An Experiment in Multidisciplinary Digital Design

The design and realization of complex buildings requires multidisciplinary design collaboration from early on in the design process. The intensive use of digital design environments in this process demands new knowledge and skills from the involved players including integrating and managing digital design data, developing custom design tools, and utilizing visualization and rapid prototyping techniques. In order to prepare our students for these evolving practices we have developed a multidisciplinary collaborative design studio, named XXL, where student teams work in groups and each students claims a role: architectural design, structural design, digital design, construction and cladding design, and process management. In this paper, we describe the studio, discuss the contributions of the Digital Design Manager, and relate these contributions to design education and practice.