The Theoretical Foundation of Computer-Aided Architectural Design

Computer-aided architectural design is a rapidly developing area of research, and the results of recent research and development efforts are now beginning to find widespread practical application. However, the field often presents the appearance of a confused mélange of disconnected theoretical concepts and ad hoc system-implementation projects. The intentions of this paper are to elucidate some of the basic unifying theoretical concepts which form the foundation of much of the work that has been done, to relate these concepts to their historical predecessors, and to use the theoretical framework that is developed to make some comparisons between computer-aided and manual design methods. The questions of how design problems are defined, how potential solutions are represented, how they are generated, and how they are evaluated, are taken up in turn. A distinction is drawn between well-defined and ill-defined design problems. The issues of originality and style are considered. Finally a comparison is made between manual and computer-aided design processes, and the division of tasks between human designer and machine is discussed.