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Form-Making
versus Form-Finding: Distributed Cognition and the Affordances of Design
Media |
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Workshop
Background: Architects and design
professionals have enjoyed a general analytic framework for design media and
modes of representation for two decades (Mitchell and McCullough 1991). However,
that framework does not explicitly accommodate classification of media by
their suitability to support early design. This workshop proposes to explore
such a framework—its explanatory power re design methodologies as well as its
potential implications for software development, software selection,
curriculum development, and so on. Position We add to Mitchell and
McCullough’s two axes of representation (analog to digital and 2-D to n-D) a third axis from form-making to form-finding (Figure 1). Form-making, loosely defined, is a process of inspiration and
refinement (form precedes analysis of programmatic influences and design
constraints) versus form-finding as (loosely) a process of discovery and
editing (form emerges from analysis). Extreme form-making is not architecture
but sculpture (perhaps, folly)—form without function. Extreme form-finding
also is not architecture but applied engineering—form exclusively determined
by function. Known architectural
design methodologies fall between these extremes. Although not intended for
architectural criticism, it can be argued from this position that many
canonical works result from design processes optimally balancing form-making
and form-finding—e.g., the work of Louis Kahn. Analysis Form-making and form-finding
are more rigorously defined with respect to designers’ ways of knowing.
Distributed cognition (Hutchins 1995) posits that knowing occurs not solely
as mental constructs, but is distributed in external representations such as
maps, diagrams, sketches, drawings, models and so on. Thus, representations
and media of representation are tools for knowing. Designers who “have a
design” assert existence of both mental construct and external
representation. Cases or
methodologies in which mental construct arises first are labeled form-making: designers “have ideas,” then
sketch or otherwise represent their ideas for testing against programmatic
influences and role as tools), and if representations embody a necessary
component of knowing (as constituents of distributed cognition), then knowing
is determined or constrained by the choice of representation. A further premise of
this workshop, then, is that affordances of or provided by certain media and
modes of representation will be better suited to form-making, while other
media and representations will be better suited to form-finding (yet another
set of media and representations may support the balanced or simultaneous
design strategy). Representations well-suited
to their subjects (i.e., providing affordances appropriate to desired actions
with or on their subjects) are deemed to be “handy” (ready-to-hand, zuhanden—Heidegger 1936). Thus, maps are handy for
wayfinding, graphs for mathematics and floor plans for building.
Representations ill-suited to their subjects are not handy, but merely
present-at-hand (vorhanden—Heidegger
1936). Such presence awareness disrupts knowing the tool-in-action and is
experienced as “breakdown” (Winograd and Flores 1986). Designers seeking,
e.g., consistently handy representations for designing at campus scale may
have difficulty choosing between GIS systems (handy at regional scale) and
CAD systems (handy at building scale). Diverse media provide
affordances that favor form-making or form-finding or simultaneity and will
appear more or less handy to different designers practicing different design
methodologies, or to one designer practicing sequences of different
methodologies (Parthenios 2005). Thus, design methodologies and media of
representation constrain and/or enable knowing of design—indeed the ability
to know what designs are possible. |
Figure 1: Axes of representation |
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Workshop
format:
Presentations and discussion of
research, analysis and/or professional work addressing the workshop topic in
one or more of the following areas:
· Software development: Interfaces catering to different designers,
different design methodologies and/or different aspects of design
problem-solving.
· Software selection: Practitioners’ choices among
available software tools to support personal preferences of individual designers,
design workflows across multiple designers or preferred methodologies within
design firms.
· Curriculum
development: Design schools’
development and evaluation of curricula accommodating form-making and
form-finding across n-dimensions
of analog and digital media. Whither academic sequences, individual courses,
problems and pedagogical methods? Must schools expose students to the full
curricular space?
· Pedagogy: Design communication inherently is form-finding:
recipients of design communication see (the sender’s) design representation
first, then develop mental constructs in response. Implications for teaching,
the desk crit, pinup and so on?
· Design
Practice: How do individual
designers recognize and play to (or off) personal strengths (or weaknesses)
relative to affordances of different media and demands of different design
problems? How do design firms balance and/or blend inductive skills/processes
of form-makers with design editing skills of form-finders.
· Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI): Many software
developers seek machine-readable design data transfers via building information
modeling (BIM), industry foundation classes (IFCs) and so on. However, media of
representation best suited to machine-readability may lack affordances for
human-accessibility. Must one be sacrificed for the other?
· Mediated
Collaboration: Various media of
design collaboration afford different qualities of human-to-human interaction.
If one manifestation of distributed cognition is team knowing, then to what
extent should media of representation for collaborative technologies be chosen
by their affordances (e.g., supporting emergence of shared context).
Submission
information:
Persons wishing to participate in this workshop may submit an abstract of a
specific proposed contribution or a resume evidencing relevant experience. It
is the Chair’s intention that contributions to a successful workshop will
provide core content for a future conference and/or publication on the topic.
Please submit the
position paper or extended abstract to the workshop chair mailto:jerry@laiserin.com. The conference paper abstract format is available as PDF
and RTF
files.
References
Buxton, B., Sketching
User Experiences, 2007
Cheng, R., Private
correspondence with the author,
2008
Gibson, J.J., “The
Theory of Affordances” in Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing, Shaw, R. and Bransford, J., eds., 1977
Gross, M., Private
communication to the author at DCC, 2004
Heidegger, M., The
Basic Problems of Phenomenology,
1936
Hutchins, E., Cognition
in the Wild, 1995
Merleau-Ponty, M., Basic
Writings, 2003
Mitchell, W. J. and
McCullough, M., Digital Design Media, 1991
Parthenios, P., Conceptual
Design Tools for Architects, 2005
Schön, D., The
Reflective Practitioner, 1983
Terzidis, K., Expressive
Form, 2003
Terzidis, K., Algorithmic
Architecture, 2006
Winograd, T., and Flores, F., Understanding
Computers and Cognition, 1986