COMPUTABILITY OF DESIGN BY MEANS OF ITS COGNITIVE CONTENT

Abstract

Design activities based on intuition and induction cannot, presently, be substituted by computational means. Computers can only assist designers by providing examples, precedents, case studies, prototypes and their derivatives adapted specifically to the context of the problem. However choosing and adapting the appropriate solution remains a human prerogative. The failure to automate design as a whole is due, in a large measure, to the difficulty of finding computational means that can support learning, creativity, and judgment, which comprise much of the cognitive aspects of design. Computer support for innovative design must overcome the problem that designers necessarily make extensive use of situated tacit understanding while computers can only store and display explicit representations of information. This paper aims to understand tacit to explicit knowledge transformations in computed aided architectural design process