An Enchanted Toy Based on Froebel's Gifts
: A computational tool used to teach architectural knowledge to students
Assuming that students can require architectural knowledge through direct manipulation of formal objects, this paper introduces a computational toy as a means for teaching knowledge about composition and geometry to students of architecture. The bottom-up approach is employed in the manipulation of the toy. The toy aims at recovering and nourishing the studentsÕ creative spirit and enriching their vocabulary of forms and spaces.
DESCRIPTION
An enchanted toy has been developed as a migration of Nine Square Grid Composition (NSGC), which was designed within AUTOCAD environment in AutoLisp and DCL, to a web-based application. The basic structure of NSGC is rooted from research on student work in traditional studio class.10 The most polemic point taken from the research is that rational discussion between student and instructor about a design is not possible without records of the form-making process. In this paper, we tried to explain how the design process could be programmed using the concept of objects and steps. Without the burden of understanding a programming language, students create easily their own programming of what they design, and investigate their algorithm of formmaking process. Also, this allows them to modify their design easily when needed. "In design, we are not teaching and studying what an engine is but how to make a form of the engine."
Our understanding of where we live
is not so philosophical but rather pragmatic
Understanding urban environment with quantifiable measures has been the source of debates
Well then becomes the one of heated discussions … now possiblly the one of main trends