The Design Process – Part 1

The ‘Design Process’ identifies the direction one wish to take when embarking on an architectural project. It is  the formula, the identity and the process all in one. It has a start and a finish. It has a beginning and an end. It explains the philosophy of the designer.

Every act of creation has a beginning and an end. This probably follows a debate on metaphysics i.e. whether the world will end and so on… but we will leave that for now.

Our concern is on the topic of the ‘Design Process’ where when given a problem in the beginning, say; design a house for an elderly couple; or a prototype design for a school or; design a school bag for six year old children. We can see the crux of the problem from just glancing at the project’s topic.

Everything is about the user, whether specific user/s (that could be a real client, say the elderly couple is Mr. and Mrs. Jones) to the prototype design for a school to the design of the school bag for six year old children. The others may be a bit clearer in terms of defining the scope and function, but for the prototype design we are not sure whether the school is for small children or older children and so on. However the crux of the problem had been identified in each of the projects and a direction could easily be set.

The user, the function, the brief, the client…could be identified by just that topic. But other questions would follow: Where is the house? Urban site? Natural site? How much would it cost? Where is the school? What is a prototype design? What design parameters must I use? Do I design the interior and furniture of the school prototype as well?

During the ‘Design Process’, you must be able to time the work in a non-linear manner. The only time you work in a linear manner is when you do production drawings (working or tender drawings) or presentation drawings or anything that has to do with the end of the project rather than the beginning.

After you found out about the topic in a very basic way, you need to be ‘philosophical’ about it. You need to put on the ‘Hat of the Philosopher’. You need to read before or when you start sketching. Reading around the subject, say on an elderly couple’s house will take you to many examples about elderly couples houses in magazines, books and the internet. Then you explore further, literally by reading about ‘elderly’, ‘ageing’, ‘couples’, ‘living together’, ‘gerontology issues’ and so on. You need to create a story. You read with a reason, and that is to narrate your concept by knowing what it is. This is a very important part of the beginning of your design process. This is the germination of ideas and concepts.

To digress a bit, I would like you to think about the ‘Design Process’ having inductive and deductive reasoning processes. The deductive reasoning process shows that if you read more and more, you will form or pick up theories on the topic, and eventually form questions and assumptions about what is important for you to explore. You will then study cases or case studies and you will then confirm these assumptions by designing from these assumptions.

On the other hand, the inductive reasoning process will first take you to visit real cases or cases studies of houses or schools where you will observe in-situ and note the patterns that you will see and then form assumptions and concepts which you will try to prove with your design.

I needed to explain about the inductive and deductive reasoning processes in the ‘Design Process’ because we need to be aware that we are actually doing “research” when we are doing an architectural project. We are doing research to justify our actions, our concepts and ideas. That is an important aspect to the beginnings of the ‘Design Process’.

The ‘Design Process’ does not ignore the designer’s trademark approach. In my opinion, unless you are involved with real projects or you are an experienced designer, will you then have a trademark or a distinctive approach. Otherwise, as an undergraduate, you are picking up the skills and adopting philosophies and approaches taught in the school. You may use approaches using precedents, be they an architect, groups of architect, theories on architecture and/or methods taught in the studio or elsewhere.

To be continued….

Architecture + Urbanism

“S333 believes that rapidly increasing urbanism is presenting new challenges for the (architecture) profession and our world. Given the opportunity, S333 enters the design process earlier than normal shifting the emphasis from solving singular problems to searching for the right questions.” (Link)

What are the right questions?

Why does S333 view Architecture + Urbanism as one?

Why does S333 expressed that designers cannot just concentrate on one problem (one project) to solve, but to look wider for the right questions to ask?

S333’s suggestions seems to be similar to an approach of doing a thesis. Reading around the subject before entering the subject properly. Addressing links and complexities.

Another blogger also discussed this issue, arguing against modern movement’s zoning principles, suggesting that, for example,”zoning destroys many forms of exchange and holds back the complexity of the city.”

This blogger’s link is:

Emergent Urbanism

We need to define Urbanism.

A quick googling about the www resulted in these definitions:

Urbanism means “the culture or way of life of city dwellers” and “urbanization”. Another defines urbanism as “the characteristic way of life of city dwellers”, “the study of the physical needs of urban societies” or “city-planning” and again, “urbanization”.

Another blogger questions the accepted definition of Jane Jacobs and James Kunstler (which coincidentally reflected ‘New Urbanism’ theories in the 1980s and 90s). The blogger proposed that ”our ‘urbanism’ is more interested in the flows of capital, commerce, politics, entertainment, knowledge, etc. and how such flows inform the built environment” and not necessarily Jacobs’ thinking. (Link)

This ideas reminded me more of Tokyo than Boston. It reflects closely an Asian city rather than a European one. But Asian cities want to be modeled after European cities?

The Baroque city, such as Rome, built with strong Roman  principles and Baroque planning, steep with hierarchy and order in its character.

We are seeing the emergence of the new city, not necessarily Jacobs or Leon Krier’s visualisation, but a mish-mesh of relationships, reflecting more on what the bloggers were mentioning.

I am really interested in this issue after beginning to read about generative systems and evolutionary architecture by John H. Frazer. A new way of thinking…

(AA School Link)

(Ellipsis Link)

(Autotectonica Link)

This is just the tip of the iceberg…

Process vs Product

Practice makes perfect.

An expert is deemed as someone knowledgeable in his/her profession / interest / expertise. We should aim to be an expert or work towards being one.

A user is an expert. He/she does the same thing day in, day out; practise the routine consciously and subconsciously. Let’s put this in context: A tennis player who practises his forehand volley, services, backhand cross sourt shots and so on…day in, day out. So when he goes out to play competitively, with his adrenalin running fast, those days of practising will pay-off during this match, when he “instinctively” goes for the shots and due to those numerous practices, his connection is correct and he “kills off” the other opponent and he wins eventually.

As a designer, are we competitive enough. Do we practise enough?

As an academic, are we competitive enough. Do we practise enough?

So, how should a designer practise? What should he/she practise until it becomes instinctive how to get it right? Is there one formula or several?

This issue lurks somewhere under the discussion of process versus product. With computer aided design softwares, you could (arguably) instantly create design in the last minute to get you to another level or to pass and go to year 2 or year 3. And then you got your degree. Congratulations! But wait a minute…congratulations to what? What did you do? Did you bluff your way through university course? Did you managed to bluff the lecturer by your “skills”?

How about this: did you manage to bluff yourself?

So what is “process”? Why is process so important? Is it skills-building? Aren’t there many many types of skills out there? So if I muster a few, I should be able to get a job in a company and earn a living. At the end of the day, getting paid is the most important thing, isn’t it? A comfy job, settle down in marriage, get into a piece of the wealth pie…

Well, it’s your life. But say if paid more attention and practised more, concentrating in getting the process right, going through all the processes and not relying on shortcuts. Say that your lecturer asks you to read more, to study more, to prepare better, so that your analysis becomes better and your design will have more depth. You will be more of an expert with better skills.

But! In the pass, we saw students who took the shortcuts and students who studied more, they both scored with the same grade! What’s the use with all that effort? The lecturer should penalise the students who did the shortcut if you really want us to do the proper process.

Well…don’t you feel that you should do the process and learn from it. Doing the process right is for you, not the lecturer, isn’t it?

So the debate goes on?

What value do you place the process of the design to be of equal or even more importance than the product?

If you do not value the process highly, then you will not do it or not do it properly or do it well…

Its your judgment.