[CAD note]
Computational design lends itself to an integral design approach as it enables employing complex behaviour rather than just modelling a particular shape of form. The transition from currently predominant modes of computer aided design (CAD) to computational design allows for a significant change in employing the computer's capacity. In computational design form is not defined through a sequence of drawing or modelling procedures but generated through algorithmic, rule-based processes. The ensuing externalisation of the interrelation between algorithmic processing of information and resultant form-generation permits the systematic distinction between process, information and form.
Hence any specific shape can be understood as resulting from the interaction of system-intrinsic information and external influences within a morphogenetic process (Menges, A. (2008) Integral Formation and materialisation: Computational Form and Material Gestalt, in B.Kolarevic and K.Klinger (eds), Manufacturing Material effects: Rethinking Design and making in Architecture. New York: Routledge.)
http://www.achimmenges.net