Dear Rosan,
I was thinking to leave this thread between you and Derek, but some of the talk starts troubling my professional ideology. I am also concerned that such ideas undermine the effort to promote the need for research foundations in design decision-making/design projects. What you suggests fosters a design philosophy that undermines decades of effort to make designers aware of the importance of a systematic study of user culture, needs, and requirements. I find this an undesirable precedent at a time when in the U.S.A., the pre-design community has almost managed to promote programming as a necessary and even mandatory stage in several building types or client types.
I am working in the area of pre-design studies in architecture. This area can also be conceptualized as facilities programming or facilities planning. My major theses is that designers need well-grounded system of design requirements and guidelines that will provide the right directions and will define the scope of their search. However, architects don't want to get it and go just the opposite way. They want first to design, and then to develop the design program. They believe that the program is constricting their creativity. They cannot reinvent the social world. Actually, there are many cases when architects first develop the concept and the design, and then deduce a program to justify their design. Architects would not confess this, but that is what they want and very often do. Here I would make a caveat that I am talking about large, complex, and unique facilities. The situation with small, repetitive, and traditional project situations is very different. Also, a good architect can deal with any program. Actually, when responding to complex programs good architects develop innovations and deliver break-through solutions.
One of the issues with exploring by designing is that the initial design exploration pigeon-holes the designer for the rest of the project. Another issue is that a design that is not based on a program is as good as the designer's intuition about the context and the users. In most cases, when the context is complex and unfamiliar, the design would not be adequate. It is like the adage in survey research: garbage in, garbage out.
There is another area related to programming, but it is symmetrically at the opposite end of the facility development process. While programming is in the pre-design stage, that other area is at the end, providing feedback. I am talking about post-occupancy evaluation. Here my philosophy is that we don't need to evaluate a design/building that is not program. No need to work by blind trials and errors. We need to program, then design, then evaluate. That is the proper sequence.
I hope that you and our colleagues will interpret my post in the context of programming. I hope that people would not start a discussion on design as programming. There is such an approach, and it has its area of application/limitation as I mentioned above. I also would like to mention that it is not a problem if your statement was made at the spur of particular moment, project, or something else in mind. I have such moments and after some time I revise my views. It is a normal stage in the process of searching, exploring, developing new ideas, and making proposals.
Best wishes,
Lubomir
-----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 Rosan Chow
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2011 3:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: projection before analysis
Dear Derek,
I have invited you to consider that design (projection) can and at times preferably come before research (analysis). In reply, you wrote that
"We fully recognize that the learning process is always iterative and on-going, but one needs to model with the things on the table. That means, someone needs to put the stuff on the table. Research puts data (or the interpretive frameworks, etc) on the table for use in modeling, scenario building, prototyping, etc. This is the "raw stuff" we design with. Not clay or paper or metal".
See, I am not so sure, I don't think the "raw stuff" of what you design is the research data on the local culture that you collect. This descriptive data is, more precisely speaking, material for evaluation. Very important, but no more than that.
The real stuff for design, I believe, following Jonas, is the objects, systems and things that have been designed /or emerged. In your case, the stuff is the existing international policy and programs (and things that are similiar to them).
You also wrote
"Designing - as use the term - is more akin to "modeling" than "thinking." One models "with stuff." That means, you need the stuff first. If the stuff is socio-cultural knowledge, then research precedes the process. It may also support it and follow it, and it may go round and round, but it is not chicken and egg. First comes a strategic goal, then the knowledge, then the modelling, then the prototyping, etc".
See, that is what many people would say. But there is also a different perspective, an old one: the solution is the problem.
When I was suggesting to you to consider putting projection first before research, I had something like this in mind:
Do not start your project with describing the context (the culture of the local), but think striaght away about what the policy and program COULD be like, after all, you have many experiences and there are many good or bad precedences/designs. Take your first protoype to the local people (your users)and discuss with them, employing the particaptory approach and methods. From this discussion, you might not only have a more refined design, but also might learn about their culture and your own persumptions.
Best,
Rosan
Acknowledgement: My thinking on this is very much influenced by Jonas and Harold Nelson, who, I believe, are influenced by Horst Rittel.
Rosan Chow, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Design Research Lab
Deutsche Telekom Laboratories
UdK Berlin
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