| The increase in specialization of the disciplines of Architecture, Engineering and Construction Management (AEC) is putting greater demand on the communication media used by these disciplines for the purpose of collaborating in the design of new buildings. While significant advances have been made in information and communication technologies, the full realization of their potential as collaboration media in the AEC industry has been limited by the conventions, methods, procedures and practices used by these disciplines, when paper was the primary medium of choice. Computer aided design (CAD) is, therefore, seen primary as a drafting tool. In order to fulfill the promise of CAD as a means of improved collaboration it is necessary to understand and compare the effort and resulting reward of using various media as means of communication. Early CAD systems focused on improving design as well as visualization; however, they were unable to improve collaboration due to a lack of standards. Current CAD systems have partially overcome this problem, by communicating relatively primitive information, in the form of lines or geometric objects. However, for CAD to fulfill its promise, it must communicate higher levels of information. Such communication requires, however, significant effort of the sender and the receiver of the information, so much so that the effort may overwhelm the utility derived from it. In this dissertation, I lay out a different way of thinking about media and its use in the AEC industry. Within this way of thinking we can compare past, present and future communication media and what they can offer. To illustrate this, I have also created a program that allows students to experience thinking and practicing in this new mode of communication as well as experience some aspects of the effects of improved collaborative communication. |
