In the fourth industrial revolution, programming promises to be a fundamental subject like mathematics, science, languages ​​or the arts. Architects design more than buildings developing innovative methods and they are among the pioneers in visual programming development. However, after more than 10 years of visual programming in architecture, despite the fast-learning curve, visual programming presents considerable limitations to solve complex problems. To overcome limitations, the authors propose to associate the advantages of visual and textual languages in Python. The article addresses an ongoing research study to implement Computational Methods in Architectural Education. The authors began by describing the general goal of this project, and of this article in particular. This article focuses on the implementation of two disciplines ‘Computation for Architecture in Python’ I and II. The first discipline uses programming based on the construction of functions in the imperative language, implemented in the text editor, in visual programming, using Grasshopper methods. The second discipline, which is under development, intends to teach object-oriented programming. The results of the first discipline are encouraging; despite reported difficulties in programming fundamentals, such as lists, loops and recursion. The development of the second discipline, in object-oriented programming, deals with the concepts of classes and objects, and more abstract principles such abstraction, inheritance, polymorphism or encapsulation. This paradigm allows building robust programs, but requires a more in-depth syntax. The article reports this ongoing research on this new paradigm of object-oriented language, expanding the application of a hybrid visual-textual language in Architecture.

This research is part of a broader investigation into the use of digital technologies in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector. The intention is to improve the ability of buildings to respond to context by proposing a skylight system that can adjust to external environmental conditions and internal functional demands. We call this responsive ability customisation. The proposed skylight system can adapt to different geometries, uses, locations, times of day and other contextual conditions. Customisation can be achieved by static and dynamic processes. Static customisation is achieved during the design process by selecting the form and size of the building, as well as the number, arrangement and size of the skylights, among other features. Dynamic customisation is accomplished after construction by changing the skylight aperture in real-time to control interior conditions. This paper focuses on the static process to find an adequate skylight configuration for a case-study pavilion.

O Pavilhão FAB!t é um pavilhão portátil que pretende promover a inclusão da cultura maker na educação tradicional, introduzindo o conceito de indústria 4.0 nos programas da escola elementar, justificados pela mudança dos sistemas produtivos, especialmente relativamente à manufatura e à nova relação produto-consumidor. Neste contexto, dissemina através da cultura maker os avanços tecnológicos e democratiza o seu acesso na educação tradicional. Esta pesquisa contribui para atualizar o ensino de tecnologia nas escolas, introduzindo fundamentos da cultura maker, de maneira rápida, barata e igualitária. Como metodologia analisamos vários laboratórios existentes, designados como Fab Labs, identificando as atividades e ferramentas utilizadas em seus espaços. Com base neste estudo, desenvolvemos um sistema modular que permite criar espaços personalizados adaptáveis aos requisitos funcionais dos equipamentos e às atividades com eles associadas. Propomos uma plataforma de construção montável e desmontável com base num sistema que permita a expansão e retração da estrutura, que assim se adapta aos futuros desejos e necessidades da comunidade.

Innovative technologies for digital design and manufacture have spread with globalization, providing improved working tools and processes for architecture. These technologies open up different professional opportunities, forging alternative relations with society, especially for new generations and emerging countries. This article reflects on novel collaborative experiences between Ibero-American Universities, accounting for the intensive use of digital technologies in architecture. To bridge technological gaps, the authors describe collaborative efforts to produce full-size constructions, using networking, which results in a hybridization of these “new media” adapted to local and cultural contexts. These initiatives arise from an attempt to overcome the lack of resources at local Universities and their rigid institutional processes, along with their concerns about promoting global connectivity for new generations, leading to informal and collective actions that break with traditional teaching, applying advanced techniques in unseen collective and creative processes. These experiences reveal an architectural work distributed among all the participants that collaborate in the conceptualization, programming, management, and execution of the design, with diverse hybrid practices, and a powerful collective synergy. This also results in new expanded proposals that unfold new relationships with the environment and the community. Thus, these actions tend, by themselves, to integrate and project new horizons in architectural collaboration. This article aims at mapping these spatial-temporal actions in Architecture from the global south (Santos 2014).

In the context of the fourth industrial revolution, not all regions have the same access to technology for project development. These technological limitations do not necessarily result in worst projects and, on the contrary, can stimulate creativity and human intervention to overcome these shortcomings. We report here the design of a small pavilion with scarce budget and an ambitious goal to qualify a space through tactical urbanism. We develop the project in a multidisciplinary partnership between academy and industry, designing, manufacturing and assembling Tornado Pavilion, a complex structure using combined HIGH-LOW technologies, combining visual programming with analog manufacture and assembly. The design strategy uses SIMPLEXITY with ruled surfaces strategy to achieve a complex geometry. Due to the lack of automated mechanical cutting or assembly, we used human expanded abilities for the construction; instead of a swarm of robots, we had a motivated and synchronized swarm of students. The pavilion became a reference for local population that adopted it. This process thus shows that less or almost nothing (Sola-Morales 1995), need not to be boring (Venturi 1966) but less can be much more (Kolarevic 2017).