Digital crafts. Procedural design in education and research. Case study of Félix Candela

Abstract

“Procedural design is often classified as a computational approach relying upon a set of instructions that, when used in a particular sequence, are the generators of form”. The present paper discusses the importance of the algorithm thinking in the Schools of Architecture and PhD students. Procedural design enhances a scientific and rigorous approach to develop research projects, and a systematic workflow to design architecture. Students need to focus in the logic and the process of the proposal rather than the final outcome or the form. Traditionally, architects or designers had to learn different crafts of their profession in order to become an expert. Today, “those crafts are mostly digital.” We present part of a research project which consisted in the virtual reconstruction of the non-built architecture of Félix Candela. The workflow was based in a computational approach to generate an automation process for the different families of projects designed by the architect.