Host: School of Architecture, Lund Institute of Technology,
Sweden.
Organisers: Jonas
af Klercker, Anders Ekholm and Sverker Fridqvist
The theme of the conference 'Education for Practice' reflects the current situation where newly graduated architects are expected to have a working knowledge of CAD. However the schools of architecture often have difficulties in getting CAD into the curriculum as there are a lot of other things which new architects should know. Very few of the architecture faculty know enough about CAAD to understand that it may also be used to improve education within their own field of knowledge.
Trying to find arguments for more CAAD in the curriculum we turn to our 'market', the practising architects. What do they say? Shortsighted practitioners would then ask for operational knowledge of the most commonly used CAD programs. Is that what we think is the right thing to teach? In other areas of knowledge the schools are expected to look ahead, prepare for the future, and produce architects with versatile skills. This is especially natural in the CAAD area where the development is extremly fast.
Looking into the future we find that commercially successful and in practice popular programs do not always have the means needed. Sometimes less commonly used programs have those facilities and will therefore be used.
The new generation of electronic media gives us more than a hint of a change of society into the Information era, a change which is of the same dimensions as when we entered the Industrial era. Now as then the consequences are unforeseeable and difficult to describe to others. It is in a way a matter of belief.
The possibility of sharing ideas and experiences is more important than ever. This conference reflects an ongoing discussion on the subject of CAAD, its impact on architectural practice, its place in the curriculum and its prospects for new design methods.
Proceedings: The Lund conference proceedings are available in book format from Jonas af Klercker (ISBN 0 9523687 2 2)