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Establishing an Educational Framework for Senior Architectural Design Courses Integrating Computational Thinking from Programming, Shaping to Optimization

Author(s)

Cuina Zhang*, Yatong Wang, Shuning Wang

Affiliation(s)

Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

The emergence of digitization, artificial intelligence (AI) has already brought changes to the thinking methods and processes of architectural design including Scheme Programming, Scheme Shaping, Structure and Performance Optimization. However, the integration of Computational Thinking and Computational Design Content in Architectural Design Courses is still far from sufficient, especially in the Computational Design of junior’s course. This study discussed the issue mentioned above for junior students of four-year architecture education university. By integrating four modules named " Computational scheme programming", " AI-assisted generation”, "Structural optimization” and " Performance optimization”, this study implants the concept of Evidence-Based Design (EBD), reconstructs the computational teaching content, and runs computational thinking through the whole process of scheme programming, generation, optimization and expression. Through 2 years of course practice, it can be seen from the teaching process and design works that: (1) The cultivation of computational thinking can help students approach and solve the entire process problems of programming, shaping and optimization more rationally, but students should avoid falling into the cult of data and algorithms. (2) AI can help improve efficiency, but how to guide students train their own AI model and expand AI capabilities is the next teaching task. (3) The educational framework has stimulated students' interest and enhanced their ability to solve technical problems, but how to integrate personal creative ideas and computational results to improve the scheme is the correct direction of teaching. The implementation process of this study can provide reference for relevant teaching research and practice.

Keywords

Educational Framework; Computational Thinking; Scheme Programming; Scheme Shaping; Scheme Optimization; AI-Assisted Generation

References

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