Architectural design and production is becoming more and more a digitally-networked practice, and an outcome of distributed activities within and across organisations that involves various collaborative interactions and embedding intelligence into the formation, organisation, performance and actualisation of spaces.

Recent introduction and coupling of digitally mediated design and production environments facilitated a radical deviation from the traditional ways of using representations, knowledge assets, organisational forms and standards. At the core of the technological shift lies the 3D knowledge rich Parametric Design and Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools/systems. These systems offer radically new methodologies to merge design with execution. The relationship between the designer, the organisational structure of the collaborating parties and their interaction with different tools (e.g. Parametric design and BIM tools) at different stages of the design process and the extent to which this interaction contributes to innovation vary. Different tools and systems suggest different workflows and support different organisational structures and methodologies. As architectural design/production moving towards a more dynamic and process oriented model for digital practice, both the profession and the academy is in the process of coming terms with these new forms of thinking.

The symposium will investigate the emerging concept of “Distributed Intelligence in Design”. In this context, Distributed Intelligence refers to a multitude of interdisciplinary knowledge constituted by different individuals with different backgrounds and experience, the media and technologies that support their individual thought and inter-individual communication and the social network that links them together. The focus will be on:

• how a multitude of Parametric and Generative design media is coupled with and managed alongside Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools and systems, in current architectural/engineering practices;
• how the cross-disciplinary intelligence is distributed and dynamically coordinated across different design/modelling software, actors, organisations;
• what are the characteristics of the evolving creative and collaborative practices (e.g. emerging skills, organisational and cognitive structures);
• how can architectural education adapt to this digitally-networked practice and highly distributed intelligence in design.