CADD Curriculum - The Issue of Visual Acuity

Design educators attempt to train the eyes and minds of students to see and comprehend the world around them with the intention of preparing those students to become good designers, critical thinkers and ultimately responsible architects. Over the last eight years we have been developing the digital media curriculum of our architecture program with these fundamental values. We have built digital media use and instruction on the foundation of our program which has historically been based in physical model making. Digital modeling has gradually replaced the capacity of physical models as an analytical and thinking tool, and as a communication and presentation device. The first year of our program provides a foundation and introduction to 2d and 3d design and composition, the second year explores larger buildings and history, the third year explores building systems and structure through design studies of public buildings, fourth year explores urbanism, theory and technology through topic studios and, during the fifth year students complete a capstone project. Digital media and CADD have and are being synchronized with the existing NAAB accredited regimen while also allowing for alternative career options for students. Given our location in the Los Angeles region, many students with a strong background in digital media have gone on to jobs in video game design and the movie industry. Clearly there is much a student of architecture must learn to attain a level of professional competency. A capacity to think visually is one of those skills and is arguably a skill that distinguishes members of the visual arts (including Architecture) from other disciplines. From a web search of information posted by the American Academy of Opthamology, Visual Acuity is defined as an ability to discriminate fine details when looking at something and is often measured with the Snellen Eye Chart (the 20/20 eye test). In the context of this paper visual acuity refers to a subject’s capacity to discriminate useful abstractions in a visual field for the purposes of Visual Thinking- problem solving through seeing (Arnheim, 1969, Laseau 1980, Hoffman 1998). The growing use of digital media and the expanding ability to assemble design ideas and images through point-and-click methods makes the cultivation and development of visual skills all the more important to today’s crop of young architects. The advent of digital media also brings into question the traditional, static 2d methods used to build visual skills in a design education instead of promoting active 3d methods for teaching, learning and developing visual skills. Interactive digital movies provide an excellent platform for promoting visual acuity, and correlating the innate mechanisms of visual perception with the abstractions and notational systems used in professional discourse. In the context of this paper, pedagogy for building visual acuity is being considered with regard to perception of the real world, for example the visual survey of an environment, a site or a street scene and how that visual survey works in conjunction with practice.