Abstract:

Digital workflows are ubiquitous components in every industry and only accelerates each day as software and hardware become more robust and powerful. Within design disciplines, the rapid ideation, realistic concept visualization, and infinitesimal level of precision in details, are increasingly isolated to onscreen imagery. While advances in digital fabrication may hold promise for the ability to transition back to physically tangible production, these output methods tend to remain in the realm of scaled representation rather than actual full-scale prototypes. As design pedagogy advances in computer-based design tool integration, this paradigm has detached designers from the materials and methods of producing their work. Students may be able to create photorealistic product imagery, yet still not understand how to engage its production in reality. This is especially problematic for architectural design; renderings are prioritized over working drawings, construction details are alleviated by software defaults, and resource expenses are representational databases with little meaning. To address this challenge, design-build studios, where architecture students are charged with building their designs, have been integrated into architecture pedagogy but with little guidance in addressing the growing gap in design knowledge as students blindly integrate digital workflows. This paper posits basic guidelines for real-world production in design-build courses that are complementary to digital workflows based upon examples of various design-build projects from Canada’s largest architecture program.

Keywords:

Architectural pedagogy, visualization, computer-aided design, construction.