Topological interlocking assembly (TIA) and computational architecture treat form as an emergent property of a material system, where the final shape results from the interplay of geometries and geometric interdependencies influenced by contextual constraints (material, structure, and fabrication). This paper posits that TIA is an ideal pedagogical tool for introducing students to computational architecture, and its theoretical foundations and design principles. Specifically, defining TIA as a material system provides a robust educational approach for engaging students with computation; fostering design processes through bottom-up, hands-on investigations; expressing design intents as procedural logic; understanding generative geometric rules; and exploring the flexibility of parametric variations. The methodology is detailed and illustrated through a design workshop and study unit from the Bachelor’s and Master’s programs at the Faculty for the Built Environment, University of Malta. Four case studies of TIA—of tetrahedra, cones, octahedra, and osteomorphic blocks—demonstrate how these exercises introduce students to computational thinking, parametric design, and fabrication techniques. This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of this pedagogical methodology, concluding that integrating computational architecture in education shifts students’ design processes to investigation and innovation-based approaches, enabling them to address contemporary design challenges through context-driven solutions.

The aim of this paper is to research the impact to emerging theory based on the relation between the architect and his work in a digital approach to the process of design and realization by the principle of Digital Chain. Digital Chain is an uninterruptible digital process consisting of design (idea, coding, geometrics), through construction (structure, junction, prototyping) to production (fabrication) with every step as a programmed entity connected by CAAD/CAM technology universal interfaces. The term Digital Chain is defined and researched (theoretically, experimentally and practically) by the CAAD Chair at ETHZ within the research projects of this institute. Digital Chain is not continuous without the role and position of the architect as the fluid energy and expert that investigates how digital technology is changing, i.e. the entire process of the chain, simultaneously adapting to it. In that sense architecture appears as an open work (Umberto Eco) without final definitions and in a constant process of information motion as the main component of the architectural product caused by the demands of context, function, form and user input. Testing design code through changes of parameters in iterations, as well as checks in prototype on the next level, makes the theoretical playground between experiment and experience, through education and expertise. It is examplary that interest in the process (performance) was larger than the representation (appearance), what Deleuze and Guattari call supremacy of the Gothic spirit over the spirit of Romanesque or classical spirit, where Gothic deals with the generation of Gothic architecture by understanding the forces, trends and behavior of the material from the bottom to the top, contrary to the classic generation that deals with the imposition of visual aspects such as the proportion of top-down. This paper considers experience or posteriori knowledge as the main driver of the emerging theory of the Digital Chain. Article received: December 26, 2016; Article accepted: January 23, 2017; Published online: April 20, 2017 Original scholarly paper How to cite this article: Cvetić, Mariela, and Slađana Marković. "Experience and Theory in Architectural Design: Digital Chain Case." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 12 (2017): 121-134. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i12.172

The setting of design and architectural realization today cannot be considered separately from the emerging architecture, which is based on digital technology. Digital technology has primarily affected the architectural presentation, and eventually began to represent a design tool directly connected with the realization, which was across various digital techniques establishing continuity of a ?digital gap? as a global problem of discontinuity of design and realization in architecture and fulfilling complex design requirements of the architecture today. With the characteristics of continuous connection, this relation design - realization is increasingly manifested as a C?AD/CAM technology and the most commonly researched as a ?digital chain? principle. Primarily, the term ?digital chain? is defined and investigated (theoretically, experimentally and practically) at the CAAD department at ETH Zurich (germ. ETH Zuerich) within the research projects of this institute. Today the tool has become an indispensable, inevitable and active, and the architect seemingly passive and in an unclear position in the whole process and the offered solutions of space and architecture. Accordingly, the paper explains the principle of "digital chain", and overlapping with elements of a conventional (standard) architectural approach, based on the settings of the positioning architects in new conditions, redefines the process of design and realization in the emerging architecture in architectonic sense.

The field of artificial intelligence (AI) has recently attracted the attention of many disciplines due to the exceptional accomplishments and rapidly emerging possibilities. Architecture, a discipline traditionally skeptical of new technologies, is intrigued by the results achieved with generative neural networks. The emergence of new technologies in the field of generative artificial intelligence has led to numerous scenarios among architects about possible applications of these technologies in their practice. A large number of these scenarios are based on the functionality of commercially available Large Language Models and their application to text to image and image to image transformations. A smaller number of scenarios are based on specific applications of AI technologies through the development of real software solutions. The paper critically analyzes existing scenarios through a review of existing research and a description of software solutions. The focus is on the application of Generative Neural Networks and the paper provides an overview of the functioning of the basic classes of neural networks that make up this technology. An analysis of how artificial neural networks work shows that they all depend on the data set used to train them. Today's neural networks use an enormous amount of data, but even that is limited to what is available in electronic format. The main source of general knowledge is online encyclopedias, while expert knowledge is provided by published articles that have a certain level of reliability. Architects who are mistrustful of this technology need to understand that better results can only be achieved through higher-quality training data sets and that their protectively guarded knowledge also comes from studying the work of other architects.

Guided by questions of contemporaries, leading to the question of integrity and durability of architecture, and by conclusions from recent conferences which advance architecture through digital approaches to designing and guiding architecture towards Artificial Intelligence (AI), we need to get back to the question on how to design in the future under multi-layered complex conditions and sustainability requirements of emerging architecture. Based on this, we conclude that the topic - Integrity of Architectural Objects is yet highly relevant, and this paper represents a continuation of research/ consideration of architectural spatiality as an activity of creativity and structural durability. The sense of careful and complex structural design as an example of a continual digital approach, e.g. a multi-layered network - joint effect of design and realisation of architecture is highlighted. As digital design in architecture has proven to be elusive and occasionally uncontrollable without the meaningful participation of the architect, this paper highlights positioning of the architect as an important factor in solving integrity and durability challenges of emerging architecture. Digital approaches in architecture are constantly developed and improved, and structural integrity and durability issues are becoming increasingly complex and serious, especially in relation to geometry/space design and sustainability, so architect’s knowledge involvement is inevitable and necessary in future data-driven design processes. Positioning of the architect is based on expertise - activities and features, crucial in the process with identical characteristics, as the continuous development and improvement of knowledge, linking and anticipating all needs of the architectural process, the integrity and durability of architecture. Additionally, knowledge will be meaningfully placed and integrated by positioning of the architect in society, in a critical attitude towards new technological achievements and re-examination of integrity and life of the structure in terms of sustainability and resilience of functional and spatial features of architecture. The aim of the work is to show that knowledge as the main characteristic of the architect’s positioning in future design and realisation, is also the foundation for integrity and life in emerging architecture.

Studying the development of digital technology in architecture during the last thirty years highlights the opportunity for exploring the process of positioning the architect within an architectural approach based on the continual digital data-driven design and realization, using the example of the ?digital chain? principle. Digital tools and processes have evolved driven by technological advancements and supporting the architectural design, but also challenging the influence and role of the architect as designer. Accordingly, the positioning of the architect within the design and realization of architecture is a process that constantly is developing, evolving, progressing and changing, but not simultaneously with the development of technology. The paper investigates this with the focus on the ?digital chain?, which is the continual approach that links architectural design and realization by coding the process and involving digital fabrication (machine and material) and the architect in each step of architectural accomplishments. Methodologically, this research is based on overlapping the information of a (rapid) review of the continual digital data-driven design principle (example of ?digital chain?) over time and the conventional (analog) design focused both on architect?s discourse, role and influence in the current and future design and implementation of works of architecture. The paper does not define the exact position of the architect in the ?digital chain? because the process is further evolving and also depends on the type of fabrication, taking into account the freedom of choice of the architect. It does, however, identify the zone and type of influence of the process effects on the architect, and determines the necessity and role of the architect as a designer in the process. The work aims to define and outline the currently developing conceptual framework of the positioning of architects, while a precise definition of the position would hinder the architect from expressing creativity. However, new research directions open a scientific field of constant redefinition of the design process with architectural influence in terms of activities and characteristics of the role of the architect within continual digital approaches to designing architecture.