0000000000784397
AUTHOR
Fulvio Wirz
The role of Artificial intelligence in architectural design: conversation with designer and researchers
The proliferation of data together with the increase of computing power in the last decade has triggered a new interest in artificial intelligence methods. Machine learning and in particular deep learning techniques, inspired by the topological structure of neurons network in brains, are omnipresent in the IT discourse, and generated new enthusiasms and fears in our society. These methods have already shown great effectiveness in fields far from architecture and have long been exploited in software that we use every day. Many computing libraries are available for anyone with some programming skills and allow them to "train" a neural network based on several types of data. The world of archi…
The evolution of the digital curve: from shipbuilding spline to the diffusion of NURBS, subdivision surface and t-splines as tools for architectural design
In this article, we will follow the history of splines, digital methods that have characterized the architectural design process since the last decade of the twentieth century. We will describe their evolutions since the beginning as analogical tools for boat construction in the eighteenth century, to its passage to digital within the automotive industry. Then the relationship with the aerospace industry, and the evolution which from digital animation, have led nurbs, subdivision surfaces and t-splines to become everyday computational tools within architecture workflow. Recent developments on t-splines, following their acquisition by Autodesk, will lead us to a reflection on the relationshi…
Architects as tool consumers: discovering trends in software and programming languages for Architecture with Google Trends
Architect professional figure and skills have undergone innumerable evolutions throughout human history, and although the architect's task is always substantially to design buildings and spaces, the use of digital tools has undoubtedly marked the greatest change in architectural design since the Renaissance, if not since the time of Vitruvius (Sacchi 2018). However, when we talk about the relationship between architecture and digital tools, we immediately think about projects of some contemporary architects and researches of some important academics come to mind. Digital tools are now everywhere within the fragmented world of architecture: from multinationals firm with offices in the major …