hi chris,
I think I did not make my point clear enough with the examples, let me clarify:
At 09:42 +0000 18.3.2003, Chris RUST(SCS) wrote:
>Kari Hans wrote:
>
>>Let's assume you design something else, like a theater interior. You
>>become inspired by the breeze on a cold moonlit night. The theater
>>should in your opinion have that kind of atmosphere, and this becomes
> >your guiding (generative?) idea. An abstraction?
>If there is some abstraction going on in the examples that Kari-Hans
>describes, I feel that we should be careful when ascribing roles to
>the players in a scenario. For example, is the designer engaged in
>creating a physical artefact (the theatre set) or is their aim to
>work on the perceptions of the audience, in which case the
>aim/outcome of the design is the experience (of a "breeze on a cold
>moonlit night"). So which is an abstraction of which?
I meant that an interior designer designing a theatre interior gets
into a specific mood that she feels can be the generative idea for
her design decisions, and decides to describe it to herself as
'breeze on a cold moonlit night'. Designers do this - they say that
'this tableware set design was inspired by idea x'. My point was to
suggest that this kind of an expression ('idea x') is an abstraction
the designer uses to manage and preserve her inspiration which could
otherwise escape her.
>Also the idea of a model or sketch being an abstraction is difficult
>for me. As a designer I experience those things as the most complete
>version of the final design currently available and I recognise
>Klaus' description of the way people use them. Childhood is not an
>abstraction of adulthood but a necessary part of a complete life.
The models and sketches are your products, and very concrete - yes.
But in my point of view you are a professional 'abstraction
producer'! You can also avoid the abstraction production by making a
complete building and tell your client to copy it. She would most
likely make some kind of a set of plans, drawings, notes, and
together they would constitute an abstraction of the building.
If you in some way explain to others what they need to do without
doing it, you are in the business of abstracting the thing to be made.
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