Towards a Digital Design Teaching Tool - a look at the ideas that should define a digital design primer

Architecture in the 21st century has become an increasingly complex affair. In addition to new social and cultural norms, architects are inundated with constantly changing information regarding new materials, sustainable processes, and complex building types. This state of affairs has also affected the expectations placed on architectural education. Critics (in diverse spheres) have expressed concerns about the lack of requisite skills of graduates that characterise good design thinking strategies as well as promote responsible design. It has been proposed by this author in other forums that by using digital technology to empower design learning, we can allow students to confidently use (through reading and analysis) their sketches to develop conceptual ideas that reconcile disparate elements into a habitable, environmentally friendly and architecturally responsible whole that is fit for purpose, cost effective, sustainable and a delight to clients and users. This paper will seek to discuss one of the concepts that govern such a tool. It will start by delineating the problem (discussed earlier in the abstract) before outlining the concepts or principles that a design teaching tool should adhere to. These concepts acknowledge the importance for the tool to reflect the nature of design tasks, facilitate learning and be accessible to all learning types. The paper will then focus on one concept - the nature of design tasks. The subsequent sections will describe an information structure borne from this idea and make mention of a current prototype of the tool. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the strengths of considering this concept