Abstract

With the evolution of computational design, industrial designers, architects, and mechanical engineers have never had so many tools and techniques to create and develop their solutions. Moving beyond the common passive use of computer tools, in all these fields, professionals are using computer-based approaches to augment their spectrum of possibilities, enabling the creation of optimized structures, the rapid and easy change of parameters, the sweeping of a vast space of solutions, the creative exploration of shapes, and more. While all these contributions arising from various fields have been adding to build knowledge on the topic, their distinct origins have created a blurred landscape, in which similar terms such as parametric design, algorithmic design, and generative design are frequently used indiscriminately to designate different things. This uncritical approach, typical of emerging research topics, leads to misconceptions and creates constraints in the learning and research process. Following a two-step literature review approach, including a semi-systematized review followed by an integrative review, this article addresses those concepts connected with computational design and how they are defined and applied in different disciplines. Beyond the necessary discursive clarification among fields of knowledge and their respective use, its major contribution is the proposal of an integrative model for computational design called Computational Design Cubed [CD]3. The proposed model introduces the idea of highlighting the relation between parametric, algorithmic, and generative design as a different axis of the same process rather than distinguishing them as isolated concepts.