ABSTRACT
Computers have entered design at both the architectural and urban scales to such a degree, it is now hard to imagine design without them. They are used for representation, as in CAD, for simulation, as in environmental design; for manufacture, as in CAD/CAM, and, most contentiously, for the ‘generation’ of architectural and urban form, as in some current experimental work. Architecture as a material practice is constantly under siege from one direction or another – from paper architecture, from theory, from those frustrated by its material limitations. Some architects are experimenting with digital technologies to generate and construct novel forms and innovative design procedures, others to help with an overwhelming number and complexity of variables in urban and environmental design. Both groups are innovating, but the first receives more kudos for doing so – at least within the design community and its parasitic industries, the general and specialist press, and increasingly, television. The second group remains obscured.
