Dean Bruton

Educative visuals - digital delivery of architectural information for (potential) heritage buildings

The paper proposes models that address current issues and considerations at several key levels relating to treatment of architectural information, its presentation and delivery methods specific to architecture education requirements. It investigates fundamental digital communication strategies for the understanding of architectural work of heritage or potential heritage values, highlighting how digital simulations in particular could complement other media like texts, drawings and photographs to facilitate an understanding of design. It proposes dynamic visual layering system of information and information types relating to site, construction, materials, textures, design philosophy, etc, while also taking into account feedback from the intended audience. The architectural work featured as an example is of high potential heritage value - an area of special interest in the context of a country with a relatively short architectural history as Australia. The information depicted in the model has a role to supplement a site visit or to communicate independently to the much larger audience who are unable to visit the site. Although the paper does not insist on definite or final prescriptive techniques for the delivery of architectural information of heritage or potential heritage values, it suggests a possibility of standardisation in this area with features and considerations that need to be firstly addressed.

Hybrid Digital Media Architectural Visualisation Delivery -Murcutt, Lewin & Lark's the Arthur and Yvonne Boyd Education Centre on Digital Flatland

This paper shares ongoing research explorations into visualising and representing architecture through the limited real-estate spaces of computer screens. It proposes greater access, ‘interactivity’ and clarity in digital representations for the study, analysis and/or digital record of existing architecture by drawing on concepts and strategies – within and outside the discipline – to arrive at hybrid visualisation techniques. To illustrate some of these techniques, the paper outlines several issues in the production of hybrid media representations of the Arthur and Yvonne Boyd Education Centre. This award-winning building was designed by the 2002 Pritzker Prize-winner, Glenn Murcutt in association with Wendy Lewin and Reg Lark. It is recognised as a landmark in Australian architecture and a worthy subject of our representation experiments.

Grammars and Art

This paper contributes to the debate about the utility of the grammatical paradigm in art and design. It reports an investigation of the contingent sense in which grammars and grammatical design apply in the practice of form making in art using two complementary research strategies: the examination through a perspective of grammatical design of some selected bodies of art work, including interviews with artists, theorists and designers; and the reflective practice of image making with computer media in my own work as an artist. The major hypothesis is that a contingent sense of grammar can facilitate the creation, understanding, and discussion of form-making in art. The sub-hypotheses are that (1) An understanding of grammatical design can enhance a reflective design activity, and that (2) Revealing the contingency of grammars can expose moments of inspiration and redirection in a reflective design activity.

On Procedural Modeling of Urban Form - a Designer’s View and a Research Practice

Procedural modeling is a term in computer graphics referring to the creation of digital models with sets of rules. With the user-defined rule sets, digital models can be generated automatically by computers rather than modeled manually. Several popular procedural modeling methods and are listed and compared in the paper. A new research framework on procedural modeling of urban and architecture form is introduced. We also choose Jørn Utzon’s “additive architecture” as a case study and show the possibilities of future urban and architecture design.