The interrogation format of the book title When is the Digital in Architecture" bespeaks the ongoing debate about the relationship of digital technology and design. But this anthology of essays is also a history book, albeit covering a very recent past from about 1985-2005. And although premised on the Canadian Centre for Architecture series of exhibitions over those two decades, it is very much a standalone text. It is a ?critical and historical project, rather than a summation? of design, as Nathalie Bredella suggests in her essay in the book. Digital technology and its applications are related to architectural design and construction. This anthology of essays by experts in the field provides an overview of the effects of digital media on architectural thought and production: how it changes the way we shape, make and think about the buildings we live in.     When is the Digital in Architecture"
Full disclosure: in the mid-1990s, I studied architecture at Columbia University under many of the essayists in this book, including Bernard Tschumi and Stan Allen. I also studied with Hani Rashid and Saskia Sassen. After graduation, I worked for Asymptote Architecture in New York for almost a year. It was a transformative time. We worked in mid-transition from the analog to the digital age, and the challenges were enormous. At Asymptote, we used digital technology to design dramatically leaning walls, but the engineering process was still analog. Three-D modelling and ...