CAD - the Creative Side an educational experiment that aims at changing students attitude

The present paper describes an innovative design education system tried out at two different architecture schools in Brazil, with opposite approaches to the use of CAD. The experimental courses had two main goals: (1) to explore the use of logical operations in design, such as symmetry, recursion, parameterization, and combinatorial analysis, and (2) to apply these techniques with the use of the computers, using CAD not only as a representational tool, but rather as an explorative, customizable and programmable design aide for the creative process. The experiments resulted in a number of interesting compositions, design projects and programs, and assessment questionnaires revealed a real change in “students” attitude towards the use of CAD in architecture. The experiments related were the field research part of a Ph.D. thesis defended at MIT in July 2002. The present work had the support of CNPq, a Brazilian entity devoted to the scientific and technological development