STRUCTURAL GLASS FACADES - USC School of Architecture

“PRINCIPLE ONE: Equitable Use
The design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities.
Guidelines:
1a. Provide the same means of use for all users: identical whenever possible; equivalent
when not.
1b. Avoid segregating or stigmatizing any users.
1c. Provisions for privacy, security, and safety should be equally available to all users.
1d. Make the design appealing to all users.”
Design guidelines can be used as the basis of a process, and the process can then be
mapped, guiding the user in a series of steps constructed to best facilitate that process and
yield a predictable outcome. The process and steps embody the design guidelines,
functioning as a design wizard or even an expert system. In this form the guidelines become
part of a design tool as discussed below.
4.2 Design Tools
Design tools facilitate some aspect of the design scope of work; AutoCad is a robust, broadbased
design tool in the form of a software program that facilitates the design drawing
process. Today, most design tools come in the form of computer-automated software
programs for such applications as; computer-aided design (CAD), 3-d modeling, animation,
web authoring, desktop publishing, illustration, imaging, structural analysis, building
information modeling (BIM), daylight modeling, climate analysis, and energy modeling,
among others. The tools can be broad-based and intended to provide comprehensive
support of a design process, or finely tuned to some particular aspect of a process. Some
are intended to simplify a process or some part of a process, making it faster and/or more
easily accessible to a user.
There are also a great variety of digital tools available online. These are generally limited in
scope and focused on some particular aspect of a process or product. Many product
providers maintain websites that include design tools specific to their products that provide
support for selecting options, sizing, specifying, as well as costing and ordering information.
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