Reflections on Computer-Mediated Architectural Design

Abstract-The application of computer tools to mediating and promoting collaborative design efforts between mutually distant parties has become feasible. Technology is again ahead of prac-tice, and problems of assimilation have only begun to be explored. This paper postulates the requirements of environments for computer-mediated collaborative design in architectural practice, drawing upon experiences of design collaboration among schools of architecture on three continents and supplementing these with enquiries into design excellence in practice. SOME TALES OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN RCHITECTURE is a solitary art, or so the story goes. A In this version of events, the architect imagines possible inventions, wrestles with the act of creation, and delivers to the world a design formed of his or her imagination. Fostered by popular fiction such as Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, this image of the architect has been fashionable of late i