Creative Design within an Integrated CAAD Environment

A design problem cannot be comprehensively stated because the design problem has a multi-disciplinary nature and the design problem itself evolves as solutions are attempted by the designer. Therefore, an ideal computer based design system should have the capability to accommodate the multi-disciplinary nature of design and should not prescribe or restrict design concepts and design knowledge. A well designed integrated design environment provides more information and invokes creative imagination for each design stage, and therefore creative decision making by the designer can be achieved. In this paper, the author argues that creativity is an activity resulting from the ordinary thought process of ordinary individuals and creative action is slow and incremental, and comes from a sound basis of background knowledge. Past experience is the basis for the initial approach to a problem. Provided with a set of supporting facts and all corresponding knowledge, with the help of computer, the result produced by execution of that procedure could be original and novel. Intelligent design systems are based on the premise that there is nothing mystical in the human thinking process. On the basis of the above arguments, the author proposes a prototype architectural design environment, which aims to integrate various applications for designing a building. Within an object-oriented design environment, a unified data model and a data management system have been implemented to seamlessly connect all applications.