Three views on the RAE Design and the computer. Fundamental questions of design

The two articles on canopies in the last issue of arq (6/3, pp214–229 and 230–245) make interesting reading. The briefs must have been quite similar – but what a difference in approach to design! Both canopies had to provide temporary cover to a fairly small area, during the summer, at about the level of a normal storey height, and both had to be easy to put up and take down in a fairly short time. The canopy in a courtyard in Amsterdam had to relate to the building and was originally intended to partly surround a tree [1]; the canopy for the Chelsea Flower Show was free-standing in the garden [2]. But the differences in situation do not account for the differences in design approach. The only common points here were that both were designed by a collaborative effort between architect and engineer – surely the only way to design something like this – and for both the starting point seemed to be, by implication, the rejection of anything totally regular, and the need to be innovative.