ABSTRACT
The aspiration for harmonizing architecture and structure toward a tectonic design clashes with the additional costs that an integrated design process can face. Though computational tools can bring quality and economic benefits to projects, the lack of adequate structural computational tools for early conceptual design challenges the integration. Through qualitative research involving professionals, this paper analyses the current conditions of collaboration in the early conceptual design phase. On this basis, a framework is proposed for the development of a new structural computational tool that could favor the integrated design process. While further research is needed before initiating the tool development, this paper delineates the kind of information meaningful for conceptual structural design to be a collaborative venture as well as the media and method of communication between the architect and engineer. In other words, this paper seeks to identify how a new computational design tool could favor digital tectonics.
