Nate Miller from Proving Ground has recently written a thoughtful post on Computational Designer. I found it spot on in some regards, but also felt that, some things were left unsaid. I wouldn’t be me – the outspoken, Polish dude – if I didn’t feel the urge to respond to Nate’s thoughts, and complement them with few of my own.
Computational Design != Technical Role
I think his thoughts on this subject are spot on. Most hiring managers will assume that since you are a Computational Designer, you are some sort of software whisperer that should go and enlighten his brethren in magic of Grasshopper. Problem that I see here is usually two-fold. Firstly, the role of Computational Designer has never been clearly defined. I myself have walked into an interview for a “Computational Designer” position that listed requirements in everything from Software Development to BIM Management. Often this comes about due to fact that most Computational “insert your title here” position openings are being put together by Human Resources. HR staff simply doesn’t understand the position requirements and responsibilities. They are looking to fill a spot. They should be asking Design Technology for what exactly it is that they are looking for. Here’s the second part of the issue. DT are usually small, and can hire one or two people so instead of focusing on getting a person with Computational Design skillset, they usually want someone that has all of the skills. The reality of Computational Designer position is that it should be very similar to that of an Architectural Designer, but with a twist that such person like Nate says: “…should be able to reflect on the value of their methodology and explain how their method produced more desirable results for the project and the team.“.
This brings me to the second point, designers applying for the Computational Designer position should make it clear that they are still designers, and are very much willing to be part of project teams through good and bad, from design to construction.
Konrad K Sobon
Computational Designer should be just a designer with a different approach to design process. Now, what do you do with such person when there isn’t a project on the horizon that could benefit from such an approach? I think it should be agreed upon, and stated from the beginning whether in those cases it’s OK for the management to task these “special” designers with non-special design tasks, or should they be afforded the benefit of spending some of their time honing their skills by contributing to the R&D efforts. Too often do I see frustrated Computational Designers that thought that they role was to only work on “cool” projects where they can showcase their skills, but all other projects were not worthy of their time. This brings me to the second point, designers applying for the Computational Designer position should make it clear that they are still designers, and are very much willing to be part of project teams through good and bad, from design to construction. Too often have I seen Computational Designers that would only be happy when they were allowed to exercise their skills on a project for a week at a time and then happily move on to the next, or worse grumpily stick around to perform tasks that they deem not worthy of their special talents. To summarize the point here, I propose to draw a clear line between Computational Designer and Computational Design Specialist:
- Computational Designer: a designer, member of design teams, participates in projects from start to finish, works on all aspects of the project, when able uses his special design methodology to provide additional value to the team and design process.
- Computational Design Specialist: a full time member of some overarching technology department, only lends his helping hand to teams in dire need of computational design help, will participate in projects short term to address specific needs and problems, will teach workshops, will spend his “off time” doing R&D and software development
I think that a role of a Computational Design Specialist is what most people have in mind when speaking of Computational Designers. There should be a clear distinction between the two.
Computational Design != BIM
I could not have agreed more with Nate’s statement here. BIM Manager’s position has nothing to do with Computational Design. These two are like fire and water. However, Nate seems to imply in his post that recent fashion of acquiring titles of “Computational BIM”, has something to do with Computational Design. I could not disagree more. The mere coincidence of using the word “computational” in one’s title does not warrant that one’s implying that they have anything to do with design. Computational approach to architectural processes is not an exclusive domain of designers and design process…
If you want to read the full post from Konrad, please head over to his www.archi-lab.net blog.
Cheers!
Very good. I am happy to read about the topic. The line is blurry, I try myself to define my role as a “Computational Design Specialist”
Hello Konrad,
I have a question regarding your script and I didn’t know how to conatct you other way.
I am referring to this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL757xRMi5s
Pretty old I guess…I have thet latest veriosn of archilab and I have notice (of course) that many of the nodes in the video don’t match with the current ones.
The (old) nodes that I cannot find are:
“filters.createrule”
“filters.viewfilter”
“filter.setfilteroverride”
Thanks in advance and good luck with your job!
Please contact me at sobon[dot]konrad[at]gmail[dot]com