Digital cultures for architectural projects.
Numeric technology is not new in architecture. It was already present in the first written sources of our discipline. Thus, in De Architectura, Vitruvius established complex numerical relations to define the design of temples, solar clocks, and even war machines. About these last, the module of ballistae responds to a mathematic formula, which was in turn calculated with the help of mechanical instruments. Indeed, the English word “computer” comes from the Latin verb “computare”, that means to calculate. It is precisely because we have replaced the wooden components of antiquity’s computers by silicon ones, that today we are able to push forward these parametric procedures and to apply them not only to design processes but also to fabrication.
The teaching orientation is to transmit to students the numeric culture(s) that will allow them to understand how technological fundaments will continue to evolve, just as they have done it since the antiquity until our days. Innovative industrial processes will be particularly emphasised since they have not only the potential to transform emblematic buildings, but also the general practice of architecture, in ways that will benefit from the technical, social and cultural-experience sedimentation of our discipline’s history.