Governing Collaboration: Data and Work Relationships in UK Software for Building Design, 1970-80

In the 1970s, the UK government saw coordination through digital models as the remedy for how various participants involved in complex architectural projects could effectively work together. Government agencies responsible for public buildings, such as hospitals and housing, hired architects and technologists to develop software for building design — computer systems that described existing building methods as digital models and construction databases. The article examines two such systems to detail how their novel databases encoded the building and administrative approaches of their agencies. In doing so, it argues that, while the focus was on automating clerical design work such as material calculations and detailing, the software ultimately implemented overarching frameworks of design regulation, restructuring the design team. By linking data structures to structures of control, the article contributes critical insights into how architectural software for collaboration makes design work discrete and governable.