ABSTRACT
In 1967 and 1968 students saw a burst of enthusiasm for computer aided design, for the most part stimulated by the emergence of computer graphics. At the time only a few architects could program; of that group only a handful understood the workings of a computer. A computer-aided design system replaces this pencil and paper representation of the design with a systematic symbolic description stored internally in the computer’s memory, and the operations performed upon it are manipulations of symbols in accordance with the laws of logic and arithmetic. The computer is probably the most important tool available for studying design. While designers usually talk as if they are synthesizing form, most design involves the synthesis of information about form. The computer, as an information processing mechanism, has already allowed the processes of design to be broadened beyond those fitting human capabilities.
