and professor of CAD technology at l’Ecole d’Architecture de Paris, France; Bradley Skaggs, Technical
Director of STUDIOS Architecture, an international architecture firm;
and panel moderator Dr. Mihály Szoboszlai, professor of architecture at the
Technical University of Budapest.
In assessing the current state of CAD use in education, panel members
discussed the CAD curricula they teach and used specific projects to
illustrate the key benefits gained by students learning and using CAD
tools in the classroom. In a compelling example, Olivier Celnick
presented a series of construction documents and renderings completed by
an average student who discovered that CAD tools gave her the ability to
convey thoughts and ideas about her work that she could not otherwise
express. Celnick stated “Imagination can be taught by using CAD”.
Darlene Brady, who presented a large collection of CAD work by her
students, believes that an understanding of the architectural
implications of design constructs (i.e. drawings and models) and how to
build is essential before teaching CAD and 2D drafting. She elaborates
“2D drafted drawings are artificial constructs that architects “learn”
to make and decipher based on an understanding of the building process.
This can be very difficult for students, especially at the beginning of
their education.”
Her choice of CAD programs favors integration for several reasons. She
introduces Archicad’s incorporation of animation capabilities in the
CADD application to encourage students to use animations during the design
process to make refinements which results in better designs, unlike some
programs in which the CADD and animation components are separate
isolated packages which emphasize computer animations as a presentation tool,
not a design medium.
“The ease with which computer animations can be made in Archicad
encourages students to work on the design of the buildings and make
better projects. I see students struggle with thinking in three
dimensions and CAD helps them. Shooting and cutting computer animations
gets students excited about their design projects and gives them a much
better idea of what it would be like to inhabit the building than do 2D
drawings and physical models.”
Bradley Skaggs, whose firm hires and trains hundreds of entry-level
architects, observed “students can take a traditional drawing and use
the computer’s ability to look deeper for solutions. Using CAD to solve
problems is an important real-world skill”.
At Lund University in Sweden, Jonas Klercker’s students are
experimenting with a virtual CAD environment comprised of three screens
called the “cave”. Klercker’s virtual environment is much more
experiential than a single screen and allows students to experience
their work through the interactive nature of three dimensions. He and his
colleges are also developing a reference database for students that
contains a collection of CAD exercises that can be used for problem
solving.
The economics of education was viewed by the panel as playing a major
role in determining the CAD tools available to many architecture
students. With corporations planting software or, in some cases, paying schools to
accept their products, educators who are often bound by limited
resources are faced with a dilemma. The panel proposed educators address this bias
with students by telling them what has been donated and why certain
tools are not being offered.
In summarizing the current state of CAD, consensus was drawn in several
key areas. Panel educators generally sought to present a variety of CAD
tools and teach students how to use those tools on a need to know basis.
Most require students to present computer-generated images but they
encourage students to let their designs drive the software choices they
ultimately make. They advocate introducing the appropriate CAD tools
for architecture and providing students with the pros and cons of those
tools. Most importantly, they advocate checks and balances in the curriculum
that prevent CAD education from becoming vocational training. Whether
CAD is taught on site or provided outside the classroom by tutors, as is
the case in one top German institution, consensus among panels members
reached critical mass around the lack of trained educators as the
primary reason CAD is being confined to drafting and segregated from use in the
design studio.
The future of CAD use was viewed pragmatically by both panel members and
the audience.
Klercker stated “New generations will have new ways of expressing
themselves, I believe that it’s dangerous to assume that current methods
will hold true.” The increasing use of multi media and virtual
environments, like his “cave,” to explore architecture seems certain but
how quickly these tools will become widely available is unknown.
As more and more educators use CAD, panelists acknowledge that it is
easier for students to follow suit though they have in no way abandoned
the belief that traditional methods of drawing and photography are
effective tools for revealing ideas and exploring concepts. Integration
and balance are their common mantras; seeing 3D used properly in the
design studio is their immediate collective goal. Many have students
that
are not convinced CAD is essential to design, a mind set that is
reinforced by educators who only teach 2D CAD for drafting purposes.
In many schools, the availability and use of CAD tools is constrained
both
by economics and politics. Panelists concede that tenure and limited
funds
are largely responsible for keeping CAD in the drafting room in many
schools. They predict that one or two decades may be required to fully
integrate CAD in all design studios and reach a point where schools can
return to their roots and simply teach architecture, of which, CAD is a
naturally-occurring component.
Please refer to www.graphisoft.com for the video extracts of the symposium. Video tapes of the symposium are available for institutions and the press by contacting .
Graphisoft is a leading provider of computer-aided design (CAD) software
solutions for the architectural profession and the building industry.
Founded in 1982, Graphisoft is ranked today among the largest AEC CAD
software developers in the world, with 12 offices all over the world in
addition to its headquarters. Graphisoft’s flagship product, Archicad, is
used by more than 75,000 architects worldwide and distributed in 25
languages and 80 countries. Shares of Graphisoft are traded on the Frankfurt
Stock Exchange Neuer Markt under the symbol GPH. More information about
Graphisoft is available at www.graphisoft.com.