Stumbling, Backtracking, and Leapfrogging: Two Decades of Introductory Architectural Computing

Our collective concept of computing and its relevance to architecture has undergone dramatic shifts in emphasis. A review of popular texts from the past reveals the biases and emphases that were current. In the seventies, architectural computing was generally seen as an elective for data processing specialists. In the early eighties, personal computers and commercial CAD systems were widely adopted. Architectural computing diverged from the “batchi world into the “interactive” world. As personal computing matured, introductory architectural computing courses turned away from a foundation in programming toward instruction in CAD software. By the late eighties, Graphic User Interfaces and windowing operating systems had appeared, leading to a profusion of architecturally relevant applications that needed to be addressed in introductory computing. The introduction of desktop 3D modelling in the early nineties led to increased emphasis upon rendering and animation. The past few years have added new emphases, particularly in the area of network communications, the World Wide Web and Virtual Design Studios. On the horizon are topics of electronic commerce and knowledge markets. This paper reviews these past and current trends and presents an outline for an introductory computing course that is relevant to the year 2000