Space, Light, Spirit: Using Computers as a Spatial Visualization and Design Exploration Medium

Abstract

The constant advances in the use of computers to simulate light over the past few decades, has led computer-aided rendering to become increasingly photorealistic. However, the rendering is still processor-intensive and time-consuming, difficult to generate in real time. Design students need to be well versed in the depiction of the effects of light in an environment, crucial to spatial visualization. With increasing computing power, advanced algorithms and increased realism, the central pedagogical issue in their use is not what computers can do for us today, but what and how we can make them do what we do better. We have to be careful in not getting seduced by the advancing technology but use it innovatively to build students into better designers. This paper discusses a project demonstrating the apparent potential of computers for spatial visualization and design exploration of light and space, in their present stage. The project shows a departure from the traditional methods of using computers or of teaching lighting in a design school. Computers are used by students to especially create flashy imagery. On the other hand, lighting is explained in clinical terms without exploration of its experiential qualities. This exercise helped the students to develop a better understanding of the physics of light from the method most familiar and expected of students – visual. The project deems it more important to have a quick means to produce an overview of the implication of the design choices than to provide precise information regarding a hypothetical final solution. Hence, after creating the lighting in the space based on the desired experiential qualities, the illumination can be conveyed to a lighting expert for detailed quantitative computations. The project results are shown and outcomes discussed.