Architects and designers have recently become interested in the use of “big data”. The most common paradigm guiding this work is the optimization of a limited number of factors, e.g. façade designs maximizing light distribution. For most design problems, however, such optimization is oversimplified and reductive; the goal of design is the discovery of possibilities in conditions of complexity and uncertainty.

Many architects understand that learning to program can be a challenge, but assume that time and practice are the only barriers to performing well enough at it. However, research from computer science education does not support this assumption. Multinational studies of undergraduate computer science programs reveal that a significant number of students in their first and second year of full-time instruction still have serious misconceptions about how computer programs work and an inability to design programs of their own.

Parametric design environments (Building Information Modeling) are transforming architects into agents of their own systems, at the expense of systemic logics too complex for us to control. This agency is often defined by a system devoid of adaptive or responsive tools. The work in this paper proposes a hypothetical response to this condition by designing ‘glue’ for components of software to integrate new forms of information for a user. Author Mario Carpo has recently outlined three-scenarios for these types of parametric inputs through the idea of ‘split agency’ (Carpo 2011).

The growing consciousness regarding ecologically conscious architecture mandates a deeper understanding of the strategies that may be adopted by designers towards achieving this goal. With the advent of building information modeling (BIM) and the associated paradigm shi in the design process, it has become increasingly possible to make informed decisions earlier on in the design process. Despite this advancement, the architectural realm continues to lack computational resources that are capable of providing formal guidelines, through a genera ve process, that serve as a starting point for sustainable design. Towards overcoming this limitation, this paper will describe a computational tool that generates buildable performance envelopes in response to aspects of a site that are influential in designing sustainably: climate and context. These envelopes are created in a genera ve manner through the utilization of a voxel (three-dimensional pixel) matrix, which continually updates itself based on formal elements created by the user. Facilitating the process of making ecologically conscious design decisions at the earliest stages of design, which is the primary goal of this tool, more substantially increases the achieved energy optimization. Illustrative building designs presented in the paper resulting from the testing of this tool in contrasting climate zones, such as Miami, Florida (ASHRAE Zone 01) and Aspen, Colorado (ASHRAE Zone 07), confirms the assertion that the performance envelopes generated with this tool serve only as a guideline for optimized sustainable design, and not as the final form of the building itself.

We present research on the integration of augmented reality and architecture using a design science research methodology. Our goal is to consider the design of architectural space and augmented reality (AR) applications simultaneously. The architectural brief is an archeological museum/excavation site that directly confronts issues of occupation, circulation, form, and access to large archives of information. Combining the efforts of twelve architectural designers with a team of AR developers, we develop a taxonomy of affordances, feedback mechanisms, and output/display options. This taxonomy constitutes preliminary usability heuristics for the use of AR as an embodied device for interaction in architectural settings.

This is our primary question: with the inexorable advance of digital technologies along all fronts of human endeavor, whither architecture? We identify performance as the primary criterion to revealing a new paradigm for architecture. We do not delimit this definition to the role traditionally played by mechanical and quasi-mechanical technologies in the optimization of environmental control systems and building skins. Nor do we intend to ascribe to performance the interpretation narrowly defined by the emergence of digital gadgetry, primarily optical in methodology, which have nonetheless already radically altered the means by which we negotiate our environment, built and otherwise. The focus of our work, then, is to make the building responsive, to see the performance of the user as an integrated part of the building.

Design methods and digital/spatial environments that combine augmented reality (AR) and architecture are presented, with particular focus on synthesizing a novel design process. The architectural brief is an archeological museum/excavation site that directly confronts issues of occupation, circulation, form, and large archives of data. Combining the efforts of twelve architectural designers with a team of AR developers, a taxonomy is developed of affordances, feedback mechanisms, and output/display options. This taxonomy constitutes preliminary usability heuristics for an architectural user interface synthesizing AR and architecture.

The variety of quantitative optimizations available in BIM software has the potential to leave more human factors to become secondary considerations in design. Computational tools can begin to embrace predictive models of human behavior in order to generate solutions which better serve their occupants and better represent basic knowledge of human conditions. This project explores the approximation of human movement behaviors within an architectural space through the development of Animal, an agent- based model of circulation for Dynamo within the Revit environment.

The black lives matters movement has risen in response to social injustice in the African American community in the united states, specifically concerned with police shootings and brutality. Similar to many modern movements in the age of information, there has been many protests around the United States that utilize mobile technologies and social media to diffuse information, organize, and occupy public space to demand justice and equality. In this research we study one recent protest that happened in the United States; the protests in the aftermath of the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott at Charlotte. We will study the events in three different layers: social media, physical social network, and public space.