Dear Ken,
Maybe we are a millennium back in time ?
Your comment brings back to my mind the status of monumental
architecture a few centuries ago: cathedrals, major temples or
cities... The master architect, as well as the person that
commissioned the monument, was unlikely to see the construction
achieved. It was one of the reasons why the guilds were so closed :
ensuring the "continuity" of the initial project, at a time where
drafting and structural analysis was in its debut.
It is also one of the roots (in my opinion) of the distinction
between design (as an intentional project which value is rooted in
its representation/symbolic potential —potential because it is not
yet executed and experienced) and design (as the instructions to
execute, be it organisation of work, sketching, etc.).
The transmission had to be very special... not so different actually
from what happens when you have to deal with maintaining or
dismantling large pieces of equipment... an interesting topic for/
about design, but not really investigated.
Best regards,
Jean
Le 10 juin 11 à 09:13, Ken Friedman a écrit :
Goran Roos gave a talk here today in which he explained the challenge
-- and problem -- of design. We are in a field where knowledge (or at
least information) doubles every three or four years, but we work in
a world where knowledge (or at least information) in technology
doubles every eighteen months. To place this in perspective, over the
next year and a half, we will create as much information again in
technology as the human race has created in our entire history up to
this point. This makes designing and planning rather perilous,
especially in fields where we build massive, billion-dollar plants
with a five-year planning, investment, and construction horizon for
plants where we effectively don't know what we will finally
manufacture. It also makes educating students difficult, when the
software packages and skills we teach are sometimes obsolete before
our students graduate.
|