By karenmmartin on architecture

On Friday I went to a talk by Jonathan Hill called ‘Building the Drawing’. The talk was the third in a series of seminars examining the nature of  the prototype and its relation to innovation in the arts and  sciences. Speakers come from Anthropology, Archaeology,  Architecture, and History of Art at UCL. Of course this is the first seminar I have got to.

Jonathan positioned his talk as a discussion about prototypes in relation to representation, reproduction and variation. He suggested that prototypes have two aspects: one, to be the first of something, and second, to act as a basis for future copies.

The prototype is one stage in the design process, and he presented two views of design both of which he believes apply to architecture. First, design as drawing; as the production of a representation of an idea, and second, design as appliance; as the production of an artefact of use (I think he was suggesting that this type of design was not so intellectual in its consideration of ideas.. what d’you think of that product designers?)

The Role of Drawing

He gave a brief account of the importance of drawing to architecture. These are my notes: Before Renaissance, drawing was seen as a token of the object of a building and not as an accurate representation of the building. After this, drawing is framed as the presentation of an intellectual idea, removed from materiality and manual activity (master craftsmen do not often produce drawings).

Architects establish and maintain their intellectual status as much (if not more) through writing, publishing and drawing as they do through building. It is difficult to be an influential architect if you only build and Jonathan gave Rem Koolhaas’ book ‘Delirious New York’ as an example of how an architects reputation can be founded on text.

The status of drawing in architecture has been influenced by developments in paper technologies. “If you draw on a dead sheep you don’t draw very much!” New technologies continue to alter architects relationship to building and drawing with laser cutting and Cad Cam technologies (etc) allowing architects to build directly from drawings without the mediation of an experienced craftsman.

From Drawing to Prototype: The Farnsworth House

He then used the Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe as an example of the progression of an idea from drawing to prototype (building).The Farnsworth House was completed in 1951 and has a fascinating history resulting in the client and the architect suing each other simultaneously. Conceived as a country retreat for Dr. Edith Farnsworth the house is situated in a riverside woodland area near Plano, Illinois.

i) Photograph by Jon Miller, Hedrich Blessing, ii) Photograph by LPCE

Jonathan described the Farnsworth House as fulfilling both aspects of a prototype. The building is recognised as the first conception of a house built entirely from glass, as well as acting as a model for many copies and variations since. Both aspects of this are found in the Glass House by Philip Johnson. Although completed in 1949, two years before the Farnsworth House, it was inspired by the plans for Mies’ building.

With the Farnsworth House Mies was exploring ideas of platonic forms in relation to nature and the re-imagining of the domestic interior, and the building is recognised as extremely successful in it’s implementation and communication of these concepts. However, (and this was the reason Dr. Farnsworth sued Mies in 1953) it failed spectacularly as a comfortable place to inhabit. The glass walls made the space too hot in summer and too cold in winter, the lack of ventilation meant excessive condensation formed inside and the lack of screens meant mosquitoes were constant visitors. The Farnsworth House succeeds as a piece of architecture where the evaluation criteria might be described as: aesthetics, relation to site, craftsmanship of construction and so on, although it fails as a place to inhabit based on the evaluation criteria of comfort, enjoyment, security, warmth, shelter etc.

Plans for the Farnsworth House

In my notes I wrote that the Farnsworth House is building as prototype; the three-dimensional material construction extends the concept of ‘drawing as idea’. But I wonder, if drawing is enough to establish an architects reputation then what is the compulsion for architects to build? Jonathan suggested a couple of reasons – that drawings are difficult for non-architects to read and that architects often enjoy the ego-boost provided by seeing their idea come to life, also I imagine, it is not until you get inside a building that you can say for certain whether it ‘works’ (i.e. communicates your ideas) or not.

And if it works on this level and fails on the level of functionality? From this example, it seems clear that the same project can be considered a success and a failure at the same time depending on the evaluation criteria and who is doing the assessment.

Architecture is rarely built without a ‘client’ just as mobile technologies are not developed without a ‘user’ in mind. Another similarity between the design of mobile technologies and architecture is that both have to balance form with function if they are to be successful. Maybe looking at how architects balance their own intentions and interests with those of the client might suggest new insights into designing (and evaluating) ubiquitous technologies.

UPDATE 30/08/07

The Farnsworth House is reported as being under threat from rising flood water due to the torrential rain the Mid-West has suffered this summer.

These pictures (from the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, via Pruned) show that, although at risk, the Farnsworth House appears to have held out against the flood water better than many, thanks to it’s raised position on top of 6foot high piers. Coincidence, or good design taking into account environmental factors?

And, I realise this is a superficial comment, but I think it looks beautiful surrounded by water. Prototype for design for a changing climate perhaps?

Above, pictures of Mid-West flooding from Yahoo News

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By karenmmartin on paper

‘A Comment, a Case History and a Plan‘ was written by Gordon Pask prior to the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition (ICA, London 1968) Artists showing in this exhibition included Gordon Pask, Michael Noll, John Whitney, Nam June Paik, Bridget Riley, Jean Tinguely, John Cage and Nicholas Negroponte.

Poster and Image from Cybernetic Serendipity Exhibition, ICA, London. 1968

In this article, Gordon Pask describes two of his projects, the Colloquy of Mobiles which was part of the exhibition, and the Musicolour system, which predated the Colloquy of Mobiles and had already been presented in a variety of venues around the UK by this time. In the first part of the article he also outlines in detail his ideas on interaction which I referred to in my critique of Malcolm McCullough’s definition of interaction a couple of days ago.

Aesthetic Activity and Interaction
Pask’s begins the article with the hypothesis that “Man is prone to seek novelty in his environment and, having found a novel situation, to learn how to control it”, where novelty is understood as “events or configurations that appear ambiguous to a given individual, that engender uncertainty with respect to his present state of knowing and pose problems” and control is defined as being “broadly equivalent to ‘problem solving’ but it may also be read as ‘coming to terms with’ or ‘explaining’ or ‘relating to an existing body of experience”. Pask believes this behaviour can be seen whenever one is involved in aesthetic activities including:

* Constructing a tangible work of art (e.g. painting a picture).
* Writing a prescription which is interpretable as a work of art (e.g. composing music and writing the score).
* Performing a work of art or, strictly, interpreting a work of art prescription, such as a piece of music.
* Appreciating or enjoying some work of art.

Pask does not believe it is useful to make rigid boundaries between the types of mental processes that go on in these different activities, saying that the composer, performer and listener, or painter and viewer can be considered as mentally similar. To repeat the quote I used the other day:

“A painting does not move. But our interaction with it is dynamic for we scan it with our eyes, we attend to it selectively and our perceptual processes build up images of parts of it. Further, consciously or not, the artist anticipated this dynamic interaction (if only because he looks at the painting himself). Of course a painting does not respond to us either. … But our internal representation of the picture, our active perception of it, does respond and does engage in an internal ‘conversation’ with the part of our mind responsible for immediate awareness.”

The environment in which these interactions were located Pask calls “aesthetically potent environments”. There are certain attributes an environment must possess to be considered aesthetically potent and I find it interesting how many of these recur in more contemporary descriptions of properties that interactive or responsive systems must contain to be effective at engaging audience participation. {More on this in a later post}

Pask and McCullough appear to agree that interaction can be defined as a ‘conversation’ (Pask) or an ‘exchange of messages’ (McCullough) but differ on where this exchange might take place in order to constitute an interaction. For Pask, this conversation can occur within a single individual, between a currently held view (or mental model) and an updated version of this view. For McCullough, this conversation must take place between two or more individuals or an individual and an object capable of taking action in response to the individual’s behaviour, i.e. the interaction must happen external to the subject.

These differences seem to have foundation in beliefs about the construction of knowledge and whether an exchange has to be ‘meaningful’ for the entities taking part (whether computational or human). Gordon Pask designed learning technologies and his beliefs about the nature of interaction within aesthetic activity appear to reflect his view of learning as an active process of constructing meaning. Malcolm McCullough’s definition of interaction does not require this construction of meaning, for him, a series of cause and effect responses, are enough to be considered an interaction.

Whether the differences in these views of interaction are relevant or have an impact on the design of interactive systems I’m not sure yet…

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By karenmmartin on situated

In my continuing series of reading books several years after publication, I just finished Digital Ground by Malcolm McCullough. Published in 2004, Digital Ground covers the role that architecture might play in shaping interaction design in pervasive computing. There are many interesting ideas in this book but I’m going to pull out one in particular for now. That is, the definition of interaction.

McCullough says of interaction, “The word interaction has lately been applied to just about any relationship between people or things, as though shapes interact in a Picasso painting. More properly, the word implies deliberations over the exchange of messages. Thus you don’t interact with a book, you just read it.”

This definition is re-stated towards the end of the book: “One does not ‘interact’ with an ordinary sidewalk, of course – one simply walks on it. Only when that surface deliberately responds to you can the relationship be described as interaction.”

How can I put this? I simply disagree with this definition. (Can I say that?) Let me explain by looking at the sidewalk example. Malcolm McCullough says ‘One simply walks on it’ – but who is ‘one’? A young woman wearing high heel shoes, an old man walking with two sticks, someone in a wheelchair? And what are the properties of ’it’? A smooth American concrete sidewalk? A pot-holed, cracked paving-stone London pavement, a cobblestone path at the side of the road? A dirt track? Combining these variables (old man walking with two sticks on a dirt track, young woman in high heels on a cobblestone path, etc) produces a wide variety of experiences that might be being described by the phrase ’one simply walks on it’.

I believe that the inter-play between person and material is more significant than is implied in this definition. Presumably someone decided what form and material the pavement should take, the design process eliminated materials for various reasons (cost, availability, durability etc) until one material was selected out of all potential options. And the experience of ‘walking on it’ created by these choices leads to designed objects, services and technologies in responses to this. For example, the Senses of the City exhibition at the CCA in Montreal last year explored how the widespread use of asphalt altered footwear as mud was no longer a problem for pedestrians. A similar example of technological (in the non-electronic sense) adaptation to environmental conditions can be found in Venice during the 18th Century when chopines elegantly raised the wearer above any possible level of flooding the city might experience. A further consequence of the introduction of smooth asphalt surfaces was the laying of continuous road markings so altering the accepted (legal and social) behaviour of road users.

This brings a cyclical element to the relationship which, while not interactive in the strictest sense, certainly triggers an awareness in the person using the system which inspires them to adapt the system, or their behaviour, in response to these external factors. These adaptations then re-set the default condition which prompts further adaptation.. cyclical. I found McCullough’s definition of interaction to be linear and curiously at odds with his emphasis on understanding context as a means to design meaningful interative systems. While issues of feedback, cycles and adaptability permeate Digital Ground, these are outlined only in engineering terms and I find it difficult to understand McCullough’s position on this.

The C-word

“In a sense, whenever a system regulates itself by monitoring its own performance (i.e., with a feedback loop), some rudimentary intelligence is implied. By this reasoning, even an ancient water clock was ’smart.’ Similarly, a household thermostat, based on thermal expansion of a copper coil to meet an adjustable electrical contact, is an analog computer of a sort.”

The thermostat is a classic example used to illustrate the principles of cybernetics and McCullough references Wiener’s original text outlining Cybernetics in the chapter Embedded Gears. Generally within ubiquitous computing cybernetics has been rejected as too deterministic to be a useful model for interactive systems so I find McCullough’s ambiguity curious. Does he consider these to be out-dated models that should be replaced by advances in telecommunications protocols and greater understanding of context, or does he believe this model can be incorporated into the richer understanding of location that he suggests forms the basis for the design of interactive systems?

Even more curious, is the lack of reference to 2nd order cyberneticians such as Gordon Pask, who extended this cybernetic model of feedback and state changes into a model which positions interaction as a perceptual relationship resulting in ‘conversations’ (McCullough’s ‘exchange of messages’) which can be either between objects and subjects (person and object, person and person etc) or which can occur internally within a single subject. In this way, Pask believes, interaction can be dynamic even when the object being perceived is not. While I’m not sure whether Pask would say that the shapes in a Picasso painting interact, he does say that interaction occurs when we look at a painting,

“A painting does not move. But our interaction with it is dynamic for we scan it with our eyes, we attend to it selectively and our perceptual processes build up images of parts of it. Further, consciously or not, the artist anticipated this dynamic interaction (if only because he looks at the painting himself). Of course a painting does not respond to us either. … But our internal representation of the picture, our active perception of it, does respond and does engage in an internal ‘conversation’ with the part of our mind responsible for immediate awareness.” [A Comment, a Case History and a Plan]

This is the definition of interaction – as a continually negotiated, perceptual process – that I prefer over McCullough’s more causal definition. I will write more about 2nd order cybernetics and interaction at a later time – this post is getting too long!

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By karenmmartin on situated

In nowhere near as much detail as yesterday, here are the other subjects I found interesting in Digital Ground. I’m sure there are more but these resonated with my work at the moment..

TYPOLOGY

As I understand it (and the concept is new to me in this form) Malcolm McCullough views design ‘types’ as elements in a classification system covering both form and function. For example, architectural types might include market squares (based on form) and libraries (based on activity). Cities are composed of accumulations of different types, which both reflect and support the tacit knowledge needed by a cities inhabitants.

“The psychological importance of type is not only a consequence of activity in context but also of cultural identification. This is a foundational notion because enduring structures become repositories of human, cultural and organizational knowledge. The patterns of activities first become means towards those activities, then come to suggest and represent them.” (p56)

Types can be culturally specific (Brownstones in Brooklyn, Patios in New Orleans) and occur at various scales, so helping make the link from body to building to city to landscape to universe.

McCullough uses architectural type to support his claim that the best designs are incremental and are based on transforming existing, familiar types very slightly, instead of aiming for complete re-invention of type (p59). Architectural practices, he says, are often based around building types, such as libraries or laboratories, and place responses, such as courtyards or concourses. He describes how the architectural design process focuses only a small number of the possible aspects of a problem with the result that:

“Such a premise rarely involves the accumulation of functional feature upon feature. Instead it revisits, and reawakens, some aspect of design solution that has fallen into thoughtless convention. As we have seen, this interplay of convention and reinvention gives vitality to enduring types and genres.”

Suggesting that the creation of a set of types for pervasive computing might be beneficial, McCullough suggests that categorising by situation produce one set of possible types:

At Work:
1) Deliberating 2) Presenting 3) Collaborating 4) Dealing 5) Documenting 6) Officiating 7) Crafting 8 ) Associating 9) Learning 10) Cultivating 11) Watching

At Home:
12) Sheltering 13) Recharging 14) Idling 15) Confining 16) Servicing 17) Metering

On the Town:
18) Socializing 19) Gathering 20) Cruising 21) Belonging 22) Shopping 23) Sporting 24) Attending 25) Commemorating

On the Road:
26) Gazing 27) Hoteling 28) Adventuring 29) Driving 30) Walking

These ideas of situated-ness fit in some way, I think, with the ideas in Hillier and Leaman’s paper ’How is Design Possible?’

DESIGN PROCESS

McCullough outlines the approach taken by different disciplines who contribute to shaping the design of technological systems. Most interestingly, from my perspective, is this paragraph describing the difficulities visual artists have in accepting and being accepted into the multi, or inter, disciplinary world of systems design.

“Visual artists may cling to the image of the signature designer. To them, design remains an autographic process in which conception and execution intermingle. Methodology interferes with such aims. The pursuit of expression leads to unique works rather than products or systems. It also discourages the use of design alternatives, since for any project there can only be one proposal to which one is passionately committed. While there is a place for such art in all things, this image of the designer does not earn much respect from disciplines that seek negotiable, reproducible results.”

Art, or more precisely, aesthetic value, reappears later also (p196)

“One cannot ask what a work of art is ‘for.’ Art need not be instrumental. One may ask what a work of art ’says’, however; and one may believe that an aesthetic production that says nothing to anyone has relatively little value just for existing. Aesthetic value must be culturally situated. It exists mainly at the convergence of qualified opinion. This may be what makes aesthetic value suspect to scientists: It is neither apparent nor consistent to everyone. Aesthetic value needs theory – and therefore critics – by which to deliberate its subjective expression and interpretation. These in turn benefit from being grounded in objective constructions, such as tonal scales in music, and genres, such as portraiture in painting.”

MODELS

Models and plans are common tools for design and design representation in architectural practice. Commonly these represent form, however ‘to other disciplines, a model may represent behaviour, information flows, or decision sequences’ (p98). That is not to say that the model is simply a reduced scale version of the final product. As McCullough writes, ‘the plan precedes the building’ and ‘the organizational or social relationships designed are not the same as the structure built to support them.’ To me, this begins to point the way to a new approach to design which sees a symbiotic but not causal relationship between use and form.

Drawing by Christian Kerrigan, Model by Ruairi Glynn & Paul Burres, Model by Phil Ayres. All at the Bartlett.

EVALUATION

The problem for designers in drawing out the kind of tacit knowledge needed in order to contextualise or situate technologies is addressed. A possible approach, it is suggested, is to enrich designs by numerous, contrasting methods of design and evaluation. These might include ”contrasts between controlled laboratories and uncontrolled field conditions, between active interviews and passive monitoring, and between observing initial learning versus mastery.” To enrich the design process, a range of participatory techniques might be employed that “ranges from passive observation to active partnership. The practices of ethnography, conceptual design, and participatory design all have legitimate roles in this.”

One section (p167) discusses how “problem seeking complements problem solving. Because problems are seldom determinate in any case, this seeking tends to involve selective attention to the more telling aspects of a situation.” and follows this up with a paragraph on how the success of a design is arrived at socially.

I’ve struggled with ideas and techniques for evaluation over the last year and I’m happy to see the problem recognised here. While I think that triangulation of approaches could have a successful outcome I also suspect it might exacerbate the dilemma for designers of feeling that they need to be a master of all trades for their work to be perceived as rigourously validated. The value of problem seeking in attempting to solve a problem is a more coherent description of what I am trying to do with both Undersound and the workshops on In-between-ness.

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