Host: CAADRU,
University of Liverpool, UK
Organisers: Andy
Brown, Mike Knight
and Phil Berridge
A few years ago there was discussion at a broad range of Architectural CAD Conferences about the 'paradigm shift' that either appeared to be happening or was being positively promoted. If we look back over the previous five years at that shift there is certainly evidence of a change in the nature and goals of CAAD education and research.
The driving forces behind the changes that are evident have come from a mixture of pragmatic and philosophical forces. The pragmatic being that computers are ubiquitous, relatively cheap and accepted as a contemporary communication and information distribution device in our societies. Philosophically, in the same way that there was a link between the birth of film and the development of Freud's psychological analysis of dreams, so the links between computer mediated communication and ideas such as disembodiment and otherness have grown.
The themes that are evident in 'eCAADe 17: Architectural Computing from Turing to 2000' are evidence of the fact that our perspective now reflects this new paradigm. Creative design processes and education potentials fostered through virtual, often collaborative, environments are referred to by many of the authors contributing. Across a broad sweep of nations represented at eCAADe 17 there are common developmental trends which reveal a common desire to enhance the quality of architecture and architectural critique through the vehicle of computed environments.
Proceedings: The eCAADe17 proceedings are available in book and CD-ROM format from Andy Brown at CAADRU (ISBN:0 9523687 5 7)