Summary on "Computing in Architectural Design"

"Computing in Architectural Design" is an article about the beginning of design in architecture from the time of the Renaissance to the beginning of the computing age where designers started utilizing technology in order to portray a point of view.

As an art history minor, I found in really interesting how this article went back even farther than the beginning of computers by comparing tools of design that were precedents for the computing age like the golden section and the idea of humans being the center of the universe. (And therefore design is important to create a human factor in which humans are the center of everything, like in Palladio's Villa Rotunda.)

Having just being introduced to the idea of computer generated design with programs like Sketch-up and AutoCAD the concept of the whole thing is very new to me since I was always so comfortable rendering and drafting by hand. Reading this article I realize that this concept of design technology is rather new compared to the historic standards done with straight-edge and triangle. The first computers being used even wasn't even really used for the design of a project but more for computing and "number crunching". The interest in using computers for design purposes wasn't even as much a first interest for architects as it was for the people in the academic circles.

While the development of computer aided design was going on, designers and engineers alike had many different ideas about how this whole process should work. From reading the article there were so many different precedents to the current AutoCAD and AutoDesk softwares in order to get to this proficiency in designers being able to generate their work for their own visualizations and the visualizations of their clients. Will computers ultimately take over the work of architects? I don't see it happening, while computers are great with number crunching and calculating of dimensions I don't see them replacing the designer in the design portion, I think technology will always just be a tool for a human's use. Experiences we have as designers and individual thought processes are what give us these designs and ideas, computers cannot so this.