Digital and Designing: Are we entering an era of computational empiricism?

Computer code is the set of instructions for the operation of any system that exploits a microprocessor. Coding, i.e. programming, “is to construct a set of coded instructions that a microprocessor can unambiguously interpret and perform in ongoing flows of operations”. The execution of code performs an action: it takes an input and, according to the instructions, produces an output. “The code created is the manifestation of a system of thought—an expression of how the world can be captured, represented, processed, and modeled computationally with the outcome subsequently doing work in the world. Programming then fundamentally seeks to capture and enact knowledge about the world—practices, ideas, measurements, locations, equations, and images—in order to augment, mediate, and regulate people’s lives”. The execution of code is the manifestation of a system of thought in action. In architectural design, the expression of the system of thought has gone through an evolution: Inês Caetano and António Leitão trace it since the initial generation in the early 1960s mainly developed in the research laboratories, because the computing machines of the time were huge, expensive, and challenging for programming. With mainframes coming out of the Labs and the following diffusion of personal computers in the late 1970s, the age of digital drawing began. According to Robert Aish and Nathalie Bredella, the next generation has achieved the progression from 2D drawing to 3D Building Information Modelling (BIM). Henri Achten and Mario Carpo have considered the impact of programming on how to draw or to model a building and therefore on how a practice works and is managed. An ontological analysis of CAD or BIM software can be performed to studying it as a being in general, analogously to Matthew Fuller’s study of the ontological ability of Microsoft Word: “To be effective, human-machine integration required that people and machines be comprehended in similar terms so that human-machine systems could be engineered to maximize the performance of both kinds of component. Word has no direct interest in information or communication, but rather in its facilitation. […] The end point of this, of course, is that every possible document will be ready for production by the choice of the correct template and the ticking of the necessary thousands of variable boxes”. Concurrently the simulation of the building and of the construction have been developed and been integrated within the design systems. All the complex equations of building physics and of construction mechanics have been coded, thus most building physical phenomena can be simulated in advance, given enough data and resources. To mention some commonly used simulation tools, they are in structural design Robot, in energy use EnergyPlus, in lighting and illumination Radiance.