Design Games for Architecture: Creating Digital Design Tools with Unity

Westre, Aaron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415622778 ISBN 13: 9780415622776

Publisher: Routledge, 2013

Design Games for Architecture teaches you how to create playful software tools based on your architectural design processes, whether or not you are familiar with game design technology. The book combines the fun and engaging aspects of video games to ease the sometimes complex process of learning software development. By working through exercises illustrated with screen shots and code, you acquire knowledge about each step required to build useful tools you can use to accomplish design tasks. Steps include analysing design processes to identify their logic, translating that logic into a collection of objects and functions, then encoding the design procedure into a working software tool. Examples presented in the book are design games---tools that a designer “plays” like video games---that span a wide range of design activities. These software tools are built using Unity, free, innovative, and industry-leading software for video game development. Unity speeds up the process of software creation, offers an interface that will be familiar to you, and includes very advanced tools for creating forms, effects, and interactivity. If you are looking to add cutting-edge skills to your repertoire, then Design Games will help you sharpen your design thinking and allow you to specialize in this new territory while you learn more about your own design processes.

Review:

"In Design Games for Architecture, Aaron Westre provides the design disciplines with a valuable, engaging, and inspiring work that opens the doors to the powerful potentials of gaming to generate innovative designs and inspire new modes of design thinking."

David Newton, School of Architecture, McGill University, USA

"Design Games for Architecture introduces 'tools that are played rather than simply used.' Using five jargon-free projects arrayed on a gentle learning curve in the cross-platform Unity 3D game environment Westre covers the basics of JavaScript programming, models progressive refinement of applications, and makes a strong case for designers mixing code with their design process."

Brian R. Johnson, Department of Architecture, University of Washington, USA

About the Author:

Aaron Westre is an adjunct instructor at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture and founder of Artificial Natures, a design studio specializing in building custom software for architects and designers.