Explorations in Teaching Design Students to Think and Produce Computationally

This paper describes a dynamic teaching model developed to explore new intellectual and theoretical directions of design generation. It utilizes shape grammars as a pedagogical tool for introducing the concept of design computing to graduate students of architecture without a background in computation theory. The teaching model has developed in two parallel run courses: 1-Introduction to Computational Logic in Design: a visual generative design tool shape grammar is used as a tool to teach design students computational logic, 2-Designing the Design: The design students are introduced with the new language and method of designing. Examples from the Computational Design graduate curriculum at Yildiz Technical University are given to illustrate explorations in this new teaching of design.