Lecture, Workshop Train Architecture Students in Cutting-Edge Computer Design

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Fay Jones School of Architecture is among the vanguard of U.S. schools offering students instruction in cutting-edge computational design software, used to create completely new forms such as the Water Cube featured at the Beijing Olympics. Some 25 of the school’s students, faculty and alumni will get a head start on the learning curve at TransFORM Architecture, a two-day workshop that will take place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, April 17-18, in Willard J. Walker Hall on the University of Arkansas campus. Marty Doscher, information technology director for Morphosis, the Los Angeles design firm headed by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner Thom Mayne, will launch the workshop with a public lecture, “Digitally Integrated Design-Build,” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 16, in Shollmier Hall in Vol Walker Hall.

The free workshop will offer beginning and intermediate students hands-on instruction in the use of Bentley System’s GenerativeComponents, a powerful new software tool that enables architects and engineers to experiment with innovative forms, materials and assemblies. GenerativeComponents facilitates innovation by supporting the quick exploration of a broad range of design alternatives, which can then be analyzed for energy efficiency.

“This workshop offers people a look at where the future of practice could go,” said Lynn Fitzpatrick, a clinical assistant professor of architecture who helped to organize the event. “GenerativeComponents is the only software that offers this level of flexibility to the designer.”

Approximately 40 schools in the U.S., including Penn State, Yale University, Georgia Tech and the University of Michigan, offer classroom instruction in this new technology. The University of Arkansas joins this select group thanks to Brad Workman, who holds the Fay Jones School of Architecture’s Twenty-First Century Chair in Integrated Practice. A 1978 graduate of the School of Architecture, Workman has helped design, develop and pioneer building information modeling for Bentley Systems Inc., where he currently serves as vice president of platform technologies.

Cosponsored by Bentley, TransFORM Architecture is modeled on the SmartGeometry workshops that have taken place in cities such as London, Toronto and Munich and on east and west coast campuses in the United States.

Three fifth-year architecture students recently returned from the 2009 SmartGeometry conference in San Francisco and plan to participate in the intermediate level group at TransFORM Architecture. They will focus on scripting computer code to analyze a wide range of design problems: Andy Van Mater will be developing surface articulation for a “computational cabinet” that he plans to fabricate in a furniture design class; Will Burks will be shaping public space for a transit stop; and Jody Verser will be refining a 1,036-foot, bright orange public walkway linking a transit stop to a museum and park.

“You can pretty much use GenerativeComponents to design anything,” Burks said, adding, “A lot of the things built in the last couple of years would have been impossible to do with conventional design techniques.”

In addition to Marty Doscher, the workshop will be led by Makai Smith, GenerativeComponents Product Manager at Bentley Systems Inc., andRachel Smith, a 2007 alumna of the School of Architecture who recently concluded a six-month internship at Morphosis.

The workshop is open to architects, designers, researchers, students and faculty members; an application is required. The deadline for registration is Wednesday, April 15.

For more information and to download the application, visit http://architecture.uark.edu/407.php. Burks, Verser and Van Mater will be blogging about the workshop on their Web site documenting independent studies on computational design, available at http://archfolio.org/.