Terry, Damian, et al
Christopher Alexander's patterning of information is not too
dissimilar from the way objects are specified in object oriented
computer languages. The virtue of Alexander's patterns is that they
set forth design hypotheses in terms of the settings to which they
apply. The virtue of object oriented specification is that they set
forth information according to its functionality in computation about
anything. This is a more powerful formulation but one that frustrates
designers because they need information pertinent to the situations
they confront. I have been working on a model of design thinking that
closely models object oriented processing. This model is situated and
qualified by the circumstances of its application, knowledge relevant
to the application, and the designer's goals regarding the focal
situation. Looking for the DNA of design is a worthy effort but be
very careful of your analogy making. Biology is not applied thought.
It is the means through which thought is applied. The level at which
it is interpreted and the circumstances of its application makes all
the difference.
Chuck
Dr. Charles Burnette
234 South Third Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
[log in to unmask]
215 629 1387
On Dec 3, 2008, at 7:39 PM, Terence Love wrote:
> Dear Damian,
>
> Thanks for your response to the list.
>
> You ask for specific references. There is a large amount on genetic
> basis
> for design and its not exactly clear where you seem to be going with
> this.
> Eric Raymond's advice on asking questions springs to mind.
>
> As I see it, you seem to be trying to map onto the specific idea of
> DNA as
> in human genes, yet also wanting to use the idea more broadly but
> without
> accepting that the idea of DNA and its specifics in other contexts
> will
> change. Why would you expect design memes to be structurally
> equivalent
> (i.e. a double helical mathematics based on short codes)? I'd expect
> to find
> the deep relational structure and code form would be different (e.g.
> not
> simply 3 dimensional) and depends on the conceptual structure of how
> one is
> representing ideas. One thought that offers a simplistic start would
> be
> architectural research into the evolving internal structures within a
> Kohonen network representation of a design solution. This
> architectural
> analysis would reveal both DNA equivalent structures and code
> snippets - but
> would depend on the form that you represented the Kohonen networks.
>
> To comment on your later paragraph about Alexander and colleagues'
> work.
>
> 'Notes on the Synthesis of Form' and the 'Pattern Language' trio
> are very
> different books in purpose and in conceptual foundations. They apply
> different _types_ of mathematical approaches to design theory and
> design
> optimisation. As I understand them, they are in essence dummy's
> guide to
> mathematics for people in the design world that, without exposing
> readers to
> the mathematics, help unacademic readers understand some of the
> benefits of
> traditional mathematical 'design theory' as applied to architecture
> and art
> and design (as an example of this older use of the term design
> theory see
> http://designtheory.org/)
>
> If Christopher or any of his colleagues are on the list, I'd welcome
> their
> comments.
>
> Most people who read Pattern Language get distractedly obsessed by
> the idea
> of hierarchical repetition across space or the architectural
> information
> Christopher and his colleagues describe. This is trivial and naïve.
> Both of
> these ideas are centuries older than Alexander and colleagues' work.
>
> I feel the crucial contribution of Alexander and colleagues in Pattern
> Language is their pointing to, and demonstrating, a small methodic
> that
> connects 'generic information about the world' to 'good quality
> solutions'
> in a pseudo causal technique. This helps resolve a really non-
> trivial issue
> that is at the heart of most socio-technical design problems AND the
> development of foundational design theory. Jo Jung described this
> issue in
> her review of her PhD at the recent Design and Emotion conference
> in Hong
> Kong. Establishing a generic approach that creates causal relations
> between
> 'generic information about the world' and 'good quality solutions'
> is a
> major 'hole' in most theories about design and emotion in their
> extension
> to design techniques. For example, how does 'knowing that a human
> relates
> to a computer socially in a similar way to a human social
> relationship'
> (generic information) prescribe (say) what colour font to use for a
> heading
> (specific design detail). More difficult is developing a justifiable
> explanation about how specific information about a real world
> situation
> should define the specific detail of virtual world design solutions.
> At the
> moment, designers and design theorists are doing a lot of hand
> waving and
> brushing over this issue and hiding it by elision under design
> 'creativity/intuition/expertise'.
>
> Alexander and colleagues took this problem head on and developed a
> technique. Its not great (yet) and it’s the early days for the
> technique but
> the structure and layout of Alexander et al's 'pattern' approach
> does this
> - and that is far more useful than the relatively trivial idea of
> using
> patterns in design, e.g. as it has been taken up in architecture,
> urban
> planning, art and design, software design and a range of other fields.
>
> By the way, the computer model Alexander describes as the
> culmination of
> Notes on the Synthesis of Form doesn't seem to work. I programmed it
> some
> years ago and the decompositional approach as described seems to be
> incoherent. I suspect a typo or two may be the problem. I'd appreciate
> knowing whether anyone else has successfully replicated the software.
>
> Best regards,
> Terry
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
> related
> research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Damian
> Rogers
> Sent: Thursday, 4 December 2008 1:56 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Using DNA Structure as an Analogy for Design
>
> Wow, so many responses in so short a time! To save people's "inbox",
> I'll
> address all in one response.
>
> Francois: What I'm hoping is to incorporate these things into the
> analogy.
> For example, many people have hit on pattern languages, which I
> would hope
> to use to 'describe' each of the genes in the analogy; with codes,
> customs,
> etc also making some of the genes. As you see in my example in my
> first
> post, some of the genes would be a resultant from looking at
> building codes
> and such. So, what I'm hoping for is different in a way, but made up
> of
> these customs and codes.
>
> Ken: Thanks for the idea of splitting this into the "who" and
> "what". I
> think I might try to study also the "how", as in how can we make a
> set of
> working artificial DNA for a certain artifact type. While both the
> ideas of
> pattern languages and also collaborative learning have been quite
> extensively covered in the design world, I believe work in the
> specifics of
> a DNA analogy are sparse, which is why I bring in the "how"
> of the idea.
>
> Terry: Thanks for those journals; I'll have a peruse through some back
> issues to see what I can find. As I said in my first post to the
> list, I
> have thus far had no luck finding any research which directly links
> the two
> ideas, so is there any specific papers you know of that could be of
> use?
>
> Ellen: Thanks for the references. Wikipedia was a 'friend' when I
> was first
> putting together this idea in a short proposal to my supervisor and I
> managed to find a fair amount of information on the genetics side of
> things
> from there.
>
>
> Luckily, I have both "A Pattern Language" and "Notes on the
> Synthesis of
> Form" from Alexander. Both are great and hit on the pattern language
> idea
> that he came to. If you haven't read "Notes on the Synthesis of
> Form", I
> recommend it highly. Much shorter than the pattern language text, but
> equally if not more useful. Alexander wrote the notes afterwards,
> but as a
> precursor to the pattern language book.
>
> Damian
>
> Damian Rogers, B.Eng, M.A.Sc
> PhD Candidate, Ryerson University
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of
> Shari Cheves
> Sent: December 1, 2008 8:40 PM
> To: Damian Rogers
> Cc: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Using DNA Structure as an Analogy for Design
>
> Hi Damian,
> Likewise, I am a closet subscriber, but you may find my college
> research
> paper and bibliography on "Presenting the Immune System as a Model for
> Design" somewhat useful. Here is the link:
> http://www.healthypixels.com/designimmunology.html
>
> -Shari Cheves
> Design, Integrative Health, and Immunology
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 7:52 AM, Damian Rogers <[log in to unmask]
> >
> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have been subscribed to the list for a fairly long time now and
> really
> like reading contributions from all of you. Though I read it every
> day, this
> will be my first post to the list since I subscribed. What I am
> writing
> about is a question about whether any of you know of any references
> to my
> topic. I have done the traditional "google" searches for keywords I
> think my
> topic entails, but haven't found any reference to work in progress or
> already completed that relates to my thesis topic. So, if any of you
> have
> heard of something similar or have any suggestions for books/papers
> I could
> read, it would be greatly appreciated. I'll give a brief explanation
> of what
> I'm doing below.
>
> I am currently conducting research in the area of using DNA
> structure in
> living organisms as an analogy to design theory. Since DNA is viewed
> as a
> set of instructions for life, we can do the same with design and
> create an
> artificial set of instructions for any artifact we wish to create.
> By using
> best practices, commonality, regulations, etc and by examining current
> successful designs, we can form a set of artificial instructions for
> nearly
> any artifact we design and thus help to decrease time at or around the
> concept stage in design.
>
> To use an example as explanation, say we are designing a house in a
> known
> community. We could start from scratch and look up things like
> building
> codes, regulations, weather patterns for the area, etc. or these
> things
> could be somewhat pre-determined via picking certain favourable
> "genes" from
> the artificial DNA method. So, by examining current housing stock,
> it is
> possible to come up with the genes that give certain characteristics
> and
> performance levels. We then create a list of genes, taken from
> currently
> existing designs, from which we can create a newly designed artifact
> with
> less effort. So, picking a certain "insulation level gene" say from
> our
> list, then we are assured a typical performance level for that
> house. This
> way we didn't have to look up all the primary information in order
> to decide
> what insulation level we need, we just pick it from the list of
> available
> genes in the inventory.
> The same can be done for choosing exterior cladding, window to wall
> ratios,
> flooring, power generation methods, etc. While this method doesn't
> pick the
> interior wall colour, or layout or other such aspect of the house, the
> designer still has complete freedom of form.
>
> I hope this has given everyone a good enough picture of what we are
> currently researching and I hope to hear from any of you on
> suggestions for
> readings that could be applicable, or research that is currently
> being done
> in the same area.
>
> Cheers,
> Damian
>
> Damian Rogers, B.Eng, M.A.Sc
> PhD Candidate, Ryerson University
>
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