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01: Digital Pedagogy :: A- Digital Foundations: Building a Base for Digital Futures

George Proctor

Has “the digital” been absorbed by the discipline or has “the digital” absorbed the discipline?

Depending on your perspective, Architecture either continues to disintegrate or has reformed

around a new definition of “the master builder”. Digital technology has opened a variety of new

career opportunities for the graduates of a digitally advanced architectural education. Some

depictions of this trend have the discipline of architecture continuing to fragment into specialties.

However, software has established platforms from which the activity surrounding a design project

can be directed, managed, and built. But, does the capacity of software to re-center what is

required to make a built environment mean that the design and making of such will fall to the

historic notion of “master builder” or “the architect”?

Much of what applies to the general education of an architect can also be said for the digital

portion of architectural curricula. Some students come to the university with digital media skills,

some are autodidactic, a large number are waiting to be taught and some either struggle to

absorb digital skills or probably do not fit a life in architecture. In the midst of this new landscape,

sketching and drawing freehand has become more important and necessary. Ironically, less time

is provided to build these “old” skills because more time goes to learning a variety of digital skills.

Synthesizing digital media training and tool use into an already demanding professional

curriculum along with the financial demands of upgrading and absorbing changes in this

technology is, overwhelming for students, faculty, pedagogy, and the institution. NAAB

requirements may need to be reorganized to accommodate this paradigm shift.

01: Digital Pedagogy :: B- Connected Courses: Methods of Network Communications

Thomas Seebohm

A recent computer survey sent by the NJIT School of Architecture to thirty-one, mostly American

design schools, including twenty-nine architecture schools, indicated that all but one had

networked design studios. This is clear evidence that digital methods are becoming routine in

architecture schools. In addition, the Internet and web have resulted in new methods of working.

Since the first virtual distance studios, where students collaborated over the internet with students

in other physically remote studios, in 1994 by Wojtowicz and colleagues, such studios have to

relied on web-based databases to store shared design information. This has led to some very

sophisticated connected studios where students exchange and develop each other's designs. A

model for this kind of exchange, and perhaps the most advanced web-based infrastructure for

studio teaching, is the Arc-Line project at ETH in Zurich, part of a university-wide web

infrastructure project called “ETH World.” Here, up to 170 first year architecture students have a

collaborative environment allowing project submission, viewing and reviewing of design projects,

and access to design resources.

Digital design requires digital presentations of which distributed design reviews are an extension.

Here, a physically remote critic, connected to the same display over the Internet by some

collaborative software (such as Microsoft Windows Messenger and NetMeeting) participates in

the critique over the web. In architectural practice, the office of Norman Foster (Foster and

Partners) has pioneered the use of “extranets” (a restricted portion of the internet) to enable

collaboration with consultants and distant branch offices.

Clearly, a major issue that all architecture schools face is the provision of an adequate computing

infrastructure. Clearly, schools must provide networking and output devices such as printers,

plotters and projectors and training on their use. Opinions are divided, however, on the provision

of computers. Some schools recommend or even require that students provide their own

computers and software.