Reflections on My Architectural Journey and Why I Chose Design Computation

As someone trained in architecture with a specialization in design computation, I’ve often found myself caught between admiration and skepticism toward my field. Architecture, in its broadest sense, spans the hierarchy of human knowledge—rooted in physics and chemistry, informed by biology and psychology, and shaped by social and cultural forces. Yet it ultimately resides within the humanities. And this layered position has become both a source of richness and unease in my ongoing reflection on the discipline.

The Longing for Objectivity

In my quieter moments, I’ve wondered whether I should have studied something more "objective"—like physics, chemistry, or biology. These sciences, grounded in testable hypotheses and falsifiable claims, offer a kind of intellectual certainty that architecture seldom affords. You can calculate the speed of light, measure the yield strength of steel, trace the pathways of a neural circuit. In architecture, however, truth is murkier. A design is successful—or not—based on shifting criteria: aesthetics, functionality, cultural relevance, emotion.

In this light, my discomfort begins to make sense. While architecture relies on scientific and technical knowledge, its outputs are filtered through layers of abstraction, symbolism, and human subjectivity. It’s an enterprise shaped as much by politics, taste, and economics as by gravity or thermodynamics.

Architecture as Emergent Knowledge

I’ve come to think of architecture as a kind of emergent knowledge—an upper layer built on the scaffolding of more fundamental sciences. If physics is the bedrock, chemistry the bonding, and biology the self-organizing form, then architecture is where these systems are shaped into human experience. It is a cultural act as much as a structural one. And that duality, while difficult, is precisely what makes it potent.

But for someone drawn to systems, logic, and models, this ambiguity can feel unsatisfying. That’s why I gravitated toward design computation.

Why I Chose Design Computation

Unlike the term “computational design,” which sometimes risks being reduced to an aesthetic movement or formal style, design computation refers to a deeper engagement with systems thinking, algorithmic logic, and the generative potential of code. For me, it offered a way to reengage with architecture through the analytical clarity I found so compelling in the sciences.

Through computation, I could simulate structural behaviors, model environmental conditions, and explore emergent geometries with rigor. I could write algorithms that didn’t just represent a design, but generated it. It transformed my role from being a form-giver to a rule-maker—someone who sets up the conditions for complexity to emerge.

In this space, architecture becomes testable again. Not in the strict empirical sense of physics, but through iteration, performance, feedback, and optimization. I could ask: What if this system adapts? What if this pattern learns? And then, I could watch it unfold.

The Beauty of the In-Between

What I’ve come to appreciate is that my dissatisfaction was never a weakness of architecture itself, but a misalignment of expectations. Architecture isn’t a hard science, and it doesn’t need to be. But when combined with computational thinking, it becomes a field uniquely equipped to grapple with the complexities of a dynamic, data-rich world.

In the end, I no longer see design computation as a departure from architecture, but as a return to its original promise: to shape space through reason and imagination, to navigate the known and the unknowable.

So if you, like me, have ever felt uneasy about the ambiguity that surrounds architecture, know that it’s okay to look downward—toward physics, chemistry, and biology—not to step away from architecture, but to engage with it more deeply. And through computation, perhaps we can build new bridges between matter and experience, form and feedback, the measurable and the emergent.

Originally written as a personal reflection, now shared to invite discussion on the evolving role of computation in design.