A Digital Architectural Design Environment Spatial Awareness and the Linkage of 2d- and 3d Design Content

In Computer Aided Architectural Design, digital design is becoming an increasingly important process. The large number of recent articles about pure digital design cases (i.e., with only one CAD-package) is an indication of the demand for the utilisation of CAD-software advantages in the architectural design process. In most of these digital design cases there is no proper design environment since only a single CADpackage is being used. Because of this the CAD-package is the design environment, restricting design operations to only those of the CAD-software, and changing the course of the architectural design process. Traditionally, the ‘pen and paper’ design environment consisted of tools such as pen, paper and scale models. These tools, with accompanying freedom for design methodologies, are easily digitally represented, creating familiarity with custom design operations but benefiting from the potentials of a digital design environment. To properly translate the traditional architectural design process to a digital design process, the benefits and flaws of both digital as traditional design processes were evaluated after which a digital design environment was designed that combines both digital as traditional and benefits from the combination of both. This environment combines two-dimensional with three-dimensional data, placing the entire design process in a spatial context. The 2D-data is intelligently linked to the virtual 3D-model allowing for navigation through design data in 3D, and parallel design on different levels simultaneously. In this paper a detailed description of the design environment is presented as well as report of the experiences regarding this environment in a design assignment.