Proposal

The aim of my article is to reflect on the necessity of finding an efficient way in which designers can communicate with people in order not only to design for them, but to involve them in the design process.

Everyone, designer or not, has his own ideas about how his house or city should be. Collecting those ideas from a community and transform them in an actual design requires more than creativity and good intentions.

The first part of the article provide a theoretical background for the topic and it is based on research in literature. In particular I will develop some key points about what constitute design knowledge, the relationship between designers and the people for whom they design, how designer can involve people in the process of designing, what kind of tools are required and what is under design.

The literature research includes:

Davis, Meredith (2008), “Why Do We Need Doctoral Study in Design?” International Journal of Design, 2(3), 71-79.

Jones, John Christopher (1970), Design Methods: seeds of human futures, London: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Illich, Ivan (1973), Tools for Conviviality. New York: Harper and Row.

Sanders, Elisabeth (2006), Scaffolds for building everyday creativity. In J. Frascara (Ed.), Designing effective communications: Creating contexts for clarity and meaning. New York: Allworth Press.

Fisher , Gerard (2002). Beyond couch potatoes: From consumers to designers and active contributors. First Monday, 7(12). Retrieved May 15, 2008, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/152

The second part of the article will give an insight into two study cases.

The first one is a housing project developed by ELEMENTAL studio in Chile. Here the architects, leaded by Alejandro Aravena, decided to respond to the demand of social housing by creating a framework in which a basic house was provided but at the same time it was given to the people the possibility to implement it according to their needs and financial possibilities.

The second project embrace the urban level and it is a research project started by Ekim Tan and called The responsive City. The goal is to rethink collectively the planning of the city. In this case the tool designed by Tan is a collective game which allowed the urban planner to collect the information needed directly from the people in a bottom-up process.

Everyone is welcome to comment,

Thank you

Michela

On oyster farms and pearl diving

Critical summary - Friday June 10th - presentation by Hilde Remoy and Hans Teerds

Architecture unites several researchers working in different fields. Confronted with each other, it is extremely interesting to see how one comes to new findings by a precisely defined process, as seeding knowing what to harvest later on. Others start gathering right away, sorting out useful knowledge along the way.

Urged by an increasing amount of vacant office buildings Hilde Remoy decided to do her PHD on structural vacancy. Having defined structural vacancy as illness she decided to find out the causes and the symptoms. Several methods are used in the research, both quantitative and qualitative: on the one hand databases on vacancy and real estate transactions, on the other hand panel research according to the Delphi method. The mix of methods should lead in the end to triangulation; confirmation of the results. The research looks very structured and hard to contradict.
It has so far resulted in two bulky and impressive publications, her dissertation and the book 'Transformatie van kantoorgebouwen'. Both publications are not limited to analysis of causes, they provide a conceptual framework as well to explore transformation possibilities and prevent future vacancy.

A completely different type of research is presented by Hans Teerds. Fascinated by the role and function of public space nowadays he started to study the roots of the idea of public space and especially Hannah Arendt. He wants to understand the work of Arendt in it's original context and stayed therefore several months in the Hannah Arendt archive in Bard College, NY, USA.
The research is rather unstructured and explorative. Close-reading texts has to lead to surprising new insights. Hans Teerds regards himself as a pearl diver. Initially in unknown water, now slowly finding his way towards hidden treasures. It seems hard to define a point of synthesis in the research, a point were the diver can respire before getting drown in the ocean of knowledge, desperately digging for the ultimate understanding. To quote Arendt, 'in order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism'.

Ekim Tan on Urban Games

Critical summary - Friday May 27th - presentation by Ekim Tan

Hunch
Both completely planned and spontaneous developed new cities seem to survive quite well. Almere and Istanbul are developed in a completely different way, but produce both brisk urban densities which attract more and more inhabitants. How should these cities develop? Can we simulate development by using the human brain, instead of computer models with a given amount of parameters? Can we develop the city using collective intelligence and self-organization?
Ekim Tan explores in her PHD the potential of urban games in city development. Together with her partners she developed a network around this theme, The Responsive City.

Revival of the 70s?
At first sight one could think that the ideas of co-creation, rooted in in 70s, are merged with the possibilities of the digital realm of today. Ekim showed the design for the Malaguiera Quarter by Siza as an early example of participatory planning. The credits of this project should go to the housing association, who allows the residents to alter their homes over time. Siza did definitely design a grammar of variations (see drawing), but included a set of restricting rules as well (flat roofs, stairways of wood or painted steel and whitewashed exterior plaster, ornaments in stucco protrude to a maximum of 1 cm).
Cooperative planning models of the 70s were based upon a political ideology; everyone, rich and poor, should be able to determine what his/her house looks like. Common people know best how to design a house. The task of designing was de-professionalized. There is a beautiful movie on the Molenvliet project in Papendrecht, built according to the Open Building idea of Habraken, where architect Frans van der Werf draws plans instructed by future residents.
Recent models are based upon the observation that users become smarter and smarter, using internet they can turn themselves into semi-professionals. There is no paradigm behind this development, it is an amoral power of the people and therefore quite different from the 70s.

Cross case comparison
The PHD of Ekim is based upon a set of games. In these games the participants, often with different backgrounds, collaborate in order to achieve a goal. The goal is to develop the city collectively. The power and potential of the game a clear. Instead of confronting information in order to reach consensus, information is collected and developed in a more open source way of working.

Workshops are held in Almere, Istanbul, Rotterdam and soon Amsterdam as well. It is not completely clear why these four cities are picked as samples to develop a theory. The set-up differs from workshop to workshop as well. In one workshop the participants just work together, in another one they can negotiate in smaller groups during breaks as well. The type of participants seem to vary. As a result cross case comparison of results must be pretty difficult. On the other hand, additional information gathered is absolutely interesting! The idea to rule out a type of participant for example, market parties in Almere (municipality vs. residents) or the municipality in Amsterdam (market parties vs. stakeholders), creates new types of collaborations and questions current networks.

Scenario developing vs. scenario testing
The research produces an attractive scenario how the physical and virtual world can be combined in the future. It creates opportunities for new collaborations and unexpected developments. How do people work together, share information, develop ideas initiated by others, etc. It would be interesting to extend this research on scenario developing to scenario testing. What kind of physical outcome does this method produce? Is it desirable? Are both explicit and implicit goals achieved? How does the model incorporate societal values or common goods? In short: to evaluate the product together with the process.

Hello again everybody!

After today's lecture in my mind appeared some questions I hadn't thought before, and some I want to clarify for myself and my thesis. ( I want to write about the profession of architect, what purposes it should "serve", and by doing this I want to formulate general idea ,what kind of methodology an architect can use to create architecture, of course it will be my humble point of view :)) regarding to this I'd like to ask all of you, maybe you know where I can find different viewpoints about the role of architect, or some definitions of architectural discipline (no matter it is made by an architect, writer or philosopher). Now back to my questions. Maybe it will be easy for you to give me answers if I formulate it in list.

1. When we preserve different built heritage, do we act like this mostly because we identify our selves whit it, and if we let time, or other people to destroy it we can lose part of our own? (if it is so, then any object can become object of identification, for example specific tree, or stone and so on. Is it true?)

2. When you said today that architecture can be perceived by touching the surface, texture, or by the noise of screaming foorstop of wooden stairs such feelings are part of our memories which can be important for us personally, but how important can it be for future generation which can have different values and visions? are there some values thas can last forever?

3. what do you think what is the most intelligible way to transfer your ideas?

Everyone are welcome to answer if you have enough time.

Thank you in advance for attention,

Irakli

Readings

Required reading

Leezenberg, Michiel en Gerard de Vries, Wetenschapsfilosofie voor de Geesteswetenschappen. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2001). Inleiding, pp.11-30.

Varnelis, Kazys. ‘Is there research in the studio?’ Journal of Architectural Education. Vol. 61, issue 1 (2007) pp. 11-14.

Yeomans, David, ‘Can Design be Called Research?’, arq, vol. 1, no. 1, 1995, pp. 12–15.

Recommended reading

Bannister, Turpin. ‘The Research Heritage of the Architectural Profession’, Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 1, Architectural Research, Spring 1947, pp. 5-12.

Cross, Nigel. Designerly Ways of Knowing

Cunningham, Allen. "Notes on Education and Research in Architecture." The Journal of Architecture 10, no. 4 (2005): 415-41.

Davis, Meredith. “Why Do We Need Doctoral Study in Design?” International Journal of Design, 2(3) (2008), 71-79.

Dorst, Kees. Describing Design: a Comparison of Paradigms, PhD Dissertation, Delft University of Technology, 1997.

Dorst Kees, The problem of design problems – problem solving and design expertise, Journal of design research, vol 4, issue 2, 2004

Gero, John S., Computational Models of Innovative and Creative Design Processes, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 64, 183–196 (2000)

Groat, Linda and David Wang, Architectural Research Methods

de Jong, Taeke. Ways to study research and design

Kroes, Peter, Design methodology and the nature of technical artifacts, Design Studies Vol. 23 No. 3 (2002): 287-302

Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd edition, Chicago: University Of Chicago, 1996

Rendell, Jane. 'Architectural Research and Disciplinarity’, (2004), ARQ, v. 8, n. 4, pp. 141–7.

Schön, Donald A. The Reflective Practitioner : How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Short, A., ‘What is “Architectural Design Research”?’, Building Research and Information, vol. 36, no. 2 (2008): 195–99

Simon, Herbert, The Sciences of the Artificial, 3^rd edition, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1996.

Till, Jeremy ‘Architectural Research: Three Myths and One Model’, accessed online at:

Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures and a Second Look. Cambridge University Press, 1965. (contains the original text of The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959) and a retrospective text from 1965)

Schedule

The schedule for this course is as follows
29/4 Introduction by Lara Schrijver and Rudi Stouffs
13/5 Presentation by Irem Erbas, Computation & Performance research group
20/5 Presentation by Herdis Heineman, Design & History research group
27/5 Presentation by Ekim Tan, Urbanism research group
10/6 Presentation by Hilde Remoy, Real Estate & Project Management research group
and Presentation by Hans Teerds, Architecture research group
17/6 Presentation by Martin ten Pierik, Green Building Innovation research group

We meet each Friday at 13:45 in room Y.