Design Computation is the use of programming in the design of physical systems such as buildings and infrastructure. This involves embedding both general-purpose textual languages and domain-specific visual languages within geometry modelling and engineering applications used in the construction industry. A unique form of entry-level end-user programming has emerged in Design Computation; however, there are significant usability and representational issues. General-purpose languages present barriers to adoption, while visual languages lower these barriers but do not scale to complex design problems in architecture and engineering.

In this essay, we explore how recent advances in programming language research can be harnessed in future Design Computation languages to address these pedagogic, representational and scaling issues so as to improve human-readable program structure and semantics and to facilitate machine-readable program verification. This essay addresses the question: ‘How can innovation in programming languages support innovation in architecture and engineering?’