94,750 research outputs found
The Value of Stimulated Dissatisfaction
âIâm not saying itâs a good quality to have, but my observation is that good designers are never happy, theyâre never satisfied, never contentâ (Adrian Stokes, quoted in Spencer, 2008, p. 145). It seems self-evident that designers, whose raison dâĂȘtre is to initiate change in man-made things (Jones, 1970), devising courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones (Simon, 1969), will be dissatisfied, at some level, with the way they experience the material world. However, recent research (Spencer, 2008) suggests that expert designers deliberately enhance the pressure and stress of the design situation â stimulating dissatisfaction. By stimulating the experience of dissatisfaction their imaginative and investigative action is given urgency, focus and purpose as they pursue excellence and attempt to unfold from their own view of the world to empathise with a broad project community. This discursive paper highlights the need for a developed understanding of the reflective practitioner model to inform the post-rationalist generation of design methods. This paper: reviews critical literature about the experience of designing; discusses the role of dissatisfaction within the practise of design; and presents a research project that aims to evaluate the value of stimulated dissatisfaction for the purpose of supporting practitionersâ empathic appreciation in early design direction generation. This paper argues that the reflective practitioner model of the designer must address the stimulation of dissatisfaction as a condition of creative and explorative design practice
The Relevance of Rigour for Design Practise
Design is an inverted discipline. The concept of rigour, as understood within the natural sciences, cannot be applied to Design Practice. Rigour for the natural sciences is a quality assurance mechanism ensuring that the knowledge bases of the disciplines are developed to an accepted set of standards. Designâs ontology is not like the natural sciences and as such an understanding of rigour for Design must proceed from an appropriate standpoint about the nature of Design Practice. This paper builds upon Harfieldâs [1] ontological assessment of Design, Schönâs [2] [3] work on Reflective Practice and Spencerâs [4] investigation into the experience and practise of designing to develop a standpoint about Design Practice and make a proposition about the relevance of rigour for Design Practise. This paper considers how individual Reflective Practice practitioners, within the context of Design Practice, manage and ensure quality control through the application of care and thoroughness. This paper argues that rigour for Design Practise is the personal and phenomenological quality control of a design inquiry: a process of managing expanding mental chaos and restricting order
A colony provides a safe haven
For the Contingency of Curation conference we explored new ways of presenting the traditional paper to a conference by creating a sound work. The original content of the presentation was Host Artists Group (H.A.G.) text* written for S.H.U.'s Transmission chapbook series. This text considered roles of artists and curators and their relationship within projects involving large numbers of artists. The pros and cons of this relationship were discussed through an exchange of letters. Through the editing process the research gathered became more focused on the analogy of natural systems and relationships. Observations, comments and musings from the ensuing dialogue were mixed with field recordings adding narrative, emotional and physical value to the text. The research for this project was disseminated as a live sonic performance, displaced from the text instead of a formal presentation. The performance was delivered anonymously using laptops plugged in to the theatre's surround sound system. It consisted of a twenty minute listening experience of dialogue and immersive sound.
* Thanks to Rose Butler and Lesley Guy for contributing to the original text
The design co-ordination framework : key elements for effective product development
This paper proposes a Design Co-ordination Framework (DCF) i.e. a concept for an ideal DC system with the abilities to support co-ordination of various complex aspects of product development. A set of frames, modelling key elements of co-ordination, which reflect the states of design, plans, organisation, allocations, tasks etc. during the design process, has been identified. Each frame is explained and the co-ordination, i.e. the management of the links between these frames, is presented, based upon characteristic DC situations in industry. It is concluded that while the DCF provides a basis for our research efforts into enhancing the product development process there is still considerable work and development required before it can adequately reflect and support Design Co-ordination
Creativity Training for Future Engineers: Preliminary Results from an Educative Experience
Due in part to the increased pace of cultural and environmental change, as
well as increased competition due to globalization, innovation is become one of
the primary concerns of the 21st century. We present an academic course
designed to develop cognitive abilities related to creativity within an
engineering education context, based on a conceptual framework rooted in
cognitive sciences. The course was held at \'Ecole Polytechnique de Montr\'eal
(\'EPM), a world renowned engineering school and a pillar in Canada's
engineering community. The course was offered twice in the 2014-2015 academic
year and more than 30 students from the graduate and undergraduate programs
participated. The course incorporated ten pedagogical strategies, including
serious games, an observation book, individual and group projects, etc., that
were expected to facilitate the development of cognitive abilities related to
creativity such as encoding, and associative analytical thinking. The CEDA
(Creative Engineering Design Assessment) test was used to measure the students'
creativity at the beginning and at the end of the course. Field notes were
taken after each of the 15 three-hour sessions to qualitatively document the
educative intervention along the semester and students gave anonymous written
feedback after completing the last session. Quantitative and qualitative
results suggest that an increase in creativity is possible to obtain with a
course designed to development cognitive abilities related to creativity. Also,
students appreciated the course, found it relevant, and made important,
meaningful learnings regarding the creative process, its cognitive mechanism
and the approaches available to increase it.Comment: 10 page
Consciously unconscious: Researching, teaching and practising transformation architecture
Experiencing architecture, making architecture and teaching architecture all seem to share a common premise â the dualistic relationship between the emotional and the intellectual, the concrete and the abstract. Louis Kahn describes the work of the architect as a movement from something intangible through concrete matter and back: «A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must
be unmeasurable».Peer Reviewe
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