A biased history of CAAD: the bibliographic version

The democratization and popularization of the computer has brought on fundamental changes to many areas related to computer science, including CAAD. Such areas have been facing the necessity to reposition and reorient themselves in rapidly evolving academic and professional frameworks. A factor that complicates the processes of repositioning and reorientation is that most areas have a short but varied and frequently incoherent history that may be poorly understood. The paper is an attempt to trace the history of CAAD by means of publications. This refers to both key publications and the thematic structure of the overall CAAD production. The underlying hypothesis is that CAAD derives from two distinct ambitions, the technology-driven, bottom-up development of architectural computer graphics and the more domain theory-minded, top-down automation of designing. A third, less popular ambition is the computerization of analysis and evaluation, which can be treated as a subcategory of the previous two. The results of the bibliographic analysis are summarized in a timeline that indicates a convergence of ambitions and approaches in the 1980s, the period when CAAD became a recognizable area. In the 1990s the democratization and popularization of the computer caused diversification of CAAD activities over a wide spectrum, ranging from support to end-use of computer systems to computational theory and including the development of advanced, specific applications in cooperation with other architecture, building or design specializations.