We've had a few projects in the pipeline for a couple of years now, dealing with process documentation. AAA is the first one to be put in use on a larger scale, at the Spiro chair of architecture at ETH Zürich. The goal is twofold:
- Successfully (whatever that means) catalogue the working process of students, and present this process in a way that's understandable to the next generation.
- Link the process and findings with materials from the Swiss Material Archive two ways, to increase the level and depth of metadata in the archive.
AAA consists of a DB/storage back-end, a web application and a mobile app for easy collection and input of content. People can create individual or collaborative "projects", define milestones and working groups, and administer member rights within these.
Using AAA in education is kind of a case study, albeit one that tangents much of what we want to achieve/investigate. The idea is to introduce the tool gradually to other areas, starting with construction engineers, then thesis projects, then independent architecture studios. The underlaying system is currently being reworked to accommodate much more freedom, using project templates and consolidated tagging. The focus is still on architecture, but ultimately we want to be able to use this in a very wide variety of fields.
And yes, we're still working on the title.
Client: ETH Zurich, Prof. Annette Spiro
In collaboration with: 51st Floor
