Digital technology has introduced in the last decades data-driven representational and generative methodologies based on principles such as parametric definition and algorithmic processing. In this context, the 15th Footprint issue examines the development of data-driven techniques such as digital drawing, modelling, and simulation with respect to their relationship to design. The dynamics between data-driven processes and design, as well as the impact of these processes on artistic and architectural production, is addressed in 5 papers from authors with diverse backgrounds in media studies, art, and architecture. From theoretical explorations discussing cultural swarming techniques and data-driven design representation and materialisation aspects to practical (artistic and architectural) experimentation, this issue indicates the increasing convergence of computational and material systems. Furthermore, it addresses the generation of multiple, emergent results from one and the same computational representation – results that may be realized virtually at the level of design conceptualization, physically at the level of production, and even operationally at the level of artefact or building use where users or the environment contribute to the emergence of multiple physical configurations and outcomes. Data-driven design thereby establishes an unprecedented design to production to operation feedback loop.@en

Similar to the way that industrial fabrication with its concepts of standardisation and serial production has influenced modernist architecture, digital fabrication influences contemporary architecture: While standardisation focused on processes of rationalisation of form, mass-customisation as a new paradigm that replaces mass production, addresses non-standard, complex designs based on non-Euclidean geometries. Furthermore, knowledge about the designed object can be incorporated at the level of its connectivity with data stemming not only from its geometry but also from its content and behaviour within an environment. Digitally-driven architecture implies, therefore, on the one hand, digitally designed and fabricated architecture, and on the other hand, it implies architecture controlled and actuated by digital means. In this context, the sixth Footprint-issue is examining the influence of digital means on architecture as pragmatic and conceptual instruments for exploring and generating complex systems of spatial organisation as well as for constructing and actuating architecture. The focus is not only on computer-based generative systems for the development of architectural designs, but also on architecture incorporating aspects of digital sensing/actuating mechanisms that enable buildings to interact with their users and surroundings.@en