How the Approach of Digital Tools in Architecture Has Developed: The Case of Creative Programming

Abstract

The goal of this research is to figure out the different approaches to digital tools in architecture during the technological evolution of the last decades, which have determined the current coexistence of two kind of tools: the most extended ones, which trend to monopolization, and the alternative tools, more empowering, within which are the creative programming codes.

Thus, in a first phase of encounter with computational machines, designers, who also had the role of programmers, asked themselves questions in terms of the why and the what for of the use of tools in design. Subsequently, and because of the rise of software for commercial designs, users specialized in learning about them, focusing on the how, which in turn led to the separation of the designer-programmer into two independent roles. After the 2008 crisis several previous alternative tools used by a minority, such as Open-Source environments, caught the attention of the designers: they could regain the design process control by bridging programming, designing and execution with these technologies.

Despite many of these tools has already been included in design and architecture syllabi, the inclusion of creative programming codes is still an ongoing process, because its learning involves a greater knowledge of the digital environment. Processing code is shown as an example, used in some pioneer schools with the aim of enable future architects to understand digital environments from an active and empowered position.