CADD: On Reorganizing the Practice of Architecture
by
Constantin Elias Cavoulakos
Dipl6md de l'Ecole Speciale d'Architecture
Paris, France
1985
SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE STUDIES
at the
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
June, 1987
@ Constantin Elias Cavoulakos
1987
The author hereby grants to M.I.T.
permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly
copies of this thesis document in whole or in part
Signature of the Author
Constantin Elias Cavoulakos
Department of Architecture
May 5, 1987
Certified by
Ranko Bon
Assistant Professor of Economics in Architecture
George Macomber Career Development Professor in Construction Management
Thesis Supervisor
Accepted by
OFTECinOnOy
A
Af~IJI
JUN1 OJulian
LIBRARIES
Il \
Beinart
Chairman
Department Committee for Graduate Students
I would like to thank all those who helped, by offering their
advice and encouragement
I especially would like to thank my first advisor at M.I.T.,
and advisor of this thesis Harvey Bryan, who has been a
true source of inspiration
My special appreciation goes to Ranko Bon who can be so
helpful at difficult situations
To Miguel for his advice and care, encouragement and
scoldings, his real friendship
To Carlos for the help that never seem to end
To my parents, Alix, my brother, Chittaranjan, Yannis, and
Daphne
Most of the illustrations in this thesis come from William
Mitchell's "Computer-Aided Architectural Design", in my
opinion still one of the best texts in the field.
Page 2
Acknowledgements
CADD: On reorganizing the practice of architecture
by
Constantin E. Cavoulakos
Submitted to the Department of Architecture on May 14, 1987,
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of
Master of Science in Architecture Studies
ABSTRACT
The architectural office of the end of the eighties has been equipped with computers
in an effort to anticipate the needs of the modem working environment and to enhance
the informational flow between the various disciplines of modem practice. A basic
concern for the architect in the computerized office is not what is commonly thought, to
probe the limits of the machine or to explore the sophistication of the software in use;
rather, it is to grasp how the computer affects performance at work, altering the
traditional hierarchy of our perception and decision making in order to strengthen
productivity by changing the traditional organization of architectural practice.
Development of design software enhances the man-machine interface, encouraging the
architect to work directly on the machine, leading towards a true integration of the
computer in the practice.
While a small computer team, composed by CADD specialists, initially supported
the computer facilities in architectural practice, it is particularly important, today, to
demonstrate that every professional should be able to access, and work directly on the
computer, adding to the dissemination of technical knowledge within the team and of the
benefits of the efficiency of the electronic tool. This is beneficial to both the designers,
who are able to minimize redundancy in the creation of graphic documents, and to the
CADD support team, that can concentrate in research and development of an
increasingly powerful computer-aided design environment.
Integrating CADD in architectural practice depends on the organization of the
particular office. A crucial question for the architect and the central topic of this thesis is
how to put designers at work in front of the screen, and how to control decision making
within the CADD environment. I address the various issues involved in the
implementation of CADD in the architectural office, and conducted field interviews to
support my findings. Computational decentralization is increasingly important, for
accessibility and peripheral control, while parallel support of complementary CADD
environments enhences efficiency and flexibility of the architectural firm.
Keywords: CADD, Representations, Architectural Practice, Office Automation,
Office Organization, Multi-disciplinarity, Integration.
Thesis supervisor:
Ranko Bon
Title:
Assistant Professor of Economics in Architecture
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture
Page 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
Page
3
CONTENTS
Page
4
PREFACE
Page
5
INTRODUCTION
THE INFORMATIONAL ERA
Page
9
PROFESSION: ARCHITECT
Page 15
AT THE OFFICE OF WOO AND WILLIAMS
Page 27
COMPUTERS IN THE LARGE OFFICE
SASAKI AND ASSOCIATES
Page 37
AUTOMATION FOR INTEGRATION
RTKL
Page 45
TOWARD A COMPUTATIONAL ARCHITECTURE
DISCUSSING WITH ERIC TEICHOLTZ
Page 53
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Page 59
Page 4
Table of Contents
PREFACE
On reorganizing the practice of architecture
Page 5
Page 6
Preface
Preface
In the sixties it was science fiction; today it is reality. The architectural office of the
end of the eighties has been equipped with computers, in an effort to anticipate the needs
of the modem working environment, and to enhance the informational flow between the
various disciplines of modern practice. In addition, the computer has been perceived as
a device to control labor fluctuations, and to maximize productivity by applying a sound
organization to the architectural tasks. A basic concern for the architect in the
computerized office, is not what is commonly thought, to probe the limits of the
machine, or to explore the sophistication of the software in use, but it is to grasp how
the computer affects performace at work, by altering the traditional hieracy of our
perception and decision making, in order to strenghten productivity by changing the
traditional organization of the architectural practice.
But how does the computer changes the way we work in the architectural office?
More specifically, how can one apply a new organization in order to gain in productivity
and to anticipate unforseen computational needs, assisted by the capabilities that the new
tool offers? And how is the work to be divided in the electronic environment for the
new tool to offer all its power? If we look at the evolution of the computer in the
pioneering large offices, we perceive a tendency to decentralization of the computational
power followed by an intensification of local treatment of information. Networking
peripheral workstations favour the decongestion of the central processing unit, now free
to manage higher level tasks. In parallel, miniaturization and development in production
introduced the computer in the small office, where the designer tends to work directly
on the machine, heartened by the simple organization of the firm. Furthermore, as
development in the architectural software enhances the man-machine interface, the
architect is encouraged to work directly on the machine, leading towards a true
integration of the computer in the practice.
Studying the impact of computer aided design (CADD) in the organization of the
architectural office lends itself to field research. This approach reveales the disparity of
the needs and the organizational solutions found in the practice. My study focuses on
the composition of the architectural team and the accessibility of the design workstation
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture
Page 7
in the firm; both indicate the degree computers are used in the production of architecture,
and show the trend of integration of the new technology in the architectural practice.
This study is divided three parts. First, a conceptual framework is discussed to
address the impact of our representations to our thought (knowledge). Second, the
history of the profession is studied to reveale tendencies and to encourage comparison
of different points in time. Third, notes from my field research to some architectural
offices are offered for further discussion and conclusions.
Page 8
Prcface
INTRODUCTION: THE INFORMATIONAL ERA
On reorganizing the practice of architecture
Page 9
Page 10
Introduction
Introduction: The informational era
When Etienne Jules Marey invented in the late nineteenth century the fusil
chronophotographique(photographic gun), he invented a new way of perceiving reality.
By introducing the dimension of time, the sequential order, and relying at the
imperfection of human sight, he brought movement and change to the imagery of our
civilization 1 . The visual narration introduced in the beginning of our century, brought
about as much change in the thought of our age, as the perspective projection did in the
intelectual and artistic community of quattrocento Italy2.
Reality is not homogeneous, but fractal. Our inability to make precise statements
about complex situations (fractal patterns) is a fact that we have to accept and adjust to.
Representation can be seen as a tool of conceptualization3, as it is through models
(formulas) that we are able to perceive, understand and analyse the complexity of reality,
and furthermore organize our thought and communicate our ideas. Knowledge consists
of the symbolic descriptions that caracterize the definitional and empirical relationships
in a domain; logic provides procedures for manipulating those descriptions 4 . By
transforming the variety of reality into the clarity of the artificial, representation becomes
the mechanism of thought itself. Complexity is associated with the description rather
than being thought of as an intrinsic property of the objects.
We may reduce the
complexity of an object, by changing our views about its.
Change in our
1 The importance of movement (travel) in our society has probably been demonstrated by the
industrialization of the British provinces, where the entire population has been subject to displacement
caused by regional growth; this displacement would reveal a message, the relationship of capital
investment and territoriality. Movement generates a message and there is no message without
movement. "Le parcours (voyage) est un discours (message) " (The travel (voyage) is a discourse
(message).) affirmed P. Virilio p. 225. In parallel, the cinematographic art creates the message by
exagerating the replacement of each frame by the next one (the mouvement of the film through the
projector), forcing each image to disappear.
2 While our
representations inform our perceptions, there is a direct influence of our everyday life to our
representations. During the Renaissance, the enlightment promoted the perspective projection, while on
the same time this new imagery favored change in the society. In his book, The Negatif Horizon, P.
Virilio says that perspective is only a hierarchical structure of our perception, and there are probably as
many perspectives as there are visions of the world, or cultures, or conditions of life. An inevitable
interaction takes place between our thought and our representations, and new representations change our
culture, to the extent that our culture influence our imagery.
3S. Isenstadt, p. 28.
4 (Hayes-Roth
1983). S. Isenstadt, p. 22.
5 (Negoita,
1981). S. Isenstadt, p. 29.
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture
Page I1I
representational conventions influence our perception as well as our thought,
anticipating new solutions and reorganizing our knowledge 1 .
Drawings have been a central means to communicate design ideas in the practice of
architecture, and have served as material embodiment of both design logics and ideas.
Any representation allows only for selected manipulation of selected information.
Alberti's linear perspective introduced symmetry and order in the architectural form of
the Renaissance Italy. Immitating the organization of the society of the time, the focal
point of the linear perspective gives order and structure to the form, while embodying
the contol of the central power (monarchy). Later, development in the drawing
techniques at the Beaux Arts, encouraged decoration and in a sense provoced the
Rococo movement. At the end of the nineteenth century, the introduction of tracing
paper influenced the architectural thought, by reveiling unforseen evidences and
exposing unknown transparancies. The architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and the
development of the american highrise building demonstrate the impact of transparency in
the architectural drawing 2 . "Formulation effects can occur fortuitiously, without anyone
being aware of the impact of the frame on the ultimate decision" (Tversky and
Kahneman) 3 .
Obtaining a comprehensive description depends on the interaction among various
representations. Reformulating a problem may help to generate a solution; solutions
generated from switching of representations often appear as flashes of insight, but in
reality overlaying representations lends richness and understanding to our conceptions,
directing further analysis by approaching and juxtaposing the various representations
1In
the film Napoleon, Abbel Gance, wants to represent the exceptional abbilities of the young colonnel
to forsee the strategic results of a battle, to understand how an offensive would lead to victory with the
least effort and the fewer casualties, only by looking on the map, reading these strategic maps in a new
way. Abbel Gance uses sophisticated montage and animation to show Bonapart's string of thoughts; he
relates enhanced understanding and clarity in reading the map to complex representational techniques, and
associates a sequential representation , the very essence of the cinematographic art, to the complexity of
Napoleon's thoughts. Animation, allowing change and movement in the graphic representations,
transforms the complexity of reality into the clarity of narration.
2
Transparency in the paper introduced the transparency of the form. Could the maison de verre of Pierre
Chareau in Paris been conceived on ordinary paper? Furthermore, the transparent paper, originaly used
by the engineers, introduced the mechanical imagery in the architecture of the twentieth century. Aren't
the aesthetic mechanisms that consitute the interior decoration of the maison de verre a proof that Pierre
Chareau was using tracing paper, contrary to the Beaux Arts tradition.
3
S. Isenstadt, p. 29.
Page 12
The informiationalera
(models). Overlaying representations control the impact, the inherent meaning each
representation has on reality. Consequently multimodeling helps us find the appropriate
representation in order to ease the manipulation of knowledge. Furthermore,
countermodeling tests structure assumptions, sensitivities and biases by running and
studying strategically altered versions of each model, initiating a dialectic process
between the model and its negation'. Overlaying representations can help prevent any
one model from producing its own meaning while superseding the reality it is meant to
serve.
During the nineteenth century, architectural imagery became the focal point of formal
education, and drawings were serving as a vehicle to the architectural thought; but this
has been neglected in the formal education of today, and importance is placed on
technical knowledge. Introduction of new materials and development in building
techniques conrtibuted to that shift of our study to technical knowledge. But our
semantic environment becomes progressively complex as our society moves into the
post-industrial era. Simultaneity of arrival of information 2 , has rendered modern reality
very complex. Our culture prefers the complex to the simple, the fragmented to the
holistic, the versatile to the static, the composite to the composed. The architect, cannot
deny the impact of that massive move (departure-arrival) of information, that
characterizes our society. And what is important about this informational flow, is the
rapidity with which the message itself becomes obsolete.
Complexity and sophistication in our imagery enable us to clarify and therefore
understand the reality of the informational era. The architect is in search of new
techniques trying to include more information in his representations, dealing with
simultaneity and conflict, in order to render the complexity of our times. The new
imagery, that has become common practice to help visualize the architectural projects
today, is based on fragmentation (decomposition) and recomposition of the object
(project), reveals unforseen transparencies, disclosing hidden parts and impossible
views and deliberately uses arrays of descriptive vignettes (frames). Furthermore slide
shows and video have drawn attention to sequential presentations, a narrative approach
1
(Mitrof, 1981). E + D b p. 274-275.
2 As
Roland Barthes said, images are coming to us from all over the world, unrequested; they appeare
from all directions (or disperse to all directions) p. 33.
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 13
to description of the object (project), that make visible changes and transformations of
the thinking process. A new message would emanate from this transparency of the
mental process. The architectural drawing, progressively moved from the deictique
language to the protetique 1.
While all these changes were occurring in the architectural imagery, computers made
their appearence in our everyday environment being the consequence and the cause of
our informational congestion. At the beginning, computers and users experienced
communication difficulties. Most of the information relevant to architecture is
communicated through graphics, which computers didn't understand easily. The
development of commercial television brought about an increasingly cheaper
technology.that was to be the standard.graphic interface: the cathodic ray tube. In the
same time, frame buffers were able to update the graphic information displayed on the
screen in real time. This technology, enabled the computer to display instanteneously
changes and transformations, adding versatility to the graphic object. Thus, the
computer is perceived to be a powerful tool to manage simultaneity of information, and
to generate the new fractal architectural imagery of the eighties.
The new computer images are structuring the way we perceive architectural
representations. The architect, using the traditional graphic elements (points, lines,
ellipses and circles) constructs, through geometric trasformations, two-dimensional and
three-dimensional forms (models). The interest in the machine lies on the fact that we
are able to view those forms, once created in the database, in many ways, and with a
unknown ease (never did the architect have the tools to create alternative views so easily
and fast). The transition from one view to the other, that these machines can so easily
perform,becomes more important then the view itself. The superposition and
juxtaposition of these views create the new imagery, the new language of architecture.
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world wrote Wittgenstein.
1In
this instance I like to use these greek words in the way Roland Barthes used them; deictique
language refers to the photographic descriptive language, while protetique is associated to forward
movement and the cinematographic art.
Page 14
T he informnationalera
x. MIc~pti
SKIDMORE. OWINCA
New York
Operations
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S-:nFn
Purtiana
Chicago
Partnership
Project
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Production
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Accounting
Master Planning
SitePlanning
Purchasing
Building
I
Design
Civil
Engineering
Architectural
Engineering
Structural
Mechanical
andElectrical
Engneering
Construction
Management
Heatig,
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Field Offices
ventilation and I
SAir
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Prjuect
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Research
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L Foundations
Co-ordination
Specitications
Plumbing and
Prec
jFir
Contracts
I
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Supevi un
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Process
Perontnel
Figure 74. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. office organizational diagram, 1957. The
large American architectural office of the twentieth century was typified by a style
of organization both complex and rigidlv structured.
PROFESSION: ARCHITECT
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 15
Page 16
Profession: Architect
Profession: Architect
When the king of France Louis XIV founded the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture 1, in
Paris in the middle of the seventeenth century, he somehow understood that the architect
becomming increasingly important in the modem society had to receive formal training
and to aquire professional status, controled by the central power. Not that the architect
was not recognised as such since the antiquity; but it was in the expansion of the middle
class and the development of the technical knowledge that the profession of the architect
whould find its origins.
Since the Egyptian times, the architect, iniciated to the secret of dimensions and the
knowledge of geometry, enjoyed power and estime in the royal court. His ability to
abstract (represent) and to analyse (through geometry), enriched his understanding and
consequently control of the physical world. Throughout the Greek and Roman times,
the architect was the master builder, who knew the building techniques, the available
materials and coordinated the building. His task consisted of conceptualizing the
building in whole and in details, creating the new within a given order 2. It is at the end
of the Middle Ages though, that the architect would have to redefine its role in the new
urban society. In the early capitalistic organization the professions would be organized
in guilds; at this point the architect would abandon his intelectual status and adhere the
guild of the builders. During the Renaissance, the humanistic intelectual was an artist,
an engineer, and an architect at the same time.
In the New World, the architect was the master builder until the middle of the
nineteenth century. Most of the construction was done by bright individuals, who
knowing well the art of construction, were able to conceptualize and assemble the parts
of a building. As for the public buildings, most of them were designed by architects
originated from Europe and received professional education there. The first American
architects to receive a formal education, were people that went to Paris to study at the
Beaux Arts in the middle of the nineteenth century. Because of their education and their
1This
is the first school of Architecture, renamed Ecole des Beax Arts after the French Revolution; as a
concequence of the student revolt in May 1968, the school was divided into ten Unit6s P6dagogiques, to
assure decentralisation of the education and better control of the student body.
2
To cite Plato, the architects were not workmen but rulers of workmen, they contributed knowledge, not
craftmanship (Politicus).
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture.
Page 17
personal experiences, they tried to reconstitute the familiar environment of the French
education in their American practice. Moreover, French teachers were asked to organize
the first schools of architecture in this countryl, so that the generation of american
architects that graduated was educated with the same disciplines and shared common
habits of work with the Americans who studied in Europe. Consequently, an influential
model for the American architectural office of the late nineteenth century was the
Parisian atelier,with its caracteristic atmosphere of brotherhood and collaboration. In
practice though, each architectural team developped its own techniques and knowledge
in the closed environment of the atelier and little sharing of information existed between
the architectural offices. In addition to that, when the major architect of a team would
die, the office would face a lot of difficulties to remain active. Therefore little continuity
was there between one generation and the other.
By the end of the nineteenth century, as the projects increased in size and as the
responsibilities of the architect became more complex, these ateliers had the tendency to
increase in size as well, in order to anticipate the growth of work. And as long as the
office remained relatively small, there was no doubt that the shared experience of the
atelier could be the reality as much as the ideal working environment of the architectural
team. But because of the growth in size and complexity of the architectural projects, a
new type of office organization developed almost insensibly in response to the needs of
what was in fact a new type of office. And although fraternity and participation were
still ideal for both big and small firms, it became necessary to specialize in order to gain
productivity; the principals had to devide the responsibilities for the various areas of
work among themselves and to delegate authority extensively. So the principle of
participation was converted imperceptibly into the practice of separated responsibilities
(division of labor).
The new organization for the practice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries had to respond to the demand for increased job size and work complexity.
Consequently, the employees become specialists and were expected to spend all of their
professional careers engaged in those activities alone. The specialization in the role
within the office structure, was paralleled to some extent to a specialization of the
1
The first pedagog to arrive from Europe was Eugene Letang, at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in 1872.
Page 18
Profession: Architect
practice in general, and separation of the various aspets and stages of the work was
followed by a separation of the decision making from the work itself. 1 "...You can't
handle big things unless you have an organization" D. H. Burnham told Louis Sullivan
on their first meeting, showing how important the organization of the office was already
in the turn of the century Chicago.
While those changes occured in America, due to the rapid development of the
economy and the growth of the urban centers, a new movement was developing in the
old world; hostility for the machine technology in 1850, had turned into acceptance in
1900.2 In the post-war Germany, Walter Gropius, already leader of the avant-garde
architectural design, became the leader in progressive education as well; he understoond
that in the geselschaft society 3 , the complexity of the problems required unification of
diverse skills and collaboration of diverse individuals 4 . The principle of cooperative
teamwork could be seen as a distinct contrast to the competitive system of the Ecole des
Beaux Arts. Gropius' ideas found acceptance in the Germany of the 1920s, but the
Americans had little information about the new architecture of Europe, until the arrival of
Gropius at Harvard University in 1937. The Lever House (Skidmore, Owings and
Merrill, New York, 1952) was the first building in this country to embody the victory of
the progressive European ideas in design, while the office that produced Lever House
was shortly to become the largest of all.
By 1950, the office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) had come to be the
outstanding example of the particular style of architectural practice that had developed in
America since the beginning of the twentieth century. SOM aimed providing total
1Separation
of the decision making from the work would raise the question of responsibility in
coordinating the separate work areas; it is with drawings(visual representations), the material
embodiment of both design logics and ideas, that the architect will direct and control the production of
architecture. Ed Robbins, 1986.
2
This idea was developed by Nicolaus Pevsner in his work Pioneersof Modern Design.
3I use here the term Geselschaft society (as opposed to gemeinschaft society) to describe the modem,
formal organization of our society, where the individual becomes less important than the group, and
where a formal communication protocol ensures the exchange of information between the individuals in
the team.
4
Gropius, Scope of Total Architecture: " The Bauhaus was inaugurated in 1919 with the specific object
of realizing a modem architectonic art, which like human nature was meant to be all-embracing in its
scope. Experiment once more became the center of architecture, and that demands a broad, coordinating
mind, not a narrow specialist."
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture.
Page 19
design services to their clients 1 ."We are not after jobs as such; we are after leverage to
influence social and environmental conditions" wrote Nathaniel A. Owings in The Space
in Between 2 SOM set out to provide all related professional services within a single
office, make coordination easier and more convenient, while making direct supervisory
control of the product easier as well. The more areas of professional activity that came
under one roof, the greater is the opportunities for increasing efficiency and
productivity 3 . This productivity was gained with the division of the office into
independent units, each working from the output of the other in the order of the work,
providing benefits similar to those of diversification in the industy, where even if a unit
had a small amount of work, jobs in the other units could keep the entire operation
running at a profit. Concequently, SOM was not only one of the largest firms in
America, but also the most all-embracing in professional terms and the most integrated
in terms of business operations4 .
Total design was an idea found in the work and mostly in the theory of the Bauhaus,
but what marked the quality of design in the practice of SOM was that total design was
conceived as a device of control as much as of a service, a constituent of the service
package which was the office's product. 5 Although the importance of teamwork was
emphasised, a rigid segregation according to task and speciality was found in the
production units of SOM. These specialized teams, organized to facilitate control and to
increase productivity, were incompatible in principle with the multidisciplinary teams
that Gropius was refering to. The work passed from team to team, as from one
individual to another on a factory production line, while the products were intentionally
standardised and anonymous. Success came because of the efficient and therefore
reliable management, together with the strong commitment of the office to uniform and
therefore predictable products. And they are the same managerial skills which
1Total
design was conceived (by Gropius at the Bauhaus) as a device of control as much as of service.
The more areas of design decisions the office could draw under its control, the more the decisions
themselves could be made subject to the general aims of the office; from which it followed that the more
decisions the office controlled the more firmly the control had to be excercised.
2
Spiro Kostof, The Architect, p. 325.
3
The partners pledged "to offer multi-disciplined service competent to design and build the multiplicity
of shelters needed for man's habitat" (N. A. Owings).
4
Spiro Kostof, The Architect, p. 327.
5
0p. cit. p. 328.
Page 20
Profession: Architect
contributed to the success of the office that created a certain rigidity and contributed in
the loss of individual initiative in the final product.
Large offices in the twentieth century were very similar to large private corporations
in that they were not communities, but structures of power and interest. The
organization of the large office in America moved from generalization to specialization,
while the methods of work moved from collaboration to division. 1 As the large
architectural office gradually included more and more specialists in order to be able to
maintain the generalist character traditional to architectural practice, the team lost its
uniting characteristic of collaboration as the coordinating function was taken over by a
new level of management. That transformation in the nature of architectural practice was
general throughout the profession by the middle of the century. And, as the building
process became more complex, it became evident that a major building could not still be
the product of the inspiration of a single individual; only the general public ignorance
permitted that idealised but quite inaccurate vision of the profession. While older forms
of organization, the guild, the apprenticeship, and the atelier all survived until recently,
it was evident that only strong organization would enable a firm to successfully control
the growing complexity of the architectural projects. And although the individual
architect did not disappear in the twentieth century, its role in the profession became
something less it once had been. The very small office was the norm for more than half
of all registered architects, it was plain that the remaining with their much larger offices,
dominated the field, by controlling a disproportional large part of the professional
activity 2 .
The range of required technical skills and the modem scheduling of the building
made it impossible that the individual architect could comprise the knowledge and
competence in himself. Knowledge and experience in the variety of disciplines
necessary for the design and construction of a large project as well as the physical tasks
to be completed permited to no individual architect to build anything above the scale of
the single-family house. The new managerial techniques introduced in the practice
during the fifties, helped the large architectural offices control better a complex project,
by combining the knowledge and the skills of many individuals on the particular project,
10p. cit. p. 330.
2
This refers only to the american practice. Op. cit. p. 333.
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture.
Page 21
facilitated work flow between the specialized teams and on the same time assured a
better understanding and therefore control of each team by introducing the new level of
management and decision making dissociated from the production. In addition,
devision and specialization result of modem business, accounting methods, emphasised
sectional accountability within any business made up of diverse elements. But the
architectural offices never achieved the efficiency, productivity and the profits of the
business world, although the principle in operation was the same1 .
The place of the architect in society was not well defined before the modem era; the
architect was one member of the building trades, until Alberti gave architecture a theory
of its own and the architect came to be seen as someone special. But it was in the
nineteenth century that the profession of architecture came to be the way we understand
it today in imitation of medicine and the law then as now, dominant professional
occupations. Gropius outlined the nature of the profession in the age of industry,
offering the idea of the team that would include as many skills as the job at hand
demanded, to be coordinated by the architect, who would be primus inter pares. The
architect's skills would still be exercised in design, but would futhermore possess the
capacity for coordination, compromise, and negotiation, as much as the ability to
balance competing demands and needs and to appreciate points of view of other
professionals. So the new architect was to see society's needs, propose solutions, bring
together the necessary skills, and operate as a member of a multi-disciplinary team 2 .
The Architects' Collaborative, the office that Gropius started in order to put his ideas
into practice, consisted exclusively of architects,with few professionals of related areas,
such as landscape architecture and planning. Divergence between principle and practice
was revealed in the way the office worked; specialization into groups within the office,
never really occured if its not for specialization in various architectural tasks. Little sign
of interdisciplinary collaboration, nor much of sharing or participation, was shown in
the discriptions of The Architects' Collaborative at work; division of labor and
separation of responsibility characterized the operations of the office, as much as those
1
In order to survive and maintain itself, any large business had to keep work coming in, to keep the
organization to run at maximum efficiency, in other words maximum productivity and maximum
profits.
Gropius The Architects Collaborative : "As we cannot inform ourselves simultaneously in all
directions, a member of a team benefits from the different interests and attitudes of the other members
during the collaborative meetings...the new information is more easily seen in its proper perspective and
its potential value" (p. 24). Op. cit. p. 335.
Page 22
Profession: Architect
of other large firms, for example SOM. Growing success brought growth in size, and
largeness necessitated an organizational structure1 . Was the architect alone to integrate
all necessary knowledge, or was he to be a member of a team which integrated all
necessary knowledge through its components?
In the increasingly complex industrial society, the architect was not able to comprise
all the necessary knowledge and to be the sole master of all areas of decision in the
building process; the integration of other disciplines into the architectural team
compensated for the personal deficiencies of the individual, directly inspired by the new
geselschaft society. But the other professionals to participate in the decision making,
engineers, sociologists, psycologists, were indeed inclined to be independent, and
demanded a full share of decision making which their professionalism had earned for
them. By contrast, architects whose education did not equiped them to be specialists in
anything were compelled much more easily by the pressures of the economic system to
abandon the image of the architect as a generalist and master and to accept the reality of
the architect as a specialist. Since independent professionals could not be expected to
yield all power to architects, the architects developed specialized capacities within their
own profession, and thus kept control to themselves in the areas of building. In
practice, the architectural profession had chosen to break architecture itself into
specialties 2 .
In the industrial era, Walter Gropius belonged to a group of men responsible for the
creation of the new art, which aimed for a new humaneness and a new truth; based upon
acceptance, not rejection of the machine, an art aiming at mass-production, not
handcraftship 3 . A new conception of building, based on realities, had developed; and
with it has come a new, and changed perception of space. Just as the personal
subjectivity in design had been replaced by the rational products of the anonymous
1"To
safeguard design coherence and impact, the right of making the final decision must therefore be left
to the one member who happens to be responsible for the specific job, even though his decision should
run counter to the opinion of the other members, for the freedom of the designer in charge must be
paramount." (W. Gropius, p. 24).
2
1n thruth, Gropius' ideal of teamwork was not possible; the profession of architecture had become not a
free collaboraton of equals, but a business of employer and employee. Op. cit. p. 339.
3
Gropius' generation was discovering the immense, untried possibilities of machine art. Pevsner, p. 38.
Op. cit. p. 341.
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture.
Page 23
group, so subjective attitudes in society at large were to be replaced too, by the new
Sachlichkeit, (objectivity).
The energy crises of the seventies changed the structure and the thought of the
society, and marked the beginning of the post-industrial era. Breakthrough
improvements in the miniaturization of electronics contributed to the rapid development
of the digital computer.
Moreover, invention of new powerfull programming
environments contributed to an unforseen growth of the informational technologies.
Decline in traditional manufacturing and growth in the third sector of the economy,
favored the informational organization of the bussiness world. The architectural office,
organized similarly to the business world, facilitated work flow due to division and
specialisation of work; with the development of computer graphics, and their appearance
in the practice of architecture, the deconnection of the decision making lies on the
immateriality in the flow of information 1 . The work flow of the office of the fifties, is
replaced by informational flow and dynamic management of the conflicts arising in the
process.
At the beginning of the informational era in the architectural practice, the size of the
office was determining the possibility of introducing computer aided design and drafting
(CADD) technology in the firm due to economies of scale. For this reason, only large
firms were able to process electronic information, while their inherant structure, of
division (specialization) and separation (centralization) of the decision making from the
work, favored a central powerful computer system 2 . The capabilities of immediate and
efficient way to control work flow and design decisions, that the centralized computer
system offered, contributed to its immediate acceptance by the management. In addition
to that, the economic problems that most architectural offices faced by the end of the
1"Graphics
as a device with which to explore, present and communicate came into their own with the
development of scale and knowledge of calibration (either geometric or numerical), linear perspective and
the emergence of architecture as a profession in the eighteenth century." E. Robbin. Development in
the informational mode of generating graphics, contributed to the introduction of the computer in the
practice of architecture. The versatility of the new computer generated graphics changed the way
architects perceive and use their traditional means of communicating design ideas, the drawings. Static
images turned into versatile projections, and decision making that was closely related to the production
of drawings (drawings for internal use that gave the architect total control of a project) has now been
dissociated from the generation of those drawings and relies on the informational flow that the computer
introduced.
2
This was made possible by the development of time sharing machines and multi-tasking operating
systems.
Page 24
Profession: Architect
seventies, due to the economic crisis, forced the managers of the large firms to invest in
automation in order to manage work fluctuations independantly of labor1 .
These pioneering automated firms of the architectural practice, started investing in
the new technology not only by adding electronic equipement in their offices, but by
developing software that would perform the required tasks on their specific
environments. So started the first phase of commitement of the architectural firm to the
digital technology. And for the first time the architectural office comprised engineers
and computer programmers working together with architects on the development of the
new tools, in accordance with the ideas of the Bauhaus. In this multi-disciplinary team,
some young architects, having been exposed to the new technologies in research and
academic environments, ensured the communication between informational engineering
and the architectural practice, and developed models, and algorithms respecting the
patterns of thought and work in their offices. Once more the architect, finding himself
in a multi-disciplinary team, revealed himself in control and maintained a full share of
decision making, by modelling his own thought, and exploring design meta-knowledge.
However, at the begining only a few achitects will be able to understand the inherant
properties of the electronic facilities of the office. Specific knowledge and specialization
will keep the computer team small and closed, inaccessible to the average designer or
project manager, who will have to rely on another person (often younger in hierarcy) to
imput or retrieve information of a specific project. The resulting uncertainty of control,
and the demand for more participation in the decision making by the CADD team, will
isolate the facility from the rest of the firm. In addition to that, the modern business
accounting methods, emphasizing sectional accountability, will discourage the project
manager to use the electronic tools, because of high internal costs, unless required by
the client or the idiosyncrasy of the project. The computer team, on the other hand,
voluntarily pushed itself in isolation, and aimed for the support of the management of
the firm, by developing more sophisticated CADD tools, while trying to demonstrate the
benefits of automation.
1In
the capitalist reality, it is not the price competition which counts but the competition from the new
commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization... competition
which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits
and the outputs of the existing firm, but at their foundation and their very lives. Schumpeter, 1984, p.
84. E+d D. p.
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture.
Page 25
During the eighties, peripheral computation gained popularity, as the hardware
prices dropped, and miniaturization increased the capabilities of the machines.
Decentralized workstations, networked to a central data base, would speed up
information processing at the user end and free the central processor to perform higher
level informational management tasks. Parallel growth in the software industry will
bring the CADD environment to smaller firms. This decentralization of the processing
power will introduce the machine to every architectural unit. While division and
specialization of labor within the architectural practice proved necessary to increase
profitability during the fifties, the introduction of CADD favored the multi-disciplinary
team, and reunified the separated specialists of the architectural office. Profitability in
automation is based on the principle of shared information stored in a common database
and accessed by as many specialists as the task required. The new organizational
principle brought specialists together, in a new multi-disciplinary team, where each
specialist works on his peripheral terminal, exchanging information (dialogue) in real
time with other colleagues and interacting with the common database. This new multidisciplinarity revived the ideal of the Bauhaus. The highly specialized design and
technical studios of RTKL in Baltimore will merge into two new multi-disciplinary
studios, during the summer of 1986. The new organization aims to bring to a closer
collaboration designers and technical architects, in order to facilitate sharing of
information. The organization of the architectural office is inspired, in the end of the
twentieth century, by the organization of its electronic tools.
In that decentralized environment, the deconnection of the decision making from the
production is even more evident. Deleguating decision on the particular (specific
project) to its decentralized units, the management of the office is freed from
unnecessary tasks and concentrates on wholistic control of the product as well as the
direction and the policy of the firm. The practice of architecture in the post-industrial era
will follow the organizational patterns of information processing used in the computer
industry, while searching for the new evidence emanating from design meta-knowledge.
Page 26
Profession: Architect
4v
I
IT
AT THE OFFICE OF WOO AND WILLIAMS
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 27
Page 28
At the office of Woo and Williams
At the office of Woo and Williams
The architectural office of Woo and Williams employes eight to ten architects in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is because of the small size of the office that the familiar
atmosphere of the atelier (still vivid in the architectural practice), caracterizes the
structure and the organization of the firm. The office has recenly grown in number of
employees, and the peak was reached when eighteen to twenty architects worked
together for the competition of the Olympic village in Seoul, Korea. This growth,
caused by the competition, had little impact on the organization of the firm, since it was
temporary. The office continued to operate in much the same way, although in order to
control the work flow for the competition, the designers had to devide the tasks and
separate design responsibility from the production of the drawings.
The size of the projects that the office had been involved was such that some young
designers that entered the firm at that moment proposed the possibility of introducing a
computer to organize the work and to control the flow of information within the office.
Two designers from the office, that had some familiarity with the machines, proposed to
bring the first computer in the office to demonstrate the capabilities and the speed of the
new tool. The machine would help better organize the work flow by eliminating
redundant effort, would increase the productivity of each designer by facilitating
precision imput and automating repeated tasks and would assure a standard quality in the
graphics of the firm. But the principals were hesitating to introduce the new tool,
considering the caracteristic instability of the market of architectural services, and the
small size of the firm, that did not permit such an investment. Eventually one designer,
that had bought a computer for personal use, brought it to the office, to demonstrate the
capabilities of the machine in the production of architecture.
This is how the first computer entered the firm. With an IBM PC compatible and an
early version of one of the most successful and easy to use graphics editor, AutoCAD
2.15, a team of two designers had to demonstrate to the principals and to their collegues,
that the machine could help automate many tasks and better organize the relevant
information. They aimed to make their work as efficient as possible, avoiding
redundancy in the creation of the graphics, while gaining speed due to easy repetition
and assemblage of standard elements. The goal was to complete a 139 units housing
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 29
project, in the same amount of time a large team would have needed. The pressure of
the work was such that the designers organized two ten hour shifts in order for the work
to progress day and night, so that they can meet the deadline. The project was finished
on time; this demonstrated the usefulness of the machine to increase productivity and
manage the production of graphic documents. The office, in the meanwhile, was
experiencing growth, and the principals decided to invest in the new machine to
anticipate the oncoming work. But since the office had no funds for the purchase of
electronic equipments, the cost of the machine had to be concidered as an office
expenditure charged as overhead on a particular projectl. Eventually, a project came in
the office that was large enough to permit such a cost to become office expenditure,
while on the other hand a drop in the price of the equipment, made the machine more
affortable.
Investment in hardware is always followed by investment in software; and the
machine can only prove helpful to the extent the available software will permit. The first
decision, choosing the suitable computer for the spesific office, is most important, since
it determines any further decisions about software that would perform the tasks and
organize the process. Compatibility in the environment and the operating system, will
determine which programs are available to the particular machine, and in a sense will
foretell the limits of the performances and the capacities of the system. And while a firm
may afford to change its computer system in order to gain speed, or to improve
efficiency, losing the data generated and stored with the previous system, renders this
change unaffordable.
That first demonstration of the performances of the machine in the office, along with
the increased interest expressed by the designers of the firm, contributed to the provision
of the office with two micro computers, the two workstations that are now placed in the
design studios. The two IBM AT are actually running the new version of the same
graphics editor that the firm chose to work with a year ago, AutoCAD 2.52. An
architectural template (an AutoCAD overlay) is used in order to gain productivity while
speeding up the learning curve of each designer of the office. Special care was taken,
1Concidering
a commodity (equipment), expenditure of a particular project, is very advantageous to the
office, since instantaneous depreciation makes the equipment very cheap to use in other projects of the
firm.
Page 30
At the office of Woo and Williams
when purchasing the template, to make sure the assumptions made by the programmer
would not obstruct the designer at work, or push him in suppositions that do not
correspond to the working habits of the office. The first computer that the firm aquired,
is now used for other no-design tasks, which include word processing for letters and
specs with desktop printing, as well as databases with spreadsheet capabilities for
storing relevant information.
Meanwhile, four designers of the firm are actually familiar with the graphics editor,
and do much of their work on the machines. Each architect is responsible for the project
he designs and develops on the machine. Some designers are more at ease with the use
on site of the machines, having more experience and more knowledge, would help their
collegues to learn and understand the system. Collective learning is ideal as much as
reality in the friendly atmosphere of the office, where peer will teach peer! This
exchange of information encourages the less experienced to get involved and work on
the machines, taking advantage of their own knowledge, and simultaneously decreasing
the burden of the computer initiates. This contributes to a real decentralization of power,
since each designer working on the machines would be able to solve most of the
technical problems on his own, without having to depent upon the 'computer team',
commonly found in the architectural office 1 . Consequently, the office gains a flexibility
in dealing with computer problems, unknown to other firms. Equality of its members
and mutual respect, contributes to the development of a decentralized structure in the
atelier inspired office.
Sharing of information in the decentralized office is a vehicle of success of the
office. So the computer, that can best handle information is pressing the firm towards a
decentralization of decision and power. New standards and conventions have to be
established in the communication protocol, for the decentralized decision to contribute
directly to the work of the firm. Similarly, communication conventions for sending and
receiving data from other professionals is very important. Compatibility with the
1This 'computer team' would see its power increase as more designers use the computer for their
projects. Enjoying the admiration and acceptance of their peers, the computer team will be more
reluctant to communicate their knowledge to the designers of the office, been afraid of losing their power
within the firm, concluding to a super-centralization of knowledge in the domain of computers. On the
other hand, the computer team will be inclined to teach the designers to use the computer in their work,
in order to stop having to demonstrate perpetually the power of the system.
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture
Page 31
systems that engineers and contractors use in their work would further increase the
efficiency of the system. In the office, AutoCAD's DFX standard file protocol assures
the transfer of files to and from almost every other computer system.
Efficient processing of the inhouse information is equally important. Machine
memory is much chipper today, than only few years ago, but it is still a limited
commodity. The office has chosen to keep all the work of the active projects on the hard
disks of the machines, since the projects are few in number and small in size. Special
attention and good housekeeping is essential to prevent uncontrolled expansion of
memory space that each project uses. Since the data of any current project are kept on
the internal drive of the machine, and the workstations are not connected to a network,
information generated and processed in periphery tends to stay there; concequently each
project is allocated to a particular machine, and sharing of common information becomes
difficult.
The office is not equipped with a central memory device to store current information,
since all the drawings of the active projects can be stored on the hard disks of the
machines. The office chose to keep a hard copy (paper copy) of all the information
produced on the computer, as a backup of archival electronic storage that the office
keeps on floppy disks. Keeping a paper copy of all the graphic documents, facilitate
search and retrieval of information, but doesn't deal with the problem of accessing old
information in digital form for update and reuse. With the introduction of the computer
changes and updates in the graphic information became so simple, that it is difficult to
control. In this office though, since each designer is responsible for his own project,
permission of access to each project is not yet a problem, but when two or more
designers will be working on the same data good communication between them will be
the only way to keep each member of the team informed, and to avoid conflics and
inconsistencies.
The machine allows for many corrections to be done directly on the screen, without
having to produce working documents for internal use; this important contribution of the
machine lowers the price of updating and transforming that occure during the design
process. In the office, particularly, Kyu Sung Woo, the principal who is mostly
interested in design, has been invited many times to sketch directly on the computer and
Page 32
At the office of Woo and Williams
so to speek, generate a design idea within the computer environment. One of the
significant preoccupations of the management in the computerized firm, is to lose control
of the design decisions, since they do not have the necessary skills for a thorough
understanding of the machines. In many instances this lack of communication between
the managment and the computer team, resulted in cutting the budget of the computer
section. But in this firm, the computer initiates, invite the managment to work with
them directly on the machines, facilitating the communication and revealing the 'secrets'
of the new technology.
The principal of the firm responsible for the economic success, Jack Williams, on
the other hand knows very little about CAD, and does not have the time to learn more
about it, and although he believes the system does not increase productivity, and
economy, it keeps people happy in the firm, since each designer feels he can deleguate a
lot of the routine work to the machine. In addition, the computer permits to the
managment to better control the ups and downs of the business, since the machines can
be extensively used in production when there is a lot of work, and can be used for
training or development of generic libraries, when work is down. Furthermore it is
important for the firm to customize the CADD system; learning how to program will
automate many tasks, used commonly in the firm, that will increase productivity of the
system, and help the firm remain competitive.
In the development of the computer facilities for enhanced everyday use, a generic
library has to be developed for the machine to really change the working habits of the
architects of the firm. This standard library has to be detailed inhouse, so that most of
the technical and aesthetic solutions that the designers use in their projects be easily
accessed. This library helps to reduce machine time, to improve productivity and to
assure coherence and standardization of the builing, and has to be compatible with the
ideas and the principles that the designers of the firm share. Discovering and
incorporating new ideas in this generic library, is an infinite task, and necessitates
organization and understanding of the system and the firm. Standard libraries of doors
and windows used in most of the projects, as well as technical details, will improve
sharing of information and will best explore the capabilities of the new tool; planning
and organization can improve the productivity of a CADD system, and can help reduce
redundancy and eliminate excess effort.
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture
Page 33
Organization and planning will help the office use the power of the machine in many
tasks. Naming conventions, establishing a standard vocabulary and terminology for a
better communication between the designers is important, because we need clarity to
understand the new technology, as well as precision in descriptions, will help storage
and retrieval of the electronic information. This new terminology will help colleagues to
find important pieces of information available on the system, without having to ask the
author and will enhance the development of a database where all the computer generated
drawings will be reported. These naming conventions need to be shared by all the
designers of the firm, so that the classification follows a natural way of arranging and
grouping information. The resulting database has to be easily accessible by anyone in
the firm, following the principles of decentralization on which the office establishes its
success.
One activity that the office wants to develop even further on its CADD system is
presentations of schemes and design ideas to the clients. Using various techniques of
calling in a sequence drawings and views previously generated in the database can help
the client visualize a proposed scheme, and serves as a powerful marketing tool for the
firm. This practice calls for higher organization of the information from the very
beginning of a project, (the first design drawings will have to be generated on the
computer), and facilitates further elaboration and development of working drawings on
the system, keeping coherently all the phases of design in the database of the machine1 .
Because of the financing techniques that the office uses to purchase the machines
(office expenditure), the computer facilities are not depriciable. This makes replacement
difficult, since only a new large project will permit enlargement of the equipment pool.
But the managment does not want to consider computers to be capital (equipment),
because this will increase the marginal cost of the product (services) and it is doubtfull
that the office will become competitive again in the limited market. As a consequence to
that the office does not charge computer time to its clients. But as the computer becomes
1it
is important to state at this point that I don't believe that one graphics editor can handle all the phases
of the architectural production; I think that the better a CADD system can handle one job, let us say
professional drafting, the more difficult for the same system is to do another work, for instance design.
And that is because, the system will incorporate many conventions to help one task which will not
necessarily be the same with conventions used for another task.
Page 34
At the office of Woo and Williams
common and necessary tool in the practice of architecture, new financial techniques will
have to be applied in small as much as large firms, in order to avoid repeating the same
financial mistakes that the pioneers of the profession commited.
The office, although small in scale, shows clearly that informatization of the
architectural practice is not strictly limited to the large firm, with the large budget and the
big allowences. The new tool can help better organize the small office in a much more
direct way, and can facilitate communication and sharing of information both within the
firm and outside. In addition, the willingness of any member of the firm to participate at
any level and in any task of the work, due to the friendly atelier atmosphere, helps in
the decentralization of the knowledge and the better integration of the new technology in
the office.
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture
Page 35
Page 36
At the office of Woo and Williams
COMPUTERS IN THE LARGE OFFICE
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 37
Page 38
Computers in the large office
Computers in the large office: Sasaki and Associates
The office of Sasaki and Associates in Watertown, Massachusetts, is a fairly large
multi-disciplinary firm, that include architects, planners and engineers. The office has
created its reputation because of its excellence in design and its capability to successfuly
bring to completion large scale projects. The firm has recently been equipped with
computers, in order to better control consistancy and work flow in the large projects,
and to enhence the multi-disciplinary organization that the office has built its reputation
upon.
The firm initially acquired several MicroVax workstations that supported a high
resolution color graphics monitor. These powerful machines were running Mc Donell
Douglas computer aided design and modeling software, that could offer all the
computational power necessary for the size and the complexity of the projects of the
firm. The price of each workstation (approximately $ 60,000) encouraged the
organization of the work in two shifts, in order to use these expensive tools at maximum
output, and to shorten the paying back period of this important capital investment. In
parallel the office had to hire new personel with particular knowledge and skills in the
domain of computers, to become the first users of the system, and demonstrate the
efficiency and productivity of the electronic tool. While the office was investing in this
powerful system, AutoCAD gained popularity in the profession as a drafting tool. This
raised the question of whether to stay with the power and the capabilities of the existing
computer environment, or to allow another CADD system within the firm. Eventually,
the office aquired several IBM AT personal computers, that were running AutoCAD, in
order to free some computer time on the Vaxs. This decision was taken after the drop in
the prices of the personal computers (that made these terminals affortable), along with
the desire of the firm to operate a popular computer system and to ensure compatibility
with outside consultants' electronic information. Sasaki's computer pool today consists
of five networked MicroVax workstations, and eight IBM AT personal computers.
The low prices of the AutoCAD workstations (purchased at about $ 10,000 each),
did not require the machine to stay in use constantly in order to pay back the initial
investment. This is similar to the development of word processing in the business
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 39
environment, where low prices, brought a computer on every desk 1 . Thus, the new
tools were introduced in the architectural studios, without requiring a reorganization of
the work in multiple shifts. On the other hand, the generic graphics editor was enhaned
by supporting two AutoCAD overlays, the DCA template for civil engineering, and
Arcabus. These enhancements would make AutoCAD easier to use, while ensure that
each project developped on the machines uses the same standard conventions.
At the beginning though, the introduction of computers in the firm met the resistance
of many senior designers, who believe that the architectural production should not be
computerized in order for the drawings to keep this immediateness of the creation and
the spirit of the art. On the contrary, other senior designers were very interested in the
electronic tools, and contributed to the aquisition and the development of the computer
facilities in the firm. These designers would often work with young computer
operators, teaching them their approach to architecture and design, while learning from
them the capabilities and probing the limits of the machines. Working in front of the
screen, would reveal the new way of thinking and working that the computers
introduced.
Today, the firm understood the benefits of putting designers to work directly in
front of the machine, and to eliminate the gap that divided the architects from the users
of the system. In addition to the new generation of computer-initiated-designers, the
firm decided to have computer trained draftsmen, that would be able to help the
architects directly on the system, as well as develop the necessary details required for
each project, by using the inherent capabilities of the machine, and easily modify
existing generic database elements. Training time for the other members of the firm
depends on the CADD system's complexity, and varies from two weeks for learning the
Mc Donell Douglas software, to three days for AutoCAD users. After the training
period, each user of the system is allowed to use 6% of his time to play, learn new
methods and develop new techniques to better use the capabilities of the system.
1
Buying a word processor is no longer related to the amount of work in an office; similarly the design
workstation is perceived as a necessary tool, hence its aquisition is not guided by the pressure of work
in the architectural firm.
Page 40
Computers in the large office
It is one of the managers of the firm, who being very interested in the development
of the computer facilities, elaborates the plan of development of the computers in the
office. Being a senior designer, he directs expansion and evolution of the computer
team according to the ideas and the disciplines of the firm, and represents the interest
and the needs of the computer section to the management. It is on agreement and
understanding between the computer team and the management, that development and
insertion of the computers in the office depend. In addition, the management approves
the budget of the computer team and decides how to charge the clients for the computer
services. Depending on a variety of factors dealing with standardization and availability
of generic graphic elements for a given project, the office may charge either a fixed fee
or an hourly fee, which varies between twenty and thirtyfive dollars per hour of use.
These estimates are calculated, to pay operational and maintenance costs, as much as
overhead, particularly high for this section of the office.
Developing a project on the computer, is more expensive for both the architects and
the client. Charging computer overhead to the client, does not make the product less
attractive in the market, because computer generated drawings are consistant, precise,
and are easily accessible for further modifications and updates. Easy changes and
modifications is an important feature of CADD that reduces future costs for updates and
remodelling, and for this reason can become a powerful tool in facilities management.
Futhermore, the higher cost of keeping drawings in electronic format, is not only
prestigious for the firm, but contributes to the development of the computer system, that
leads to higher productivity and consequently lower operational cost.
The firm is actually moving to a point where large part of the work can be done on
the machines. The Mc Donell Douglas environment is used to create complex twodimensional drawings; in addition using the three-dimensional capabilities of the
software, the office elaborates shadow diagrams, perspectives for presentations as well
as three-dimensional computer models of pieces of furniture designed in the firm.
AutoCAD on the other hand is used to create standard details and other two-dimensional
drawings, by both the architects and the engineers of the firm. It is one of the goals of
the firm to create an extensive library with all the standard details commonly used in the
studios, in order to eliminate redundancy in the production of those documents.
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 41
In a fairly short time the firm has moved towards automation, and today there are
many CADD operators to keep the machines running full time. The benefits of
automation became apparent as the machines were able to perform complicated tasks.
Gain in power and performances made the machines indispensable tools of the office.
Consequently the office is actually trying to put together a budget for long term
planning, and paying back the equipment. In addition, the firm is going to change the
way it is charging its clients for computer services, and will now be charging for the
overhead as much as the machine time for every project. This policy will make the
computer department independant financially, and help to further develop and replace
the computer pool of the firm.
Meanwhile a small group of four computer experts, is managing the machines of the
office. This team is divided in two subgroups, the first dealing with the MicroVax's
and the second with the IBM personal computers. Each subgroup is dealing with the
twofold problem of hardware keepup, and software programming. Keeping the
machines operational, as well as making sure that the network and the plotting facilities
are running properly, is indispensable for the production environment of the office. On
the other hand, although software support is important, the principal task of the
computer team is to develop enhancements for the CADD systems, as for instance,
customizing the interface for the specific needs of the office, and implementing macrocommands for easy access to standard procedures. In an effort to keep the CADD
environment as close to the habits and the conventions of the office as possible, the
software team, developed programs to facilitate the user (architect, engineer) to
communicate with the machines, in much the same way as in the rest of the firm.
Project history and specifications' databases are kept on a Wang. The databases of
the office are used joinly by designers and engineers in the fin. Keeping the databases
on an independant machine does not help the designers to easily retreive or classify
information, while working within a CADD environment. In addition to the problem of
retreival of information, the project managers, responsible for the completion of a
project, need to develop a new understanding of how work is organized in the CADD
environment, in order to control the completion of the project. The project manager
needs to have an overview of all the information created within the machine, in order to
Page 42
Computers in the large office
use all the possible resourses to acheive higher efficiency and productivityl.
In parallel, the computer team of the firm, in an effort to better organize and to
increase the efficiency of the CADD system, is developing a standard generic library, in
order to make most of the elements and the solutions of the firm, available and easily
accessible by a computer operator. Meanwhile, the office is developing layering
conventions, to be used by all the disciplines of the firm. This will permit transfer of
documents from one discipline to the other in digital format, without having to specify
any naming conventions, or having to explicitly declare on which layer various elements
of a project could be found. In addition each professional would be working on
predifined layers, that will help to avoid possible conflicts, and will guide the other
members of the team to the information they will need in their work. This organization
of the CADD environment is useful for a layer structure software, as it is the case with
AutoCAD. In addition, the operating system of IBM personal computer, DOS is
encouraging such an organization, since the system cannot identify the user, and
consequently cannot restrict accessibility or assign permissions. On the contrary, the
Mc Donell Douglas CADD system permits user recognition (login procedure) that limits
the access to users of the system for current jobs in the database. This system does not
have a layer stucture but has an object intelligence, updating constantly the database, and
keeping the working object constantly updated.
Modifications of drawings are still done on hard copy, using traditional methods and
techniques, that the office used before the introduction of the machines. With the
development of the computers in the firm, there is progressively "a pretty clear ground
to where people interface" said Mark Kalin, one computer expert of the firm. The office
is now at the point where the new tool is increasingly used in the production of the
office, and it starts to become clear how computers can be best used, as well as which
tasks are best done and which cannot be done by the machine. In parallel, the firm
1Creating
an element in the machine is a time consuming task; good organization of the work in the
machine is to use as much as possible the resourses of the database, and by using parametric variations
to modify the created entity and to introduce it in the new project. It is important for the project
manager to understand how much of the work can be done through parametric variations, and how much
needs specific element creation. Another problem is a thorough kwoledge of the created elements, so
that all the existing elements are not created in redandancy. Here comes of course the problem of
disseminating information within the office concerning the existance in the database of newly created
elements.
On reorganizing the practice of architecture
Page 43
chose to support both CADD enviroments, within the office, which I believe is a good
ideal. Moreover the office decided to have both CADD operators, who being familiar
with the enviroment, have been progressively productive, and CADD professionals,
architects or engineers with specific knowledge and skills in computers, that can work
directly on the system, and can perceive the process of developing a project within a
given computer environment, while stadying the evolution (tendency) of the
development of a computer system.
The Mc Donell Douglas CADD environment is a centralized system, where all the
workstations are networked. On the contrary the AutoCAD system is decentralized and
emphasizes accessibility and local processing of information. But the organization in
the firm, is very centralized; the CADD principal is responsible for the profitability of
the system, in parallel with the design quality of the projects done using the system.
The same centralized group, feagures out the training needed in the office, in order to
get more people to work directly on the machines, and defines what is the reasonable
overhead in the computers' production, while taking care of the profitability of the
system and the adaption among the other members of the team. Finally, the office of
Sasaki, although is a fairly large and well organized firm, its horizontal organization to
specialized teams, has contributed to the isolation of the computer team, and the slow
development of the machines within the firm.
1In
the modem computerized office, the usage of one system in the production (working drawings) as
well as the other tasks that the office supports is probably not the best thing to do. It has been argued
before that the advantages of one system, may be disadvantages for another, especially because, the
routines and the paths of though that one uses in doing one task, are not necessarily good for another
task. It is consequently important to have complementary CADD systems that are able to exchange
information, and that are deliberately used for different tasks in the practice.
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Computers in the large office
AUTOMATION FOR INTEGRATION
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 45
Page 46
Automation for integration
Automation for integration: RTKL
The office of RTKL in Baltimore is the headquarters of a large architectural firm
with countrywide services and decentralized offices. This multi-disciplinary office
includes architects, engineers and graphists, working together in a computer integrated
environment. RTKL has been one of the first architectural offices to use computers, and
has been involved in software development ever since. The office has moved from a
central powerful computer system, to progressively decentralized networked
workstations, all sharing a common database and all connected to a central informational
manager. Parallel to the inhouse software development the office has served as beta
testing site for Intergraph's graphics editor, by testing (using) special features or
enhancements developed either by Intergraph or by the computer team inhouse.
The computer pool of the firm includes: (1) A VAX 781 Digital computer that runs
Intergraph design and modeling software, that supports sixteen Intergraph design
workstations, and manages four disk drives. (2) A VAX 750 Digital computer that is
connected to the accounting department of the firm and manages one disk drive; this
computer runs in parallel Graphics 4.0, the design software developped by the firm, and
is connected to several graphics terminals, used for design support amd software
development. (3) A Wang minicomputer, used for word processing and database
development, and finally many micro computers deployed throughout the various
departments of the firm.
RTKL has decided to support in parallel two design environments on their
machines, in order to provide optimum conditions for every task in the architectural
production. The Intergraph system, is a powerfull computer drafting environment that
provides the designer with many easily accessible features, for two-dimentional working
drawings. Graphics 4.0 on the other hand, is a versatile computer design environment
that helps the architect construct easily three-dimensional computer models, in order to
produce perspective drawings, for quick visualization of the project. The system is
connected to a vector graphics monitor, that can store multiple images for developing
demos and sequential visits. Information developed on any one system, can be easily
translated to the other. This is a helpful feature that the office uses to transfer the
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture
Page 4 7
preliminary design drawings, usually developed in the Graphics 4.0 environment, to the
Intergraph environment, for further development and elaboration.
The architecture team comprises designers, technical architects and draftsmen, that
work under the guidance of the project designer and the project manager of a particular
project. The project designer is responsible for the design decisions of the project,
while the project manager makes sure that all required documents are produced and is
responsible for the technical detailing of the project. Design is generated by the
designers of the firm, and is further improved by the team that includes technical
architects and engineers. Thus, each project is followed from the beginning of the
conceptual design, to the end of construction, by a variety of people with different fields
of expertise, all contributing to the excellence of the projects of the firm. In addition to
the architects and the engineers, a graphics department as well as a promotion (public
relationship) department support the architectural team throughout the project.
Furthermore, a strong management distributes the tasks among the design teams, and
makes sure that each project is equally well supported by the firm.
Up until two years ago, the office was devided in four studios. Work was divided
in specialties and each studio was assigned specific tasks. Two studios were generating
the design schemes for the various projects of the office, and the two others were
providing technical support. The two design studios produced all the preliminary
schemes to present to the clients; studio two specialized in retail space, while studio one,
the other design studio, dealt with a wide viriety of projects, that included housing,
urban development, office space (administrative headquarters, training centers),
hospitals and hotels. Once the first phase of design development was approved by the
client, the work was sent to the technical support studios for further development and
completion. Each technical support studio was complementary to each design studio
respectively. Further elaboration of each project resulted from a close co-operation
between the technical support studios and the engineering team.
Separation of responsibilities as well as total specialization within the practice of
architecture, was introduced in the beginning of the fifties when modem management
techniques were first indroduced in the practice of architecture, in order to better control
design development and to increase productivity. Following this scheme, the teams of
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Automationfor integration
RTKL were highly specialized in the tasks they were assigned to, following a horizontal
organization of the work1 . Dissociation of work from the decision making contributed
to a segregation of the architectural production; this segregation became even more
evident, with the horizontal organizational structure. As work evoluted from the design
phase to the development phase, information was changing hands, and a project
developed by a specific team in the design studio, had to be transfered to the next team
in the technical studio. However, the architects in the technical team knew little about
the ideas and the principles that guided the design team in the development of a project,
as a result of the poor communication between the teams, due to separation of tasks and
devision of labor. Consequently, the principle designer of the design team, would have
to work with the technical team to control the various stages of the development of the
project.
This would all change with the introduction of CADD in the office. The computer
provided the posibility of working in parallel and simultaneously sharing a common
database. This became the model of the reorganization of the studios of RTKL. The
office is now divided in two studios, each one being the fusion of a design and a
technical studio. The new studios include design and technical architects, in an effort to
keep the project evoluting within the same team. Consequently the new vertical
organization of the studios, ensured better control of the design ideas, as well as
advanced communication between the various factors of development of a project. The
new project teams would include architects with computer skills, so that every team will
have the choice to elaborate a project on the computer.
Training and support has been a central issue of the plan of the firm. The computer
support team of RTKL, is devided in two sections. Hardware support is provided by a
team of three computer engineers that keep the machines operational, supervise the
backup routines, and control the status of the network. In parallel, the software team,
makes sure that all the supported software is running perfectly, and is involved in
1With
the term horizontal organization, I mean an organizational scheme, where each team is composed
by professionals that have the same skills, and are doing similar work, while belonging to
approximately the same position in the hieracy of the firm. As opposed to that, the team of the vertical
organization is composed by specialists in different fields, having various positions in the hieracy of the
office, each one doing a specific task, different and complementary to the tasks of the other members of
the team. A horizontal organization advances separation of tasks and devision of labor, while a vertical
organization promotes multi-disciplinarity.
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture
Page 49
programming for research and development. Graphics 4.0, a generic graphics editor
developed inhouse, is one example of programming research that the software team has
been involved; further development and enhancement of this design software is still one
major task of the software team, along with macros development for the Intergraph
system. In addition, the firm is training a good number of its designers to operate the
two graphics software of the office.
Multi-disciplinary use of the central database, for development of a project, would
reveal conflicts, and show the importance of access control to the database of a particular
project. Each discipline, may alter information generated within the same discipline,
while the architectural documents may serve as a background file for all the other parties
involved. The project designer and the project manager are the superusers of the project
and are authorised to perform changes and alternations. The system is powerful enough
to register all the changes that occured since the last logout of a user in the central
database, and to highlight these changes at the next login of the operator. In addition to
this sophisticated system to keep control of the changes in the daatabase, computer
operators are encouraged to announce their changes in a written format, so that the next
user may easily see, what the change has been, and what was the reason to make this
change. At last, the office developed a layer convention, assigning deifferent layers to
different tasks, which stimulate productivity and ensure standardization in the
production of graphic documents with the computer.
Plotting is another issue of big interest for the firm, since it is through plotting that
the office can communicate with the client, by providing the necessary graphic
documents. Most of the firms documents are produced with a large static pin-plotter,
that reduces the time of each plot considerably, even though there is a definite loss of
quality on the final product. The firm operates a pen-plotter as well, but this is mostly
used for the production of presentation documents, where the quality of the graphic is
more important than the time consumed. High quality plotting has become affortable the
last years, but it is still a very time consumming operation, and this is the major reasons
why the office has decided to support the low quality graphics production.
Finally, the office has organized three four hour shifts in the use of the design
workstations. A major reason for that mesure was that many projects and many
Page 50
Automationfor integration
operators needed accessibility on the system, but consideration was given to the fact that
after four continious hours of work in front of the machine, the user gets tired and is
becoming progressively unproductive. It is though the organization and the general
perception that the management has towards the machine, that promoted this mesure. It
is because the management of the office does not perceive the CADD user as a devoted
operator of the system, but as a member of the architecture or the engineering team that
can work on the machine, as well as work on other tasks, that advanced this notion of
the four hour shift; this opens the architectural and the engineering teams to the use of
the computer, making the first step towards an integration of the machine in the
architectural practice.
The office of RTKL, has entered a new phase of use of the computer when it
changed its internal organizational structure. The new vertical organization, gives access
at the computer to every architectural team, while accepting the fact that any member of
the office may use directly the machine. Meanwhile, the common computer database
promotes co-operation and sharing of information between the different disciplines of
the office, which leads towards a true integration, preparing us for the new multidisciplinary reality of the post-industrial era.
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 51
Page 52
Automation for integration
-,,
,
,
-
TOWARDS A COMPUTATIONAL ARCHITECTURE
On reorganizingthe practice of architecture
Page 53
Page 54
Towards a computationalarchitecture
Towards a computational architecture: Discussing with Eric Teicholtz
If we look at the global picture of the organization of the architectural practice during
the last twenty years, there are two distinct types of organization that we can discribe,
depending on the composition of the peripheral unit of work, the team (or cell); the
vertical organization and the horizontal organization.
The horizontal organization was introduced by the modem managerial techniques
during the fifties, where the teams are isolated and work flow is controlled by a strong
management. The teams of that type of organization tend to become highly specialized
in the particular task they are asked to perform, and there is little communication and
sharing of information with the rest of the office. As a consequence to that poor
exchange of information exist among the various teams. Computers in that
organizational structure, cannot be effectively integrated, because of the lack of
communication, between the technical support stuff and the management. The
management does not understand the technical talk of the CADD team, and the computer
engineers do not understand the financial preoccupations of the managers.
On the other hand, vertical organization reflects the twentieth century model, that
praises multi-disciplinarity, and collaboration between various fields of expertise, where
the teams are composed by as many different professionals as necessary, and having as
different background (fields of expertise) as possible. In the architectural practice,
vertical organization leads to a project team, composed by the partner in charge of the
project, as well as a senior designer, a project manager, designers, technical architects
and computer professionals, who are architects that have some familiarity with CADD
and understand how the computer operates. These computer initiated architects, could
become the machine operator for a particular task.
This new generation of professionals in the architectural practice, has to learn new
working techniques for the machines, and to be able to associate and integrate their
knowledge within the design process of the firm. The team additionally will comprise
CADD professionals, which are architects with particular knowledge and experience in
the field of computers. In addition, the computer team has to be organized in such a
way, and to enjoy such a position to be able to talk to the management. It is important
for the computer team to have a manager or a senior designer to report the progress and
On reorganizing the practice ofarchitecture
Page 55
the development that the team has accomplished in the firm, and to ensure the targets and
the scope of the firm are reported. Technical support staff and development and
research scientists,will anticipate the needs of the architectural office.
When organizing the office, there should be a distinction between the workstations
dedicated to design, and those concentrated to production. The design terminals are
used by the project teams in order to imput the relevant information of each file in the
database, while the production terminals are mostly dedicated: (1) demonstrations to
clients and the office teams, or other professionals (consultants) that are working with
the firm on a particular projects; (2) library development for use in the particular office.
The computer team has to develop a library in order to maximize the productivity of the
firm working with the machines. The development of genereric as well as project
specific library is fairly important. This organizes better the work and develops new
tools for the firm to handle architectural projects efficiently and with more control on the
final output. Development of libraries and parametric variations on existing elements in
the database, are the tricks-algorythems-paths to be used in order to enhance the existing
library.
Plotting and production of graphics produced for the client is another important issue
to understand. Plotting has become today, very attractive, but it still is an operation that
takes a lot of time. This is one reason why many architecture offices are producing pinplotted drawings, where the quality is not satisfactory, and the price is higher, but the
time spent is, depending on the complexity of the drawing,many times faster.
Training time, is another issue to be considered by the management of the office.
Most of the architecture firms that have already computers for some time have a policy
about this important issue that is training. Some offices will ask their employees to
participate in CAD training programs so that they can work on the workstations. Some
other firms, have inhouse courses and demonstrations, but for all of those courses,
length in time varies depending on the complexity of the software; the firms are mostly
interested in having young operators, to just know enough after the CAD training
program, to start a drawimg. The firms are seldom interested to educate thoroughly
their personnel, because they assume that they will eventually become fluent as they are
going to work for the projects of the firm.
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Towards a computationalarchitecture
There is a priority in the efficient management of the system for entering a project in
the computer where various criteria should be evaluated in the process of choosing; there
may be adaptability of the project in the logic of the system, or strong support of the
client , caracteristics that are related to an existing database and a coherent library,
familiarity or preferances of the project architect, or even the choice of a senior partener
for demonstrating the capabilities of the system. On the other hand there should be an
integration of CADD drawings and the manual techniques in order to achieve in many
cases the desired results in the least of time.
But the systems role in the organization of the firm is fairly important. The new
techniques need to be understood by the designers and on the same time need more
attention and planning because of the new technology, unknown to the professionals of
the architectural office, and where everything has to be developed, although much work
in the enhancement of the system is already undertaken. It is important here to notice
that at the beginning of the introduction of CADD in the offices, much change in the
schedules (working shifts) happens, but later on every body gets accoustomed to the
coexistance of the machines, just like in word processing.
In the meanwhile informational systems in architecture are changing the most
fundamental functions in the practice. Looking at drawings changes; looking at a CADD
drawing one can perceive the drawing in precision, or can always go down (zooming
down) and look at a detail. The CADD drawings on the other hand are more accurate
than the manual. In the electronic environment, the drafting standards are based on
conventions and inherent structure. Furthermore, the use of overlays in the CADD
enviroment helps many designers and various users to share a common database without
the risques of conflicts. A major difference when compared with the manual
procedures, is that when one is storing or retrieving information, one cannot see the
drawing in question. Looking at the drawing, will take a tremendous amount of time,
so that it becomes almost impossible to store or to retrieve any information without
establishing conventions. A final issue concerning regular backups and archival
storage, needs to be addressed by the firm, in order to assure that the information will
always be there. In addition to all the changes in the drawing conventions or the habits
of drawings, one important issue may be to establish a common vocabulary, with all the
On reorganizingthe practiceof architecture
Page 57
necessary terminology to be able to communicate with precision about the CADD
system. In the beginning, many firms thouhgt it was better for the organization of the
office to define multiple shifts, in order to run the machines at full capacity.Today,
multiple shifts, may help a designer to work in front of a terminal without having to
suffer, since a user will only be permitted to work four hours per day in front of the
screen. Financing the new tool is as important as aquiring it in the first place. The
office should be charging for an overhead item to begin with, and furthermore charging
per hour fixed fee. Finally printing and plotting is becoming easier, while plotting is
still very time consuming, and many times a carefull planning ahead of time is needed.
Because the computer structure is becoming quite important, the management of the
system needs to be reinforced. Having a manager of a firm , to be involved directly
with the computer facilities is very good, because it brings the ideas and the policy of the
firm in the facility, and the news of the computers in the management of the firm. In
any case introducing CADD in an architecturl firm is automatically justifying increased
planning in the firm, since all those issues have to be carefully considered.
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Towards a computationalarchitecture
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