The Effects of CAD on Building Form and Design Quality

GUEST EDITOR(S):

Rob Howard, senior visiting fellow
Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki.

c/o Construction Communications
8 Cotton’s Field
Dry Drayton
Cambridge CB3 8DG, UK
Tel 044 1954 780644

robhoward@constcom.demon.co.uk

SUMMARY:

Since the early days of CAD system development, the effects that their geometrical capabilities might have on building form and quality should have produced more research. A conference was organised at the RIBA in 1982 on ‘Buildings designed with computers’. The architects and engineers who presented their work admitted they were still trying to understand how to use the simple systems they then had, but one speaker said an early modelling system had been used to evaluate more design options. However this system was restricted to orthogonal geometries and such limitations have now been removed so that many complex building forms are now possible.

This special issue of ITcon is open to papers on the development of building forms enabled by the enhanced features of complex CAD systems, and the relationship between form and design quality. The papers should be more about product than process and could explore new geometrical features of CAD systems, their application to innovative building projects, or their effect on allowing a greater number of, or more novel, forms to be explored. Design quality may be met by developing more appropriate forms, or by modifying and testing the design more efficiently, to meet objectives.

An example of the development of form with the use of CAD systems can be seen in the work of Foster & Partners. This firm of architects was known for its high-tech, but mainly orthogonal, buildings up to and including Stansted airport terminal, opened in 1991. This was the first project on which they used CAD. From then on their buildings have made use of increasingly complex geometry. For example, the Duxford American Air Museum of 1997 which is toroidal, and the Swiss Re tower and Reichstag dome which involve tapering spirals. The most complex must be the lattice roof of the British Museum great court which fills the space between a square and a circle using triangular glazed panels, each of different dimensions. The questions that need to be asked are how essential this technology-enabled complexity is, and what quality it adds to each building.

Design quality, as opposed to Quality Assurance, is concerned with trying to measure degrees of excellence and to what extent the result meets original objectives. Benchmarks for design quality have been developed in the UK. The Design Quality Indicator www.dqi.org.uk measures three quality fields: functionality, build quality and impact. The first two are self-evident but ‘impact’ refers to a building’s ability ‘to engage both the mind and the senses, to create a sense of place and to impact on the local community and environment’. This involves subjective elements, and another question is whether design quality can ever be measured objectively.

A well-known example of the relationship between technology, form and quality can be seen in the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. This design, by Frank Gehry, is extremely complex geometrically and could only have been modelled with an aircraft design system like CATIA. Its construction involved Spanish steelwork fabricators using the model to design and produce the structure. Its impact has been dramatic on the increase of tourism and enhanced economy of the region.

Papers are invited exploring the development of CAD to allow modelling of more complex forms, case studies of buildings for which CAD has been essential to their design, and studying how the forms of buildings affect the quality they deliver to client and community. Details of the format of papers are on the ITcon website at www.itcon.org and they should be sent to the guest editor:

Deadline extended until end of Deptember 2005.

		`The Effects of CAD on Building Form and Design Quality`
ITcon special issues		User: _anon_214095

Current volume All volumes Special issues Search papers Author index About ITcon Journal Scope Editors Editorial board Reader info. Author info. Submissions Login		The Effects of CAD on Building Form and Design Quality *GUEST EDITOR(S):* Rob Howard, senior visiting fellow Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki. c/o Construction Communications 8 Cotton’s Field Dry Drayton Cambridge CB3 8DG, UK Tel 044 1954 780644 robhoward@constcom.demon.co.uk SUMMARY: Since the early days of CAD system development, the effects that their geometrical capabilities might have on building form and quality should have produced more research. A conference was organised at the RIBA in 1982 on ‘Buildings designed with computers’. The architects and engineers who presented their work admitted they were still trying to understand how to use the simple systems they then had, but one speaker said an early modelling system had been used to evaluate more design options. However this system was restricted to orthogonal geometries and such limitations have now been removed so that many complex building forms are now possible. This special issue of ITcon is open to papers on the development of building forms enabled by the enhanced features of complex CAD systems, and the relationship between form and design quality. The papers should be more about product than process and could explore new geometrical features of CAD systems, their application to innovative building projects, or their effect on allowing a greater number of, or more novel, forms to be explored. Design quality may be met by developing more appropriate forms, or by modifying and testing the design more efficiently, to meet objectives. An example of the development of form with the use of CAD systems can be seen in the work of Foster & Partners. This firm of architects was known for its high-tech, but mainly orthogonal, buildings up to and including Stansted airport terminal, opened in 1991. This was the first project on which they used CAD. From then on their buildings have made use of increasingly complex geometry. For example, the Duxford American Air Museum of 1997 which is toroidal, and the Swiss Re tower and Reichstag dome which involve tapering spirals. The most complex must be the lattice roof of the British Museum great court which fills the space between a square and a circle using triangular glazed panels, each of different dimensions. The questions that need to be asked are how essential this technology-enabled complexity is, and what quality it adds to each building. Design quality, as opposed to Quality Assurance, is concerned with trying to measure degrees of excellence and to what extent the result meets original objectives. Benchmarks for design quality have been developed in the UK. The Design Quality Indicator www.dqi.org.uk measures three quality fields: functionality, build quality and impact. The first two are self-evident but ‘impact’ refers to a building’s ability ‘to engage both the mind and the senses, to create a sense of place and to impact on the local community and environment’. This involves subjective elements, and another question is whether design quality can ever be measured objectively. A well-known example of the relationship between technology, form and quality can be seen in the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. This design, by Frank Gehry, is extremely complex geometrically and could only have been modelled with an aircraft design system like CATIA. Its construction involved Spanish steelwork fabricators using the model to design and produce the structure. Its impact has been dramatic on the increase of tourism and enhanced economy of the region. Papers are invited exploring the development of CAD to allow modelling of more complex forms, case studies of buildings for which CAD has been essential to their design, and studying how the forms of buildings affect the quality they deliver to client and community. Details of the format of papers are on the ITcon website at www.itcon.org and they should be sent to the guest editor: Deadline extended until end of Deptember 2005.
Journal is partially sponsored by Slovenian Research Agency Editor-in-chief: Robert Amor ISSN 1874-4753
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