Examining an Engineer's Design Studio

To begin this investigation, one asks, ‘What is an Engineer’s Design Studio?’ This paper examines the work and statements of three groups in an attempt to answer this question and define their significance. It must be acknowledged that the term ‘Design Studio’ is not a label chosen by all of these firms, but one suggested here to encapsulate their work. An Engineer’s Design Studio is a group of engineers engaging in building design. In fact, they are small specialist groups that seek to contribute to the design by challenging the existing assumptions in the design process. By asking bigger questions about a project than their discipline normally allows, a differing viewpoint emerges. These groups use engineering to articulate architectural visions. Again, not necessarily visions of the architect, for which they consult, but visions for the project that they are supporting. The difference is that engineering can be used in the creation of the ideas behind a project and not just in the articulation of the project. Additionally, the groups seek innovation through the use and growth of digital technology. Design studios within engineering firms in the construction industry are not common. Their existence has much to do with the changes occurring in this digital age. Digital technology not only influences architectural practice, it also reaches into the pedagogy of architectural education. By using the Engineer’s Design Studio as an example, one can see how the engineer’s aims can be applied to the benefit of current architectural education practices.

A case-study in cross-disciplinary student work: a CNC-manufactured body for FSAE racing

The project discussed here involves the contribution of architecture students towards the design and fabrication of the body for an open wheel race-car for the annual SAE competition (Society of Automotive Engineers). The development of this body constitutes only a portion of a wider project that involves engineering a fully functional car within the time-span of one academic year, within the school of Mechanical Engineering. Naturally, the overall project involves a wide range of skills that exceed architectural training and the author is interested in this collaborative effort between two distinct departments and the logistics involved in its materialization.

Socio-Technical Practices

Evaluating the socio-technical dialectic reveals much about our values as a society, as a construction industry and as individual disciplines. This paper will share an interpretive cultural history of building in order to establish a context for the emergence of integrated practice technologies such as BIM, IPD and LEED. This will provide the foundation for determining whether these technologies are serving us well in contemporary practice given our most pressing challenges and opportunities. In short the purpose of this paper is to explain the context of building as a means for making our current practices more performative, that is less abstract and autonomous, and instead more connected, meaningful and valuable to the future of both society and the building industry.

Exclusively Mutual

As individuals, institutions, and agencies stumble over each other creating new benchmarks for performance, speaking past one another along the way, the concept of performance becomes increasingly illusive – as does its implication in architectural practice. MECHANISTICALLY, it is a manner or quality of functioning. It’s EMBODIED meaning is firmly attached to the notion of accomplishment. CONTRACTUAL performance is tied to the fulfillment of an obligation or responsibility. The creative modality assigned to it’s PRODUCTIVE definition places emphasis on process based metrics. INFORMALLY the word describes a tiresome procedure. Scope of “work done” provides the LEGAL context for use of the word. COLLOQUIALLY performance is equated with competence. A REPRESENTATIONAL dimension exists as well in ceremony. And, performance exists as a MODALITY in embedded conduct and behavior.1

Performance-based Design

Michalatos and Kaijima underline in their paper ‘Structural Information as Material for Design’ (2007) the importance to approach an informed design consistency and respect the “criteria of efficiency, architectural intentions as well as intrinsic properties of the geometry” rather than simple structural optimization of a certain design. Our paper investigates this consistency between architecture and structure within the framework of parametric modeling, which requires architects, engineers and constructors to re-evaluate the feedback loop between how things are designed and constructed. As Mario Carpo (2008) points out CAD and CAM technologies have overthrown the “Albertian Paradigm” which claims that architects should not make things, but should just design and annotate them. As digital tools can be used to design and fabricate at the same time, CAD-CAM technologies have already started to bridge the gap between designers and makers. One of the most influential form related factors on the lighting situation inside the building is – due to its shading behaviour – the dimension and position of the supporting structure of the façade. It is important to investigate these positions at the beginning in-depth, since they serve as hypothesis for the entire planning process. In order to compare a catalogue of various design approaches and different designs in a timely manner, a parametric model has been built defining the rough form of the design.

Design Leadership: Three Pedagogical Pairings for Performative Practice

Who will lead in the much-needed awakening to the problem of the divide-and-conquer mentality that has strapped the construction industry to vast inefficiencies BOTH in the way buildings are conceived, designed, delivered AND how they perform? And in the barrage of contemporary claims for performance-based design – what is the fate of “Design”? This paper examines these questions with examples of substantial and emerging pedagogical initiatives that are critically founded and practically executed with a view toward a more integrated and better-designed future – of performative built environments and the practices that produce them.

Smartsurfaces: A Multidisciplinary, Hands -on Think Tank

New design practices are emerging that span multiple traditional disciplinary boundaries. As these new models of practice manifest, new pedagogies also become necessary, often challenging both existing educational models and institutional constraints as a result. Gibbons, et al1 questioned the adequacy of traditional disciplinary structures within universities in the context of broader social, technological and economic contexts. The Association of American Colleges and Universities have argued that universities need to change their practices to develop students as “…integrative thinkers who can see connections in seemingly disparate information and draw on a wide range of knowledge to make decisions.”2 The National Academies have recommended, “…students should seek out interdisciplinary experiences, such as courses at the interfaces of traditional disciplines…”3 and that “…schools introduce interdisciplinary learning in the undergraduate environment, rather than having it as an exclusive feature of the graduate programs.”4 As indicated above, there has been much calling for cross-disciplinarity in education but to date there has been little investigation on the impact of cross-disciplinary courses on learning, especially in comparison to teaching that is more discipline-specific. For educators a central question arises: How do we prepare students to be extra-disciplinary thinkers and doers with “habits of mind”5 that prepare them to make the sort of hybrid responses that complex performance problems demand?

Historical Problematics of the collaborative Divide

Collaboration is ubiquitous as a signifier of collective action in the contemporary discourse on inter- and trans-disciplinary practices. While this undoubtedly foregrounds the collective nature of architectural production — that is, architects do not produce buildings in isolation — in a quest to optimize such practices, the discourse tends to overlook historical problematics of collaboration relative to architectural identity and authority. In this paper, I examine these problematics as a framework for critically assessing the twenty-first century re-emergence of collaboration as a technologically-driven practice.

Transforming the Architectural Curriculum: Integrated Practice and the Metrics of Performance

The research question at the center of this paper was initiated in response to my participation in a larger Department of Energy funded project awarded to the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy Efficient Buildings (GPIC). My particular research initiatives within GPIC are focused on developing a roadmap of use by architects, engineers, builders and building owners for the successful implementation and market adoption of rigorous Integrated Design Practices in the energy efficient retrofit of buildings in a 10 county region of the Mid Atlantic region, that includes the city of Philadelphia and its Navy Yard. A group of computer scientists and building engineers comprise the Integrated Technologies Team, whose “subtask [is to] utilize models, tools, and methods developed by the Design Tools Team for rapid synthesis of systems.” 1 And a sub-group of researchers from the Architecture Department at the University of Pennsylvania is more broadly devising innovative Integrated Design strategies that can be implemented in the process of whole building design of high performance buildings.