Digital design and making: 30 Years after

Abstract

Current design studio pedagogy is undergoing significant change as the means and methods of ideation representation and making evolve with digital tools; Computer-Aided-Design-Computer-Aided-Manufacturing (CADCAM) remains a contentious topic among many studio instructors and faculty in the academy. Computing is now nearing ubiquity; many processes and products have seen significant evolutionary trends, if not revolutionary transformations; this is no less the case in the academic and firm design studio. The impact of "digital" media and CADCAM, in the design-make process, remains obscure and formally unknown. In this paper, we will review our research and findings from the work of three students; two current students who were in our Digital Design II (DDII) spring 2006 course and the third student, the writer, will reflect on "design and making" from a "pre- architecture" and pre-studio/pre-computer (CADCAM) perspective of 'making' thirty-three years ago. The research findings provide universal precepts pertinent to current thinking about emerging studio pedagogy. Our findings suggest that computing technology should be introduced at the outset of design education for the beginning student in basic design studio; and moreover, advanced designers can partner with "digital" tools to ideate and realize their, heretofore unrepresentable and unconstructable, ideas in the early stages of design using CADCAM.