ACADIA Quarterly 17:4 1998 8 1. Interface for making assembly rules in Construction Kit Builder (M. D. Gross) 2. Rendered Roshan panels in Modeling Makkah (N. A. Koshak) THE SUNDANCE LAB- “DESIGN SYSTEMS OF THE FUTURE” Ellen Yi-Luen Do and Mark D. Gross University of Colorado The last thirty years have seen the development of powerful new tools for architects and planners: CAD, 3D modeling, digital imaging, geographic information systems, and real time animated walkthroughs. That’s just the beginning. Based on our experience with CAD tools, analysis of design practice, and an understanding of computer hardware and software, we’re out to invent the next generation of tools. We think architects should be shakers and makers, not just consumers, of computer aided design. We started the Sundance Lab (for Computing in Design and Planning) in 1993 with a few people and machines. We’ve grown to more than a dozen people (mostly undergraduate students) and a diverse interdisciplinary array of projects. We’ve worked with architects and planners, anthropologists, civil engineers, geographers, computer scientists, and electri- cal engineers. Our work is about the built environment: its physical form and various information involved in making and inhabiting places. We cover a wide range of topics – from design infor- mation management to virtual space, from sketch recogni- tion to design rationale capture, to communication between designer and computer. All start from the position that design is a knowledge based and information rich activity. Explicit representations of design information (knowledge, rationale, and rules) enables us to engage in more intelligent dialogues about design. The following describes some of our projects under various rubrics. Under “knowledge-based visualization and modeling” we ex- plore new computational media for producing designs. Archi- tects don’t just draw at the drawing board: they draw at the site, on the train, and at the cafe. The Digital Design Sketch- book (1) uses pen based palmtop computers with wireless net- working to let designers sketch anywhere and exchange draw- ings and notes with home base. With Construction Kit Builder (2) an architect programs the assembly and placement rules of a kit of building components, then uses the resulting Lego- like CAD program to produce designs that satisfy those con- straints. Modeling Makkah (3) explores strategies for making digital models of historic buildings in the holy city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia, based on the architectural principles of these buildings. Under “interpreting form,” we explore how a computer might read and interpret drawings and models. The Electronic Cock- tail Napkin uses pattern recognition and visual language pars- ing (4, 5) to recognize and interpret drawings people make on a digitizing tablet or whiteboard. The program supports graphi- cal conversations among designers and offers simulated trac- ing paper, a sketchbook, and graphical search. Designers need different tools for different tasks at different times: The Right Tool Right Time (6) uses drawing to manage these tools. Watching the designer draw, the program tries to guess in- tent and offer an appropriate tool: visual references, a calcu- lator, technical advice. Digital Clay (7) employs machine vi- sion algorithms to parse a designer’s sketch into a three di- mensional computer graphics model. Under “observing design cognition,” we conduct empirical studies of design to identify appropriate features for more intelligent tools. In What’s in a Diagram (8) we surveyed 62 designers making and explaining diagrams and design stories from the case based design aid Archie (9). The Computability of Design Sketches analyzed (10) videotaped sessions of a conceptual design of an architect’s office. These empirical studies found that designers used a conventional universe of symbols related to the task at hand. Finally, Hypersketch (11) records and links design documents according to sequence and semantic relationships in a design process. Under “information and argumentation,” we integrate de- signs with rationale and arguments. Web PHIDIAS (12) com- bines a server side hypermedia database (13,14) of proposals, design rationale, and enables designers to comment via the web. The Ceren Web Resource (15-17) built detailed recon- structions of buildings at the archaeological site of Ceren, an agricultural village in Western El Salvador. The site’s