Introduction

The book contains the papers developed from the presentations at the Distributed Intelligence in Design Symposium, held in Salford in May 2009. In this context, Distributed Intelligence refers to the interdisciplinary knowledge of a range of different individuals in different organisations, with different backgrounds and experience, and the symposium discussed the media, technologies and behaviours required to support their successful collaboration.

Focus of the Book

The book focusses on:

• how parametric and generative design media can be coupled with and managed alongside Building Information Modelling tools and systems
• how the cross-disciplinary knowledge is distributed and coordinated across different software, participants and organizations
• the characteristics of the evolving creative and collaborative practices
• how built environment education should be adapted to this digitally-networked practice and highly distributed intelligence in design

Content and Contributions

The chapters address a range of innovative developments, methodologies, applications, research work and theoretical arguments, to present current experience and expectations as collaborative practice becomes critical in the design of future built environments.