Prolegomena to Computational Design
Abstract
OP / POSITIONS In 1989, I left Scotland for the Carnegie Mellon School of Prolegomena to Architecture to help revamp the graduate program in the build- ing sciences. Together with other colleagues, including Ömer Computational Design Akin, Ulrich Flemming, and Rob Woodbury, we shared a com- mon vision for applying computing to design problems, each of us contributing a different background or expertise. The program reflected our work and research, with a curriculum and ethos looking beyond computer-aided design. To name the program, I invented “computational design,” as design is com- putational in nature. The moniker stuck, and the “discipline for developing or applying computation to problems with their ori- gins in design” was inaugurated. In 1989, Carnegie Mellon was the first school to offer a Master and Ph.D. in Computational Design (CD). This essay outlines that history. The Eastman Years We are truly legatees of Charles “Chuck” Eastman, and no history of computer-aided architectural design is complete without reference to him. Eastman came to Carnegie- Mellon in the early 1970s. He created the doctoral program in build- ing sciences at the School of Architecture. In the fall of 1989, the School of Architecture began offering Master and Ph.D.