The Master of Science in Computational Design Practices (M.S.CDP) is an innovative program for recent graduates and practitioners that extends and integrates disciplines between architecture, data visualization, and urban planning—focusing specifically on computational design practices for the built environment at multiple scales. It aims to pioneer new concepts and pedagogies for an integrated multi-scalar and spatial approach to computational design at Columbia GSAPP. The M.S.CDP curriculum encourages critical and creative engagement with spatial computational design as both method and practice.

In his seminal 1987 text Science in Action, Bruno Latour posited that the best way to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed is to study scientists at work. In doing so, he sought to break down the black boxes that conveniently turn messy social and technical processes into established truths that can be taken for granted and relied upon.

This course studied design computation in action by following the trajectory of the designer and the lifecycle of the design project. From Latour, we know that a great deal about design computation can be learned by putting it into practice; and simultaneously, that design work can never escape the circumstances of its production. Rather than look at the design project as the outcome of a particular brief, problem, or provocation, this course peered inside the black box of computational design to interrogate how designers conceive, organize, and structure their projects; their studio environments, tools, and software; the means by which they perform, facilitate, or automate design labor; and the social circumstances of collaboration, criticism, pedagogy, and practice.