Architects and students of architecture today are less physically engaged with modeling and drawing representations of proposed things and increasingly rely on digital means and methods that are transforming their embodied interactions with actual materials. The result is that meaning, which makes architecture so central to our cultures, is being diminished. It is being replaced by a misplaced belief that “better” buildings and architecture result from increased use of digital tools. To recapture meaning will require a new design theory for architecture that builds on material engagement theory and the critical role of resistance and sensuous reasoning in the design process, which material has historically provided.

今天的建筑师和建筑专业的学生较少参与拟定事物的建模和绘图表示，并越来越依赖数字手段和方法，这些手段和方法正在改变他们与实际材料的具体交互。结果是，使建筑在我们文化中如此重要的意义正在被削弱。它正在被一种错误的信念所取代，即“更好”的建筑和建筑是由于数字工具的使用增加而产生的。要重新获得意义，需要一种新的建筑设计理论，该理论建立在材料参与理论以及阻力和感性推理在设计过程中的关键作用之上，而材料在历史上已经提供了这一点。