An Argument for Digital Media in Practice and Ephemeral Generative Potential

This paper reviews the debate for and against the role of digital media in architectural designing. The architectural design community continues to remain polarized between the two camps. However, the arguments experienced through practice and which are presented in available literature are not unwarranted. It is suggested that they tend to undermine the sophistication of a contemporary architectural designer and distract from the more pertinent issue of how to advance design creativity. This review of the main argument will form the foreground for exploring opportunities in this paper, and in future academic research, for the integration of digital media in the early stages of designing, in particular the generative uses of digital media employed for creative potential. This paper draws conclusions through practice-based research that demonstrate that aspects such as spatiality and formation can be extended through digital media. Furthermore, computational explorations that are coupled with looser, more ephemeral approaches can result in digital media integrations that do not impede creativity or conventional design processes