CSDC 301 HISTORY AND THEORY OF DESIGN COMPUTATION
This course will provide students with a broad historical context for contemporary computational design. Focusing on the relationship between technical systems, social systems, and aesthetic experimentation, it starts by examining design’s relationship to engineering and social sciences in the 19th and early 20th centuries and ends with the introduction of computation to aesthetic production during the late 1950s through the 1980s. This course will help students ground their work in design studios and technical seminars in a historically informed understanding of their chosen field of study. Instruction will be provided through short lectures and seminar discussions based on assigned readings from key texts that shaped the field. Assignments will include short-form writing and a term paper. Since text and writing play an important role in the development of computational aesthetics, students will be introduced to computational writing techniques as a way of generating ideas
Prerequisite
class='sc-courselink' href='/en/2025-2026/catalog-25-26/courses/writ-writing/100/writ-113'>WRIT 113, First Year Academic Writing; class='sc-courselink' href='/en/2025-2026/catalog-25-26/courses/lsci-library-science/100/lsci-105'>LSCI 105, Information Theory and Practice, or class='sc-courselink' href='/en/2025-2026/catalog-25-26/courses/lsci-library-science/100/lsci-106'>LSCI 106, Information Sources in Architecture and Interior Design, or LSCI 205, Information in the Disciplines