Four buildings have been added to the timeline to act as a reference. These are somewhat arbitrary and do not necessarily represent precedents in use of technology.
Each of the buildings shown relate in some way to the story of computing in architecture, not least the Lloyds building, the design of which commenced before any of the CAD packages that we know today. The Lloyds building was designed and built in the period that saw the appearance of the first personal computers. This led to a change in the way buildings are used and serviced and consequently changed the form of the buildings themselves. The affect of computing on architecture is undeniable but not always obvious. New design tools change the way architects work but the affect of design tools on the design of the buildings produced is sometimes less easy to identify.
There have been a great many pioneers of architectural design tools. Many tools have been developed and for one reason or other they have been abandoned or superseded. It is worth making the observation that there is often little inclination to share detailed information on active design projects. Once buildings are complete and considerations of confidentiality have past these details fade from memory as focus switches to new challenges. Therefore much pioneering work is lost to public record. This timeline is admittedly only the bare bones of the story.
1928 Tintenkuli nibless drawing pen (precursor to Rotring Rapidograph)
1953 Rotring Rapidograph drawing pen
1953 IBM 650 series of computers
1956 First computer keyboard
1957 Jorn Utzon wins international competition to design Sydney Opera House. Ove Arup & Partners engaged as engineers.
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| Sydney Opera House detail Image by Leithcote / Antony Oliver (Flickr) via Wikimedia Commons |
1959 Letraset founded - manually applied lettering system
1959 Calcomp 565 pen plotter
1960 DEC release first Mini Computer, the PDP-1, priced between $125,000 and $250,000. This computer was used to play 'Spacewar', the first digital screen game.
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| Spacewar running on PDP-1 Image Joi Ito via Wikimedia Commons |
1962 Douglas Englebart envisions BIM in "Augmenting Human Intellect". He anticipates object based design, parametric manipulation and a relational database
1963 Ivan Sutherland writes Sketchpad considered to be the ancestor of modern CAD programs
1963 First Pantone Matching System Printers Edition
1963 First computer mouse, invented by Douglas Englebert
1965 After 8 years work on Sydney Opera House Tim Rice and Tony Cramm write a program from scratch, they run it at night borrowing time on an Australian General Electric computer to calculate positions of pre-cast segments.
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| Sydney Opera House 1968 Image by PhillipC (Flickr) via Wikimedia Commons |
1969 Appalachian Conference, led by SOM at an IBM research facility. Out of this was formed the SOM, Computer Group
1973 Sydney Opera House opens
1974 Intergraph IGDS, precursor to MicroStation
1975 DRAW2D, SOM Computer Group
1977 DRAW3D, SOM Computer Group
1977 Really Universal Computer Aided Production System (RUCAPS) sold through GMW Computers Ltd (from GMW Architects)
1978 Richard Rogers begins work on Lloyd's Building
1981 IBM launches first Personal Computer running Microsoft MS DOS 1.0
1982 AutoCAD 1.0
1982 Catia 1.0
1982 Romulus, the first 3D modelling kernel. Later becomes ACIS.
1984 MicroStation 1.0
1984 ArchiCAD 1.0 (named Radar CH for first version only)
1984 First HP LaserJet printer, Apple's LaserWriter followed the following year
1985 MiniCAD 1.0 (later renamed VectorWorks)
1986 Lloyds Building completed
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| Richard Rogers Partnership, Lloyds Building detail Image from Oast House Archive via Wikimedia |
1987 First commercial SLA 3D printer, SLA-1, made by 3D Systems
1988 STL file format
1989 First Commercial SLS 3D printer built by DTM (later acquired by 3D Systems)
1989 ACIS 3D modelling kernel
1989 Parasolid 3D modelling kernel
1990 Photoshop 1.0
1992 Magics 1.0 (an STL editor which became the industry standard software for 3D print bureaus.
1993 PDF 1.0
1994 Gehry Technologies founded
1997 First commercial Z Corporation 3D printer, Z402
1997 Foster + Partners begin work on 30 St Mary Axe
1998 Foster + Partners' Specialist Modelling Group formed, 30 St Mary Axe becomes one of their first projects
1998 Rhinoceros launched
2000 Morphosis buy a ZPrinter from Z Corporation. They are one of the first architectural practices to run a 3D printer in-house.
2000 Revit 1.0
2001 Microstation v8 (file format changes for first time)
2001 Smartgeometry Group formed
2002 Autodesk acquire Revit
2002 AutodDesk whitepaper "Building Information Modelling"
2003 Bentley Systems' Generative Components in Alpha
2003 64-bit processors become available in personal computers
2004 Morphosis begin designing Cooper Union building using 3D printing as part of the design process
2004 Foster + Partners' 30 St Mary Axe completed
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| Foster + Partners, 30 St Mary Axe Image by Nevilley via Wikimedia |
2005 Launch of Spectrum 510 colour 3D printer by ZCorporation. The increased resolution and build size meant reasonable quality architectural concept models could be printed overnight.
2008 - ZPrinter 650, replaced for the 510 with slightly larger build
2008 Great Recession begins
2009 Morphosis's Cooper Union building completed
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| Morphosis, Cooper Union building Image by Short Dale via Wikimedia |
2012 3D Systems acquires ZCorporation and rebrands the ZPrinter range as ProJet x60
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Hi ;] U need to adjust the info: 1963 First computer mouse, invented by Douglas Englebert
ReplyDeleteIt is actualy not THE first mouse ;]
Thank you for the article!