Designing Spaces for Learning and Living in Schools: perspectives of a 'flaneuse'

The design elements of school learning spaces - classrooms, laboratories, libraries, studios - have the potential to position learners and teachers and to prohibit, authorise, situate and regulate the ways in which learning takes place. Approaches to the designing of learning spaces can fail to take into account the changing social, cultural, pedagogical and technological factors impacting on learners and teachers. How can such taken-for-granted spaces accommodate the needs of learners and teachers and respond to the demands of 'rich task' curriculum and 'real world' learning experiences? Acknowledging Donald Schon's (1983) perspective that 'all occupations engaged in converting actual to preferred situations are concerned with design', this paper is linked to a site visit and workshop conducted in the Ken Thamm Information Resource Centre at Immanuel Lutheran College, Buderim as part of the 2005 Australian Curriculum Studies Conference Blurring the Boundaries – Sharpening the Focus

Museum Experience Design: A Modern Storytelling Methodology

In this paper we propose a new direction for design, in the context of the theme “Next Digital Technologies in Arts and Culture”, by employing modern methods based on Interaction Design, Interactive Storytelling and Artificial Intelligence. Focusing on Cultural Heritage, we propose a new paradigm for Museum Experience Design, facilitating on the one hand traditional visual and multimedia communication and, on the other, a new type of interaction with artefacts, in the form of a Storytelling Experience. Museums are increasingly being transformed into hybrid spaces, where virtual (digital) information coexists with tangible artefacts. In this context, “Next Digital Technologies” play a new role, providing methods to increase cultural accessibility and enhance experience. Not only is the goal to convey stories hidden inside artefacts, as well as items or objects connected to them, but it is also to pave the way for the creation of new ones through an interactive museum experience that continues after the museum visit ends. Social sharing, in particular, can greatly increase the value of dissemination

The role of different sliding resistances in limit analysis of hemispherical masonry domes

A limit analysis method for masonry domes composed of interlocking blocks with non-isotropic sliding resistance is under development. This paper reports the first two steps of that work. It first introduces a revision to an existing limit analysis approach using the membrane theory with finite hoop stresses to find the minimum thickness of a hemispherical dome under its own weight and composed of conventional blocks with finite isotropic friction. The coordinates of an initial axisymmetric membrane surface are the optimization variables. During the optimization, the membrane satisfies the equilibrium conditions and meets the sliding constraints where intersects the block interfaces. The results of the revised procedure are compared to those obtained by other approaches finding the thinnest dome. A heuristic method using convex contact model is then introduced to find the sliding resistance of the corrugated interlocking interfaces. Sliding of such interfaces is constrained by the Coulomb’s friction law and by the shear resistance of the locks keeping the blocks together along two orthogonal directions. The role of these two different sliding resistances is discussed and the heuristic method is applied to the revised limit analysis method

Applying the proto-theory of design to explain and modify the parameter analysis method of conceptual design

This article reports on the outcomes of applying the notions provided by the reconstructed proto-theory of design, based on Aristotle’s remarks, to the parameter analysis (PA) method of conceptual design. Two research questions are addressed: (1) What further clarification and explanation to the approach of PA is provided by the proto-theory? (2) Which conclusions can be drawn from the study of an empirically derived design approach through the proto-theory regarding usefulness, validity and range of that theory? An overview of PA and an application example illustrate its present model and unique characteristics. Then, seven features of the proto-theory are explained and demonstrated through geometrical problem solving and analogies are drawn between these features and the corresponding ideas in modern design thinking. Historical and current uses of the terms analysis and synthesis in design are also outlined and contrasted, showing that caution should be exercised when applying them. Consequences regarding the design moves, process and strategy of PA allow proposing modifications to its model, while demonstrating how the ancient method of analysis can contribute to better understanding of contemporary design-theoretic issues

Design thinking support: information systems versus reasoning

Numerous attempts have been made to conceive and implement appropriate information systems to support architectural designers in their creative design thinking processes. These information systems aim at providing support in very diverse ways: enabling designers to make diverse kinds of visual representations of a design, enabling them to make complex calculations and simulations which take into account numerous relevant parameters in the design context, providing them with loads of information and knowledge from all over the world, and so forth. Notwithstanding the continued efforts to develop these information systems, they still fail to provide essential support in the core creative activities of architectural designers. In order to understand why an appropriately effective support from information systems is so hard to realize, we started to look into the nature of design thinking and on how reasoning processes are at play in this design thinking. This investigation suggests that creative designing rests on a cyclic combination of abductive, deductive and inductive reasoning processes. Because traditional information systems typically target only one of these reasoning processes at a time, this could explain the limited applicability and usefulness of these systems. As research in information technology is increasingly targeting the combination of these reasoning modes, improvements may be within reach for design thinking support by information systems