About 'Computational Designer'

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2024. 06. 23.

What specifically does the term "computational designer" refer to? Before exploring this, it would be good to first explain my interests. I am very interested in the design possibilities of what forms buildings can take on land and what floor plans can be included inside. The shape of a building is influenced by the shape of the land and legal constraints, so it cannot be determined arbitrarily. Depending on what type of building you want to construct, you may need to make decisions such as whether to build a single structure or divide it into multiple buildings. In some cases, you may need to design parking spaces to secure a certain number of parking spots, and since the building will be a space where people actually live, you may need to roughly design the interior layout or at least divide the interior space in a way that allows for a feasible floor plan. And I solve these design problems not by making models with blue foam or drawing plans by hand, but by converting them into problems of structured building information and geometry, and then using the computational power of computers to derive solutions.

If someone has an interest in or working on these topics, they would likely call themselves a computational designer. But isn't the term "computational designer" a bit strange? What I'm interested in is solving architectural problems, but "computational" doesn't give any hint about architecture, and the word "design" encompasses too broad a range of topics. The term "generative design", which is frequently used in the industry, similarly lacks explanation about what is being designed. These words only provide information about using computing power in design or employing certain techniques to generate results, without specifically explaining the object of design. Some people use the term "generative design tool" to describe tools that use algorithms to solve design problems, but it would be quite incorrect to say that I'm interested in creating generative design tools, as I'm not insisting on using the methodologies discussed in generative design to solve design problems.

Let's look at computational geometry, a much better-defined field that similarly uses the word 'computational'. According to Wikipedia, "Computational geometry is a branch of computer science devoted to the study of algorithms which can be stated in terms of geometry."1) Topics in computational geometry include devising algorithms to find intersection points among multiple line segments, or to find the convex hull of given points on a plane. When multiple points are given on a plane and we need to find the closest pair of points, at first glance one might think that the problem can be solved by finding all pairs of points, calculating the distances between them, and then finding the minimum distance. However, this is only a theoretical approach. In practice, when given the information about the points, we need to find a more efficient method to solve the problem, considering that someone (usually a device capable of performing computational operations) will execute the process of finding the shortest distance. This process requires devising algorithms used to solve geometric problems, which is also dealt with in the field of computational geometry. Computational geometry deals with geometry as its central theme while viewing it from a computational perspective. How clear is that? Furthermore, depending on which specific topics one is interested in, it can be divided into combinatorial computational geometry and numerical computational geometry2), allowing researchers in the field to explain their research topics using these terms.

Now, let's return to my area of interest that I introduced at the beginning and try to create a better term to describe it. The central theme I'm dealing with is architectural design. And I'm looking at this topic from a computational perspective. So, wouldn't saying that I'm interested in computational "architectural design" rather than "computational" design be a more intuitive explanation of my field of interest? I'm not sure how people in the architecture field ended up focusing on the methodology itself rather than the central theme when explaining what they do, but wouldn't it be better to avoid using the term computational designer? I prefer to use the term "computational architectural design" when describing my work.


1) Computational geometry - Wikipedia
2) Same as 1).

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