A web-based teaching/learning environment to support collaborative knowledge construction in design

A web-based application has been developed as part of a recently completed research which proposed a conceptual framework to collect, analyze and compare different design experiences and to construct structured representations of the emerging knowledge in digital architectural design. The paper introduces the theoretical and practical development of this application as a teaching/learning environment which has significantly contributed to the development and testing of the ideas developed throughout the research. Later in the paper, the application of BLIP in two experimental (design) workshops is reported and evaluated according to the extent to which the application facilitates generation, modification and utilization of design knowledge

Designing a novel virtual collaborative environment to support collaboration in design review meetings

Project review meetings are part of the project management process and are organised to assess progress and resolve any design conflicts to avoid delays in construction. One of the key challenges during a project review meeting is to bring the stakeholders together and use this time effectively to address design issues as quickly as possible. At present, current technology solutions based on BIM or CAD are information-centric and do not allow project teams to collectively explore the design from a range of perspectives and brainstorm ideas when design conflicts are encountered. This paper presents a system architecture that can be used to support multi-functional team collaboration more effectively during such design review meetings. The proposed architecture illustrates how information-centric BIM or CAD systems can be made human- and team-centric to enhance team communication and problem solving. An implementation of the proposed system architecture has been tested for its utility, likability and usefulness during design review meetings. The evaluation results suggest that the collaboration platform has the potential to enhance collaboration among multi-functional teams

Participatory Modelling and Decision Support for Natural Resources Management in Climate Change Research

The ever greater role given to public participation by laws and regulations, in particular in the field of environmental management calls for new operational methods and tools for managers and practitioners. This paper analyses the potentials and the critical limitations of current approaches in the fields of simulation modelling (SM), public participation (PP) and decision analysis (DA), for natural resources management within the context of climate change research. The potential synergies of combining SM, PP and DA into an integrated methodological framework are identified and a methodological proposal is presented, called NetSyMoD (Network Analysis – Creative System Modelling – Decision Support), which aims at facilitating the involvement of stakeholders or experts in policy - or decision-making processes (P/DMP). A generic P/DMP is formalised in NetSyMoD as a sequence of six main phases: (i) Actors analysis; (ii) Problem analysis; (iii) Creative System Modelling; (iv) DSS design; (v) Analysis of Options; and (vi) Action taking and monitoring. Several variants of the NetSyMoD approach have been adapted to different contexts such as integrated water resources management and coastal management, and, recently it has been applied in climate change research projects. Experience has shown that NetSyMoD may be a useful framework for skilled professionals, for guiding the P/DMP, and providing practical solutions to problems encountered in the different phases of the decision/policy making process, in particular when future scenarios or projections have to be considered, such as in the case of developing and selecting adaptation policies. The various applications of NetSyMoD share the same approach for problem analysis and communication within the group of selected actors, based upon the use of creative thinking techniques, the formalisation of human-environment relationships through the DPSIR framework, and the use of multi-criteria analysis through a Decision Support System (DSS) software.Modelling, Public Participation, Natural Resource Management, Policy, Decision-Making, Governance, DSS

Alterplinarity – ‘Alternative Disciplinarity’ in Future Art and Design Research Pursuits

Contemporary design is typified by fluid, evolving patterns of practice that regularly traverse, transcend and transfigure historical disciplinary and conceptual boundaries. This mutability means that design research, education, and practice is constantly shifting, creating, contesting and negotiating new terrains of opportunities and re-shaping the boundaries of the discipline. This paper proposes that this is because globalisation and the proliferation of the digital has resulted in connections that are no longer “amid”, cannot be measured “across”, nor encompass a “whole” system, which has generated an “other” dimension (Bourriaud, 2009), an “alternative disciplinarity” - an “alterplinarity”. As the fragmentation of distinct disciplines has shifted creative practice from being “discipline-based” to “issue- or project-based” (Heppell, 2006), we present the argument that the researcher, who purposely blurs distinctions and has dumped methods from being “discipline-based” to “issue- or project-based”, will be best placed to make connections that generate new ways to identify “other” dimensions of design research, activity and thought that is needed for the complex, interdependent issues we now face. We present the case that reliance on the historic disciplines of design as the boundaries of our understanding has been superseded by a boundless space/time that we call “alterplinarity”. The digital has modified the models of design thought and action, and as a result research and practice should transform from a convention domesticated by the academy to a reaction to globalisation that is yet to be disciplined

Transdisciplinarity seen through Information, Communication, Computation, (Inter-)Action and Cognition

Similar to oil that acted as a basic raw material and key driving force of industrial society, information acts as a raw material and principal mover of knowledge society in the knowledge production, propagation and application. New developments in information processing and information communication technologies allow increasingly complex and accurate descriptions, representations and models, which are often multi-parameter, multi-perspective, multi-level and multidimensional. This leads to the necessity of collaborative work between different domains with corresponding specialist competences, sciences and research traditions. We present several major transdisciplinary unification projects for information and knowledge, which proceed on the descriptive, logical and the level of generative mechanisms. Parallel process of boundary crossing and transdisciplinary activity is going on in the applied domains. Technological artifacts are becoming increasingly complex and their design is strongly user-centered, which brings in not only the function and various technological qualities but also other aspects including esthetic, user experience, ethics and sustainability with social and environmental dimensions. When integrating knowledge from a variety of fields, with contributions from different groups of stakeholders, numerous challenges are met in establishing common view and common course of action. In this context, information is our environment, and informational ecology determines both epistemology and spaces for action. We present some insights into the current state of the art of transdisciplinary theory and practice of information studies and informatics. We depict different facets of transdisciplinarity as we see it from our different research fields that include information studies, computability, human-computer interaction, multi-operating-systems environments and philosophy.Comment: Chapter in a forthcoming book: Information Studies and the Quest for Transdisciplinarity - Forthcoming book in World Scientific. Mark Burgin and Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Editor

Design Research and Domain Representation

While diverse theories about the nature of design research have been proposed, they are rarely considered in relation to one another across the broader disciplinary field. Discussions of design research paradigms have tended to use overarching binary models for understanding differing knowledge frameworks. This paper focuses on an analysis of theories of design research and the use of Web 3 and open content systems to explore the potential of building more relational modes of conceptual representation. The nature of this project is synthetic, building upon the work of other design theorists and researchers. A number of theoretical frameworks will be discussed and examples of the analysis and modelling of key concepts and information relationships, using concept mapping software, collaborative ontology building systems and semantic wiki technologies will be presented. The potential of building information structures from content relationships that are identified by domain specialists rather than the imposition of formal, top-down, information hierarchies developed by information scientists, will be considered. In particular the opportunity for users to engage with resources through their own knowledge frameworks, rather than through logically rigorous but largely incomprehensible ontological systems, will be explored in relation to building resources for emerging design researchers. The motivation behind this endeavour is not to create a totalising meta-theory or impose order on the ‘ill structured’ and ‘undisciplined’, domain of design. Nor is it to use machine intelligence to ‘solve design problems’. It seeks to create dynamic systems that might help researchers explore design research theories and their various relationships with one another. It is hoped such tools could help novice researchers to better locate their own projects, find reference material, identify knowledge gaps and make new linkages between bodies of knowledge by enabling forms of data-poesis - the freeing of data for different trajectories. Keywords: Design research; Design theory; Methodology; Knowledge systems; Semantic web technologies.</p

archiTECTONICS: Pre- and Trans-Disciplinary Reference in Beginning Design

This presentation was part of the session : Pedagogy: Procedures, Scaffolds, Strategies, Tactics24th National Conference on the Beginning Design StudentPedagogical approaches to beginning design in architecture often assume trans-disciplinary modes of exploration to filter problem parameters and sculpt perceptual outlook for iterative potential. A closer look suggests moments within the architectural design process that come before, or around, the discipline itself in the form of other disciplines accompanied by basic principles, such as Visual Literacy. Iterating and perceiving through every disciplinary dynamic, instance, and/or action in the process of designing transcends, builds, and structures its neighbor for explorative sequencing, intention, and growth of sensibilities in design resolution. An acute awareness of disciplinary state, in a maturing design process, can alleviate obscurity of ideological foundation and facilitate growth for trans-disciplinary thinking, making, and communicating in a root discipline such as architecture. How can beginning design instructors guide young designers to keep ideas and concepts for design in focus, recognizing that root disciplines transcend pre- and trans-disciplinary processes? Does recognizing variation in pace, induced by digital and analog tools, and intention of design iteration, by discipline, instill clarity by pre-disciplinary thinking, perception, and operation? Trans-disciplinary exercise provokes awareness of pre-disciplinary foundations furthering possibilities for unique root-disciplinary understandings and results. The developed exercise, archiTECTONIC, recognizes and cycles through reasoning, conceptualization, and iteration in a trans-disciplinary sequence, allowing the beginning design student to recognize pre-disciplinary ideology, pace, and purpose when processing ideas through fundamentals of architectural design. Engaging this as a strategy for seeing, thinking, and maneuvering through a dynamic process provides design liberty and clarity for processing and communicating in a root discipline, in this case architecture

Studying Games in School: a Framework for Media Education

This paper explores how media education principles can be extended to digital games, and whether the notion of ‘game literacy’ is an appropriate metaphor for thinking about the study of digital games in schools. Rationales for studying the media are presented, focusing on the importance of setting up social situations that encourage more systematic and critical understanding of games. The value of practical production, or game making, is emphasized, as a way of developing both conceptual understanding and creative abilities. Definitions of games are reviewed to explore whether the study of games is best described as a form of literacy. I conclude that games raise difficulties for existing literacy frameworks, but that it remains important to study the multiple aspects of games in an integrated way. A model for conceptualizing the study of games is presented which focuses on the relationship between design, play and culture

Politics makes strange bedfellows: addressing the ‘messy’ power dynamics in design practice

The paper addresses the role of the designer in navigating through politics and power dynamics that can potentially hinder ways in which people have input into a design process. It acknowledges that such obstacles are common to design practices and much is already documented in organisational, business and management frameworks (Best, 2006, p. 97; Jones, 2003). However, the paper draws on the author’s doctoral research that explored how designers work within the complexities of politics and power dynamics and the agency they bring when working within such contexts. Firstly, the paper clarifies its use of the word politics by distinguishing between the Political choices that designers make, to the embedded politics of power dynamics and hidden agendas. It acknowledges how the Political content and intention of design is widely discussed in communication design literature where designers have created political content toward a purposeful political outcome. The paper therefore focuses more on another political aspect to communication design practice that relates to values, relationships and power dynamics. These human aspects of practice are complex, ‘messy’ and are often implicit. The power dynamics within projects can significantly influence the way stakeholders have input into the design process and subsequent project outcome. The politics of the individual, organisation, community or the society can often abruptly and unexpectedly surface through designing. Based on several interviews with a variety of communication design practitioners and project case studies from the author’s research, the paper highlights a role that designers can potentially play in addressing the ‘messy’ politics that can manifest through design projects. The research explored various design interventions to enable a variety of people with different values, opinions and viewpoints within a design project to collectively negotiate them through dialogue. It has discovered that such design interventions can be instrumental in facilitating the dialogic process amongst stakeholders to illuminate differences in values or hidden agendas. The paper proposes that the role of the designer, then, is to facilitate this dialogic process through design interventions to enrich the experience of dialogue and exchange amongst project stakeholders. Keywords: Human-Centred Design; Communication Design; Politics; Power-Dynamics; Design ‘Scaffolds’; Dialogue.</p