From media work in
the educational training of architects to experiences with the postgraduate
course „Architecture Media Management“
Harald Gatermann,
FH Bochum
University of Applied Sciences,
Contents
· Abstract
·
Research
in the field of media works - short overview
·
Teaching
CAD and architectural photography in the first year
·
Teaching
CAD and architectural photography in further years
·
Master
course „Architecture Media Management“
Keywords: Perception of space, Digital media, Computer
aided design, Digital visualisation
The core items of undergraduate
courses in architecture are the perception of space, geometry, material and the
influence of light. In
The versatile use of digital media
in the further studies is of essential significance - especially the synthesis
between architectural photography (with all its special features concerning
geometrical depicting) and CAD / visualisation /
animation.
Special emphasis is given to
techniques for simulation and immersion such as digital panorama photography,
combined with computer-based VR-modeling e.g. VRML as well as using
online-CAD-modeling and areal photography in
processes of citizen participation.
FH Bochum
UAP was one of the first schools of architecture in Germany converting to the
new european two-cycles systems of higher education,
offering a bachelor course and up to three master courses: architecture, town
planning (together with architecture schools in Siegen,
Cologne, Dortmund) and, unique in Germany (and the rest of the world) a masters
course in „Architecture media management“.
„Architecture media management“ is
based on two columns:
- interface between architecture (eg.
in architectural offices, firms, institutions) and the public (using print
media, tv, advertisement etc.)
- managing and archiving digital (and analogue) media
in architectural offices, firms, institutions.
The curriculum consists of courses
in professional architectural photography (APG), desk top publishing (DTP),
layout, webdesign - but not with the aim to get specialised in these fields, but to get the knowledge of
professionals and of preparing and developing strategies in using professional
methods.
It also consists of courses in
scientific methods and historical streams („history of media design“) as well
as basics in business administration or in rhetoric and intercultural
communication.
Two practical projects in the field
of media management bring together the different items of the lectures.
Visiting and analising fairs like the Expo Real or
MIPIM are perfecting the contact with practise.
The master theses of the last three
years show the wide variety of interesting new ways of finding the bridge
between architecture and the public / real estate / industry / institutions /
printed and online media.
Research and teaching
The role of a teacher at a university
is influenced by his personal skills, interests and experiences, combined with
the needs of the faculty and the curriculum (which itself is due to changes
from time to time . . . )
As an example I would like to
describe my own approach as a possible example in the field of using
photography as a medium of presentation and simulation.
My personal impact is influenced
by:
- experiences in my own time at the
university (photography, endoscopy)
- eye-level-photography using
SLR-cameras with wide angle lenses
- research projects in the field of
CAD and visualisation
The field of research of a teacher
is defined by his personal interests, talent, but also the circumstances of his
education, practise, projects, clients etc., while
the field of teaching depends on the curriculum, defined by ministries,
faculties etc. The intersection of both could be defined as „personal
teaching“.
The field of teaching, defined for
my person, was design, construction and computer aided design. In the first
year I was building up my personal curriculum in this field. Especially for
teaching CAD we developed a ten-step-program, which was very sucessful and accepted by the students. Even in the field
of training the personel of architecture firms this
kind of structured program had a positive acceptance.
It was a course of 10 lectures,
starting with the user interface, layer-structure, creating and editing of
2D-structures, creating and editing of 3D-objects like a garage-building, the rietveld-chair, a Mies-van-der-Rohe
pavillon, the Walser-House
by Luigi Snozzi.
The 10-step program was the basis
for learning the principles of CAD with the software, we offered to the
students (at that time RIBCON, a CAD-software developed in
In the next semester we asked the
students to transfer this 10-step program to another software (Archicad, Allplan, Autocad). This method has great relevance for practical
work of the students, who have different phases of practical work, where they
find different software and have to deal with that software in a short time. On
the other hand this methods intensifies the understanding of principles, typical
for CAD-software (e.g. vector-graphic, layer, creating and editing) and
individual features of different CAD-software.
The 10-step-program, by which
certain 2D- and 3D-ojects are created, is still used in our lecture, even when
the CAD-software, we use in the first semester, is no longer RIBCON. Instead we
use Archicad as our choice for beginners and Allplan as our choice for the second semester and for more
sophisticated applications.
Teaching research
We evaluated this method of
teaching and developed a booklet and a Toolbook-e-learning-lecture,
which was presented at the
Hypermedia
Apart from the field of teaching we
were pioneers of combining 3D geometrical data from planned or realized
buildings for terminal-based information systems. Here we also used Toolbook as authoring software. The apllications
reached from information systems for our own university to museums and
exhibitions. It was the time of the first 19“-touchscreen, available for
Windows 3.1 PC´s !
The year 1994 brought the order to
develop an online-information system for the BTX-system of the German telephone
company (analogue to the very popular minitel-system
in
Internet
Even it was not popular and not
necessary for our core field of teaching (CAD), we were eager to see what was
possible in the world wide community of online users. We introduced one of the
first internet-portals for architects on Sept. 1st, 1995: www.archinet.de
By this means we suddenly were the
pioneers in the architecture scene and were asked for consulting a lot of firms
and publishers.
Quicktime VR (QTVR)
The circle was closed with the introduction
of Quicktime VR by Apple: again it was the
combination of different media: internet and photography. We were such
fascinated, that we ordered and used all available eqipment,
which was necessary at that time to produce QTVR´s
in panorama- and object-mode.
VRML and Real-VR
On the other hand the invention of
VRML brought new ideas: visualisation of CAD-data via
the internet, cooperative working and design, futuristic ideas of developing
virtual communities and cities by creating 3D-objects (and avatars).
All of those inventions and
introductions of new technologies were taken to the lectures and seminars. By
this means the lecture had to be „updated“ every year.
In the shadow of VRML Eric Chen,
the creator of QTVR at Apple, developed a more open system with more
functionality: Real-VR, which is based on VRML 2.0.
We developed a tutorial for VRML
and got the order for a research project named „Immersive techniques in
architecture and building science“.
Research in the field of
media works - short overview
To show the personal items in the
field of media works, i will shortly describe some
key projects, all as an intersection between CAD and other segments of
architecture and design.
Research can also mean research in
the field of teaching and developing didactical concepts.
· Research project „autotektur“
· Research project „HIT“
·
Research
project „immersive techniques in architecture“
·
Research
project IMLAB, aspect „collaborative design“
·
Research
project IMLAB, aspect „media database“
·
Research
project IMLAB, aspect „academic network“
·
Research
project IMLAB, aspect „tools and methods in the age of digital media“
·
Research project „citizen
participation in planning“ (Fig. 1, Fig. 2)
Fig. 1. Aerial view of Meckenheim -
the green area is the base for planning alternatives
Fig. 2. Simulation by combining CAD and photography - visualising one of the planning alternatives
·
Research
project „standardised CAD Tutorial“
·
Research
project „standardised APG Tutorial“
·
Research
project „standardised APG Parcours“
Teaching CAD and
architectural photography in the first year
The perception of space, geometry, material and
the influence of light is one the core items of undergraduate courses in
architecture.
In
Students, coming to the university,
have to learn different subjects at the same time: construction and
design, drawing and drafting, descriptive geometry and computer aided design
(CAD) (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3. Simulation by combining CAD and photography - visualising one of the planning alternatives
Especially descriptive geometry and
CAD design show a lot of parallels. A third item is architectural photography.
In
Students regularly own a digital
camera, only a few still have deeper knowledge of analogue reflex cameras. So
we developed a 10-step-course of taking pictures in a systematic way:
Exercise 1: Beginning with a
2D-object, an advertising panel (Fig. 4(a,b), Fig.
5), students learn to understand the principle rules: the 2D-object has to be
parallel to the film plane to get an orthogonal picture as a result.
a) b)
Fig. 4(a,b). Advertising panels as
object for photography and CAD
Fig. 5. The position and direction of the camera influences
the result
Here the analogy to CAD begins: we
simulate this exercise in a CAD-model. This gives insight to 3D-CAD-software
and principles of constructing 3D-objects. By putting a virtual camera as a 3D-object
into CAD-modell, we can simulate the role of the
point of view, the direction of the lens, the inclination of the camera, the
alternative views by changing the focal length of a fixed lens or a zoom-lens.
After this first exercise on both media (photography and CAD) a lot of
principles of both worlds have became clearer and allow the first immersion
into a scenario of simulation, which is essential for the further study
program.
The further steps of the
10-step-course can be found in Fig. 6 (or as web-based course: http://www.fh-bochum.de/fb1/gat/apg ).
Fig. 6. Modularised
courses in architectural photography (APG) and computer aided design (CAD) for
first year students
One of the principals of the
photography-course: the students have to take their pictures, see all the
difficulties, they have and afterwards the difficulties are subject of the next
lecture or seminar. In the seminar the students use their mock-up-studio on the
computer-monitor: they have to construct a CAD-model of the
real-world-scenario, where they took their photograph (Fig. 7). In this
CAD-model they can easiely change all
influence-factors and simultaneously see the result of their decision.
Fig. 7. The photography of an advertising panel - simulated in
a „mock-up-studio“ in CAD
At the end the students reach
different didactical results: improvement of their way to use a camera,
improvement in their manner to interact in a simulated 3D-world, more interest
in constructing 3D-objects in CAD.
To close the didactical bridge to descriptive
geometry: the students have to analyse their digital
photographs by graphical methods directly on the screen (Fig. 8, Fig. 9, Fig.
10). By this method they intensify their conciousness
for photographical principles as well as for the understanding of vanishing
points and other principles of the descriptive geometry.
Fig. 8. Analysing a photography by
filling in the vanishing points and
controlling the data of the camera (point of view, hight,
angle) with those of the CAD-model
Fig. 9. The middle of the picture is marked by two diagonals:
it shows the hight of the untilt
camera and marks the horizon
Fig. 10. The middle of the picture is marked by two
diagonals: here it shows the point of view with a tilt camera
Teaching CAD and
architectural photography in further years
On the next level (in the second
year) students learn how to use digital photography in the sense of photogrammetry, i.e. to get measurements out of a digital
photograph - either directly by counting the pixels or by import to a CAD-software
(Fig. 11(a,b)).
a)
b)
Fig. 11(a,b). Photography of a facade
as base for digital measurement
Also many students take photographs
from materials and facades to generate their own material-catalog for CAD-visualisation.
Special emphasis is given to get in
touch with stereo-techniques in photography (taking pictures and visualise them using web-java-technology - the stereo-plugin) and also in CAD, by creating perspective views from
two parallel points of view (Fig. 12, Fig. 13).
Fig. 12. Stereo photography as a medium for finding new
ways of perception and as a medium for documentation of 3D-installations
Fig. 13. Pair of stereo sights as a result of CAD-visualisation
Students are also interested in
learning and using the techniques of photographing design-models in simulated
eye-level - using natural background and lighting or artificial one (Fig. 14).
Fig. 14. Design model photographed from simulated
eye-level
Other more sophisticated methods
like panorama-photography or VRML are subject to seminars.
Both methods of creating digital
panoramas, are used: the stitching-methods (possible with standard digital
cameras) and the scanning method with professional digital scanner cameras,
such as the SPHERON camera (Fig. 15, Fig. 16).
Fig. 15. Highly professional camera equipment: the
digital scanner panorama camera SPHERON, directly connected to a notebook
Fig. 16. Combining photography and CAD-visualisation
for immersive environments in VRML
Master course
„Architecture Media Management“
The classical job of architects has
changed in the last years. It becomes more and more important not only to offer
the classical facilities, but to open the field of activity in a broader sense.
The FH Bochum
university was one of the first schools of architecture in Germany converting
to the new european two-cycles systems of higher
education, offering a bachelor course and up to three master courses:
architecture, town planning (together with architecture schools in Siegen, Cologne, Dortmund) and, unique in Germany (and the
rest of the world) a masters course in „Architecture media management“ (Fig.
17)..
Fig. 17. Architect and Media manager
„Architecture media management“ is based on two
columns:
·
interface
between architecture (eg. in architectural offices,
firms, institutions) and the public (using print media, tv,
advertisement etc.);
- managing and archiving digital (and analogue) media
in architectural offices, firms, institutions.
The interest is enormous: more than
100 architects are interested in this programme every
year - from all parts of Germany and the german
speaking countries (up to now the programme is only
offered in german due to the intensive part of
formulating highly sophisticated text for press and media). That gives us the
chance to make a entrance-qualification-test. The capacity is 20 students per
year. In the meantime we had 3 years of experience with this one-year-course.
It is absolutely positive: the students (and lecturers) are highly motivated,
the results are of extraordinary quality and nearly everyone gets a new job or
a better position in their firm or office, where they worked before.
The curriculum (Fig.
18) consists of courses in professional
architectural photography (APG), desk top publishing (DTP), layout, webdesign - but not with the aim to get specialised
in these fields, but to get the knowledge of professionals and of preparing and
developing strategies in using professional methods.
Fig. 18. Moduls of the master course
It also consists of courses in scientific
methods and historical streams („history of media design“) as well as basics in
business administration or in rhetoric and intercultural communication.
Two practical projects in the field of media management
bring together the different items of the lectures. Visiting and analising fairs like the Expo Real or MIPIM are perfecting
the contact with practise.
The master theses of the last three years show
the wide variety of interesting new ways of finding the bridge between
architecture and the public / real estate / industry / institutions / printed
and online media.
The consequent use of digital
techniques from the first year is the base for future-oriented teaching, which
is necessary for students during their studies but also for their ability to be
professional and versatile teamplayers in architects
offices and their future jobs.
Not only in the field of teaching
but also in the engagement in research digital media, especially the combination
of CAD and photography are in the focus in
The main focus of the masters
program is to be a connector and communicator between the classical architect
and the world of media, press and industry. In this case the management of
digital media is more important than the depth of versatility in producing
media.
1. Gatermann, Harald.. The Didactic Triangle - Using CAD, Photography and
Descriptive Geometry as Educating Tools with Mutual Influence, Architecture in
the Network Society. Proc. of the 22-nd eCAADe Conference..
2. Gatermann, Harald;
Czerner, Juergen.. Modular
E-Learning-Environment for Architecture, Digital Design. Proc. of the 21-th eCAADe Conference..
3. Czerner, Jürgen;
Gatermann, Harald..
Modeling and Rendering Virtual Architecture by Using Fisheye-Panorama-Based
Images and Lightings in HDR-Quality.. Proc.. of the 6-th Iberoamerican
Congress of Digital Graphics (SIGraDi 2002),
4. Czerner, Jürgen;
Gatermann, Harald..
Modeling and rendering virtual architecture by using fisheye-panorama-based
images and lightings in HDR-quality, Connecting the Real and the Virtual -
design e-ducation.. Proc. of the 20-th eCAADe Conference,
5. Gatermann, Harald;
Czerner, Juergen..
6. Gatermann, Harald.
First step to augmented reality: Combining vrml and pano-photos.. Proc.. of the 6-th Conference on Computer
Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA 2001),
7. Gatermann, Harald..
From Vrml to Augmented reality via
panorama-integration and eai-java.. Construindo (n)o espacio digital
(constructing the digital Space. Proc. of the 4-th SIGraDi
Conference,
8. Gatermann, Harald..
Using Hypermedia as a Teaching Tool in CAD Education.. The Virtual Studio..
Proc.. of the 12-th European Conference on Education in Computer Aided
Architectural Design,