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Technical Report: Education: Computing, Design, Knowledge

Text by Sambit Datta , et al, and Robert F. Woodbury, Andrew L. Burrow
 
...Incorporating even low-level computer programming within architectural education curricula is a matter of debate but we have found it useful to do so for two reasons: as an introduction or at least a consolidation of the realm of descriptive geometry and in providing an environment for experimenting in morphological time-based change...
 
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+ Categorisation: Research Abstracts and Texts (primary)…  …and Part of Describing Temple Cellas…
+ Keywords: Architectural Computing… Design Knowledge… Design Method… Education… Knowledge Formalisms…
  1. MANAGING DESIGN KNOWLEDGE WITH MIXED-INITIATIVE DIALOGUE
    [ Sambit Datta ]
    This paper is based on ongoing work in developing interactive interfaces to formal methods for encoding design knowledge. It reports on the development of a shared graphical notation to support user interaction with design knowledge based on mixed-initiative. Mixed-initiative provides a model of interaction where both the designer and the knowledge formalism may share responsibility over decisions. The paper discusses how a formal visual notation can support the mixed-initiative mode for developing and managing formal design knowledge. The notation addresses on the dialogue problem between the user and a knowledge based formalism and illustrates a model of interaction in which the user and the formalism can share and input data through a common shared resource, on a common shared task. The paper demonstrates the use of this notation in common decision tasks and the implications for seamless interaction with design support systems.
    FULLTEXT: ddssar0209.content.pdf
     
  2. INTERACTIVE MAPPING BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE LEVEL AND SYMBOL LEVEL WITH GEOMETRY: A KL-MODEL FOR DESIGN SPACE EXPLORATION
    [ Teng-Wen Chang, Rob Woodbury, Sambit Datta ]
    Design space exploration is long-standing motivating ideas in computer-aided design. It realises this vision through a model of design states for making and moving amongst states and an organisation of states into a structure called a design space. Using a design space structuring mechanism based on a subsumption relation, this paper sketches a theory called Geometric Typed Feature Structures (GTFS) to preserve the formal properties of the design space movement algorithms for geometry. It also provides the theory for incorporation of user-guided exploration in the design space. Consequently, the clear division between knowledge level and symbol level, such that functional decomposition formal symbol level and design model symbol level, disappears. We can therefore use the same subsumption relation to structure the design space exploration interactively. Such interactive mapping between knowledge level and symbol level provides the fine-grained opportunities for user intervention in formal design space movement algorithms. In this paper, we summarize this approach with an example of GTFS subsumption process.
    FULLTEXT: cf2003_m_103.content.pdf
     
  3. MULTIVALENT ARCHITECTURAL CASE INFORMATION FOR CREATIVE REASONING
    [ Milton Tan, Jeanette Gan, Pinna Indorf, Dorothy Man, Robert Teh, Sambit Datta , Luis Serra, Joel Loo ]
    The theoretical underpinnings, practical and technical implementation of a multimedia database to support creative designing is presented through a prototype system which would go on-line in the near future. At the heart. of the system is the notion that architectural knowledge is multivalent - requiring the means for recombination in new and different ways to support design thinking. The system also attempts to deal with the practical issues of case building, 3D modelling, interface design and technical clarity. Keywords: creativity, multimedia, case-based reasoning, computer-aided architectural design, architectural database, visual database, virtual reality.
    FULLTEXT: aa38.content.pdf
     
  4. INTRODUCTORY COMPUTER PROGRAMMING AS A MEANS FOR EXTENDING SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL UNDERSTANDING
    [ Mark Burry, Sambit Datta, Simon Anson ]
    Should computer programming be taught within schools of architecture?
    Incorporating even low-level computer programming within architectural education curricula is a matter of debate but we have found it useful to do so for two reasons: as an introduction or at least a consolidation of the realm of descriptive geometry and in providing an environment for experimenting in morphological time-based change.
    Mathematics and descriptive geometry formed a significant proportion of architectural education until the end of the 19th century. This proportion has declined in contemporary curricula, possibly at some cost for despite major advances in automated manufacture, Cartesian measurement is still the principal ‘language’ with which to describe building for construction purposes. When computer programming is used as a platform for instruction in logic and spatial representation, the waning interest in mathematics as a basis for spatial description can be readdressed using a left-field approach. Students gain insights into topology, Cartesian space and morphology through programmatic form finding, as opposed to through direct manipulation.
    In this context, it matters to the architect-programmer how the program operates more than what it does. This paper describes an assignment where students are given a figurative conceptual space comprising the three Cartesian axes with a cube at its centre. Six Phileban solids mark the Cartesian axial limits to the space. Any point in this space represents a hybrid of one, two or three transformations from the central cube towards the various Phileban solids. Students are asked to predict the topological and morphological outcomes of the operations. Through programming, they become aware of morphogenesis and hybridisation. Here we articulate the hypothesis above and report on the outcome from a student group, whose work reveals wider learning opportunities for architecture students in computer programming than conventionally assumed.
    FULLTEXT: 9384.content.pdf
     
  5. THE SUMMER GAMES
    [ Robert F Woodbury, Theodor G Wyeld, Susan J Shannon; Ian W roberts, Anthony Radford, Mark Burry, Henry Skates, Jeremy Ham, Sambit Datta ]
    As part of a nationally funded project, we have developed and used “games” as studentcentred teaching resources to enrich the capacity for design in beginning students in architecture, landscape architecture and urban design. Students are encouraged to learn inter-actively in a milieu characterised by self-directed play in a low-risk computermodelling environment. Recently thirteen upper year design students, six from Adelaide University (Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), five from Deakin University (Geelong, Victoria, Australia), and two from Victoria University, (Wellington, New Zealand) were commissioned over a ten-week period of the 2000-2001 Australian summer to construct a new series of games. This paper discusses the process behind constructing these games. This paper discusses six topical areas:
    • what is a game;
    • specific goals of the summer games;
    • the structure of a game;
    • the game-making process;
    • key findings from the production unit; and
    • future directions.
    FULLTEXT: 7893.content.pdf
     
  6. PEDAGOGICAL TEMPLATES : A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HIGHER ORDER REFLECTIVE MAKING
    [ Sambit Datta, David Morison and Kim Roberts ]
    Schon’s notion of reflection-in-action implies a constructivist process of learning, especially valid in the teaching of professional disciplines such as architecture. Action becomes the instrument of conjecture and learning arises in the context of reflection upon the act. Such a process of interleaving action and reflection constitutes a “higher-order” process of reflective making. Research in design studies has shown that strategies for making differ markedly between professional and novitiate designers. Further, such studies have shown that skilled designers employ past experience and precedents to create context for new problem situations. To address the lack of context in novitiate learning situations, we propose the use of “pedagogical templates” for the promotion of “higher-order” strategies in design learning contexts for supporting beginning design students. We focus on the use of digital media, specifically for the design, implementation and delivery of constructive learning situations. This paper presents the use of a pedagogical template in the creation of constructivist contexts for two complementary courses, a traditional design studio and a computermodelling course at Deakin University. The resulting implications for design learning and the integration of physical and digital forms of making through the use of a pedagogical template are discussed.
    FULLTEXT: 4533.content.pdf
     
  7. A REPRESENTATIONAL CONSTRUCT FOR SHARING KNOWLEDGE IN DESIGN EXPLORATION
    [ Sambit Datta ]
    Exploration with formal design systems comprise iterative processes for specifying problems, finding plausible and alternative solutions, judging the validity of solutions relative to problems and reformulating problems and solutions. These processes are knowledge intensive, collaborative and multidisciplinary in nature. Recent research efforts propose representational frameworks that allow for modeling of knowledge capture, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse during designing. However, design remains a human enterprise: to be scalable and usable in design practice, formal symbolic representations need to be embedded within a broader framework of agent (human and computational) interaction. This paper argues that, for sharing and reusing knowledge between agents in design exploration, it is necessary to build an intermediary representational structure that bridges specialist interactions with exploration knowledge (the domain) and the symbol structures that represent them (the symbol substrate). The paper identifies the requirements of such an intermediary representation for the sharing of knowledge between design agents. These requirements are addressed through the development of a shared interaction construct, the feature node.
    Keywords: exploration, design knowledge, interaction model, mixed-initiative
    FULLTEXT: 2004_286.content.pdf
     
  8. NAVIGATING SUBSUMPTION-BASED DESIGN SPACES
    [ Robert F. Woodbury, Andrew L. Burrow, Sambit Datta ]
    Design space explorers are information-rich environments conceived for providing effective support for electronic design processes. A subsumption-based design space structures the partial designs in the environment by a relation of information specificity. It provides formal exploration operators for predictive, goal-directed movement in the underlying space of designs and an interaction model for open-ended exploration. This paper focusses on the forward moving operator based on incremental pi-resolution and discusses the topic of information removal through the erasure operator. It describes the possible usage of these operators and the entry points for mixed-initiative human-computer interaction in the SEED-Config explorer .
    FULLTEXT: 490b.content.pdf
     
  9. CODE CHECKING BY REPRESENTATION COMPARISON
    [ Robert Woodbury, Andrew Burrow, Robin Drogemuller, Sambit Datta ]
    In current computational building design theory and practice, representation schemes depend upon a set of formal operations for creating, changing and querying a representation. With a few notable exceptions, these operations do not provide ways of comparing representations to determine how representations are alike and how they are different. We have developed a theory for and a formal representation scheme that supports representation comparison. This theory opens new approaches to unsolved problems in computational building design, notably the long-standing issue of automated building code checking.
    FULLTEXT: 11e1.content.pdf
     
  10. AN APPROACH TO SEARCH AND EXPLORATION THROUGH MIXED-INITIATIVE
    [ Sambit Datta, Robert F. Woodbury ]
    Generative design environments need support for human intervention as well as sound computational formalisms. A systematic approach to integrating the two, formal generation and the exploratory, is lacking. In this paper, we posit the possibility of a design support system that combines formal search with user driven exploration. Our approach is to cast the interaction between the user and the generative formalism as agent collaboration in a mixed-initiative environment. We describe the role of interaction and agency in an experimental mixed-initiative design support system, FOLDS and demonstrate its application.
    FULLTEXT: 67fa.content.pdf
     
  11. THE CONSTRUCTION PRIMER IN CASE-BASED E-DUCATION: THE DEAKIN WOOLSTORES CASE STUDY
    [ Jeremy J.Ham, Simon Anson , Sambit Datta , Henry Skates ]
    This paper outlines the use of an online multimedia case study of the Deakin University Woolstores campus in design and construction learning. The case study, in its pilot form, serves three purposes: as a case-based primer for the study of design and construction technology, as a structured case-study container for the addition of student digital construction projects and to benchmark student digital construction projects. The case study utilizes 3D CAD models and web-based multimedia in concert with physical connection with the actual building to build wholistic understandings of the transition of an idea to a constructed reality.
    FULLTEXT: 24d3.content.pdf
     

 
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