Ž . Automation in Construction 10 2001 293
www.elsevier.comrlocaterautcon
Introduction
CAADRIA, the association for Computer Aided Design Research In Asia, was founded in 1996 with a conference held at the University of Hong Kong. This was the first forum in Asia at which researchers and teachers of computer-aided architectural design could come together and share their work. The asso-ciation has met annually since in a variety of loca-tions: Hsinchu, Osaka, Shanghai, Singapore and, in 2001, in Sydney. Representation at the conference has consistently been broad, bringing together re-searchers and teachers throughout Asia. Visitors from Europe and North America are regularly in atten-dance as well. Information about the association can be found on the web at www.caadria.org.
The conference chairs for the first four ences have selected papers from CAADRIA confer-ences in the years 1996–1999 to present here in Automation in Construction. We have identified pa-pers that represent a cross-section of the work under-way in Asia at the end of the decade. Papers by Lee et al., Woo et al., Kaga et al., Chiu and Lan and Ng et al. are application-oriented, reflecting the demands for innovation in the construction industry in the region. Much of the research and teaching in the region is sponsored by industry or integrated into project-specific needs. The work of the Sasada Lab in Osaka illustrates this very well, represented here by three papers: Lee et al., Woo et al. and Kaga et al. In this lab, the research agenda is carried out within the context of design projects commissioned by Pro-fessor T. Sasada, permitting fundamental research
questions of computer-aided design to be investi-gated and immediately tested in a design setting.
The other three papers presented in this issue of Automation in Construction examine aspects of com-puter-aided design in teaching and design develop-ment. This second focus represents the other need in the region, the training of practitioners and re-searchers with skills relevant to regional needs for communication, density or culture.
We are grateful to the Editors of Automation in Construction for inviting CAADRIA to present rep-resentative work in this journal and hope that this exposure will encourage more communication be-tween researchers in Asia and the rest of the world.
Guest Editors
Thomas Kvan
Department of Architecture, UniÕersity of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China
Yu-Tung Liu
National Chiao Tung UniÕersity, Hsinchu, Taiwan Tsuyoshi Sasada Osaka UniÕersity, Osaka, Japan Jingwen Gu Tongji UniÕersity, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China
0926-5805r01r$ - see front matter q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Ž .
