Intermedia:

speculations about tactility in the digital design environment

Abstract

In the digital age, what is the role of tactility in the digital design process as it is taught in schools of architecture today? Very often, students are never taught to appeal to any other sense other than sight, particularly now as digital media is embraced as a valuable design tool. Yet, is there some essential characteristic of architecture and the phenomenology of place-making that is being cast aside due to the nature of the tools being used? However true or enigmatic this may be, there is a way of working and teaching that exists somewhere between the digital and the tactile. Often there is discussion on final reviews about the flatness and glossiness of purely digital presentations, and contrapuntal criticism about the lack of accurate perspectival representations illustrating the inhabitation of students' projects without the benefit of computer renderings. Imagine if there was a methodology that by its nature simultaneously forces students to work digitally and yet with the depth and tactility of analog media? This paper postulates a hybrid working environment in the design studio that not only takes advantage of the strengths of various design media but also focuses on reinterpreting its limits and drawbacks. The role of digital media in the realm of paper based design media will be explored and shown to potentially be as tactile and interactive as trace and chipboard. A curricular sequence of instruction will be proposed that exploits the limits of digital media and reinterprets their usefulness in a productive manner. The ultimate outcome will be a new digital media (intermedia) pedagogy that can revolutionize the way that we teach architecture and moreover computer "aided” design.