Open-Source for a Sustainable Development of Architectural Design in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Ten years after the first conceptualisation of Industry 4.0, we took part in the largest ITC experiment ever conducted. When during the quarantine, governments chose digital as the exclusive means for education and work, revealing its inclusion limits. Issues that also affect architecture, and in the perspective of the sustainable development of our role, force us to think about inclusivity, starting with the tools we use. When considering the fragmented panorama of software, it is possible to make a distinction according to a gradient going from proprietary to open-source. The latter guarantees the greatest inclusivity and is a requirement for architectural design to continue to develop within the horizon of research. As described in our article, open-source is already alive and present in contemporary architecture, and its contributions can promote quantitative and qualitative turning points. There is a clear tendency to distrust open-source tools: a condition that, in the perspectives stimulated by the industry 4.0 enabling technologies, risks placing architects in an eccentric position on the project. Based on these observations, our article reconstructs the diffusion of open-source tools and formats, outlining the contributions and possibilities ensured by an effective knowledge exchange: a condition necessary to keep the architecture as research, shared and comparable. Interviews with architects with extensive experience in digital tools enrich the article in a path that highlights problems caused by proprietary software, and the solutions promoted by designers who are already aware of the need for open-source tools in the AEC industry.