Soft Skills for Digital Designers

Abstract

<p>Computer-Aided Drafting and Design (CADD) technologies have become commonplace in architectural practice as tools of efficiency and production. For these very reasons the introduction of CADD in early architectural curricula has been fraught with anxieties along a continuum: from the undoing of creativity through positivist and reductionist logic 1 to a firm belief that these technologies will revolutionize the way architects practice and think about design. 2 At the same time, there is a presumption that students who have grown up with digital technologies are “digital natives” who possess special aptitudes or insights which are disruptive to learning computing. The presence of these anxieties and biases often leads to gaps in digital design instruction, as tools are misunderstood and misappropriated by students and teachers alike.</p>