An illuminated workspace for iterative design

Abstract

The rapid development of digital technology has led to the widespread of virtual or CAD based design environments. However, these tools lack a means of combing physical and digital representations in order to support the iterative design process. The illuminated workspace provides a self-contained design environment in which a number of physical, computational, statistical, and visual representations can be combined in a single creative space. This thesis describes a landscape design workbench called Illuminating Clay that allows designers to intuitively manipulate free-form physical models and simultaneously interact with computational analysis of these physical representations. This thesis shows how the system supports multiple forms of representation - physical models, 2-D images, digital models, and dynamic simulations - in the early stage of design and allows for an easy transition between physical and digital modeling in the process of landscape design.