Digital Design in Urban Environments: Explorations in Computational Design Strategies

This book presents the various design explorations that architecture students did during the Digital Design in Urban environments course, held at the Tampere University of Technology within seven weeks at the end of 2015. The course focused on the new possibilities that digital design methodologies provide, especially in the shift of thinking design through the use of algorithmic processes and parametric modeling.

During the course students tested and explored different computational design methods through small design tasks that were given after weekly lectures. The digital design platform we used was Rhinoceros 3D and its parametric design plugin grasshopper. The goal of the course was to provide the students a broad view onto the subject and the challenges they pose, but in a way that they can acquire the necessary information and skills to implement the new tools and methods in their own design processes.

As the teacher, it is crucial for me that the students learn the methods through their own designer identities and explore their significance to themselves and to their way of working. It is not about just copying given solutions and methodologies, but finding new ways of doing and especially thinking architectural design. That is why I urged them to explore widely and without fear (within this short timeframe) – sometimes even resulting in failure to live to the preconceived expectations of what they wanted. But when you bump into the boundaries of your skills and knowledge, you also expand them.