Architectural Computing from Turing to 2000: 17th eCAADe Conference Proceedings

The core theme of this book is the idea of looking forward to where research and development in Computer Aided Architectural Design might be heading. The contention is that we can do so most effectively by using the developments that have taken place over the past three or four decades in Computing and Architectural Computing as our reference point, the past informing the future. The genesis of this theme is the fact that a new millennium is about to arrive. If we are ruthlessly objective the year 2000 holds no more significance than any other year, perhaps we should, instead, be preparing for the year 2048 (2k). In fact, whatever the justification, it is now timely to review where we stand in terms of the development of Architectural Computing. This book aims to do that. It is salutary to look back at what writers and researchers have said in the past about where they thought that the developments in computing were taking us. One of the common themes picked up in the sections of this book is the developments that have been spawned by the global linkup that the worldwide web offers us. In the past decade the scale and application of this new medium of communication has grown at a remarkable rate. There are few technological developments that have become so ubiquitous, so quickly. As a consequence there are particular sections in this book on Communication and the Virtual Design Studio which reflect the prominence of this new area, but examples of its application are scattered throughout the book. In'Computer-Aided Architectural Design'(1977), Bill Mitchell did suggest that computer network accessibility from expensive centralised locations to affordable common, decentralised computing facilities would become more commonplace. But most pundits have been taken by surprise by just how powerful the explosive cocktail of networks, email and hypertext has proven to be. Each of the ingredients is interesting in its own right but together they have presented us with genuinely new ways of working. Perhaps, with foresight we can see what the next new explosive cocktail might be