Computer-Aided Design Tools and Creativity

Computer aided design tools facilitate many aspects of representation and drawing for designers, architects and students. But the use of these tools in creative process and the first steps of ideation is a challenging issue. This paper aimed to identify the impact of computer-aided design tools on creativity and ask if the use of digital tools expand or hinder architecture students’ creativity. The methodology is qualitative by integrative review of existing empirical studies of the problem. Reviewing and synthesizing the empirical experiments of the impact of computer tools on creativity indicated that there are five different approaches in literature and these tools have some positive and negative aspects. The fifth direction emphasized on the role of designer’s behavior and suggested some solutions for development of user’s manner and the way of using digital tools. Therefore we concluded architecture education implications to educate student proper use of computer aided design tools to not fall in the fake creativity trap.

Keywords:

Computer-aided design , digital tools , hand drawing , architectural design , creativity , directions , ideation , sketching