Monday, October 8, 2001		Article

Use computer to design skyscrapers
Sumesh Raizada

ARCHITECTURE is perhaps among the oldest craft that mankind has known after inventing hunting tools or a wheel. We have since ages witnessed a number of civilisation and each of them had a distinct feature that distinguished them from the others. Today, one can easily differentiate Roman civilisation from the Egyptian, Chinese from the Indus valley or even within our country, say Gupta dynasty from the Mughal. The most prominent feature, which helps historians or a laymen in understanding the civilisation are its buildings, monuments and worship places, constructed during those periods. While we may not be able to see the live photographs of our ancestors who lived thousands of years ago, we can very well understand their lifestyle, culture, society or economic status, from the architecture of their times.

Architecture of any nation is its priceless heritage that continues to live for thousands of years and thus reminds people of their glorified or horrified past. We have witnessed wonders like Taj Mahal, Egyptian Pyramids, Statue of Liberty, Great Wall of China, built hundreds of years ago or recent ones like Eiffel Tower, Binatone Bridge or Petronis Towers, all created by great architects. Art and science of architecture is age-old and those who are working in this field have either inherited the skills from their ancestors or have undergone learning and training courses at various architecture schools.

Most of the colleges and universities that prepare future architects rely on the conventional tools and methods of training, based on drawing board, paper, pencil, etc. Plan of a building, park, township or a bridge is prepared on a paper and then a clay or cardboard model is prepared. While designing, architects have to consider different space coordinates and environmental constraints into account.

Various scientific as well as arithmetical modeling techniques are also put into application to bring out a viable model.

In conventional architecture, human creativity and designing skills are put to continuous test, as the customer demand both quality as well as economy in costs. Architects may be classified into categories depending upon their specialisation in a particular style of construction or area of operation. There are architects for residential apartments, commercial shopping complexes, industrial construction, landscapes, towns, bridges, dams or even for interior designing. Besides having sufficient innovative skills, a successful architect has to be aware of latest trends and techniques in the trade.

Just like any other trade, architecture has been influenced by Information Technology wave to a large extent. There is hardly any major construction project these days, which is not being aided by computer techniques. This offers yet another career opportunity for IT professionals or to the students of architecture to venture into the field of computer aided architecture.

Computer offers numerous advantages over the conventional pencil and drawing board method of architecture, the foremost being the considerable saving in cost and time from the conceptualising stage to design to model development. Since software that can create 3-dimensional models of the prepared design and suggest improvement or alterations are readily available, an architect can develop a large number of alternative designs as per the requirement of builder or client.

With the help of specialised software not only the viable design and layout is visualised for any civil engineering project, say a skyscraper, hospital, school, dam or a bridge, but an architect or a builder can find out the possible shortcomings during the planning stage itself. The same can be rectified even before the actual construction begins, thus saving heavy expenses that would have occurred at a later stage.

Computer-aided architecture has now become extremely relevant, whether it is large project say construction of bridge, involving investment of huge funds or a small renovation of house, primarily due to the advantages it offers. As the cost of construction and labour is phenomenal these days, no builder or a user can afford to waste money on unviable or expensive architectural designs.

Specialised software that has now been developed can help to determine the quantity of material that shall be required for the construction and the approximate cost that shall be incurred in the project. This gives a fairly accurate estimate of the project and an architect can determine its feasibility before hand. Builders or architects can also prepare complete quotation for a civil tender, keep record of labour wages and maintain accounting or financial records with the help of software packages.

In advanced countries, almost all construction projects are undertaken with the help of IT tools and techniques. These not only provide considerable saving in cost and time but also give much better design option to choose from. An architect with proficiency in CAD can carry out complex arithmetical calculations required for designing a structure, say a bridge or a dam. He can also determine the feasibility of a project considering the wind speed, soil or seismic activity in that area. With the help of simulation technique, complete 3D model of a structure can be created keeping into account the impact of external as well as internal factors. Software is now available that can do a complete interior designing of a house or a building. One can also prepare a layout of a town or a garden virtually on the monitor screen, giving user a complete visualisation of his project.

Demand for computer-proficient architects shall increase in the coming time as more complex and large civil engineering projects, factories or skyscrapers, airports and dams are constructed.

With heavy investment of funds, no government or businessmen can afford to lose money on a poor architectural design or a project, which is likely to prove unsuccessful later on. This will create more demand for professionals who can prepare complete design beforehand with fairly accurate estimate of costs involved. While there are a large number of architectural schools abroad that provide computer-aided curriculum, there are still a few institutes in our country that are conducting specialised computer architecture courses. Universities, as a part of their civil engineering course, are providing students exposure to specialised software. Similarly computer institutes in their advanced curriculum are training students on CAD tools and techniques.

Employment opportunity is available for IT professionals qualified in 3D animation or CAD. Besides, the students of civil engineering or architecture can also pursue additional course on computer-aided designing and architecture software and can increase their worth several folds.

In India as well as abroad, there is still a shortage of IT-proficient civil engineers or architects, and those who get trained in the specific software stand to gain lot of advantage over conventional ones. However, a person needs to have sufficient innovative and artistic capabilities to succeed in this field. There is enough opportunity to work either independently or in a large architectural firm. One can work as a draftsman, structural engineer, interior decorator, landscape designer, administrative coordinator, junior or senior architect.

Some of the leading educational institutions in the USA are offering computer-aided architecture courses and have produced a number of successful architects. The architecture schools in Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Yale, etc. work in collaboration with leading software companies like Microsoft or Sun Microsystems, thus provide the latest CAD technology to the construction industry. In India, some of the prestigious architecture schools are in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Delhi that provide graduate as well as post-graduate courses for the students. However for advanced computer skills, a candidate needs to join a course separately. Some of the most commonly used architectural software and tools are Auto CAD 2000, 3D Studio 4, 3DS Max, Visual DOE 2.0, Phoenics, etc. Besides, a Cyber architect should also be aware of Photoshop, Corel draw, MS Office, etc.