(Re)constructing the wicked problem through the visual and the verbal: the case of a dialogue based architectural competition

Wicked problems are open ended and complex societal problems. There is a lack of empirical research into the dynamics and mechanisms that (re)construct problems to become wicked. This paper builds on an ethnographic study of a dialogue-based architect competition to do just that. The competition studied had the purpose of selecting a design, a project and a design team for a large multifunctional building in Copenhagen. As a part of the competition, four different architect-teams had to come up with solutions on how to transform an old brewery site into a multifunctional building. During the competition, the invited architectural teams presented their designs and team organization in three parallel workshops for a panel of client advisors, user representatives as well as a professional jury. Our data consists of semi structured interviews with key informants before, during and after the competition and participant observations from all the workshops. We focus on the dynamic interplay between design visualizations and verbal dialogues and the ways in which contradictions and tensions emerge and play out. When the architect teams present their solutions at the workshops, the visualization processes creates new knowledge and insights, but at the same time present new problems related to the ongoing verbal feedback. In the design process where the problem is being (re) constructed appears as Heracles fight with Hydra: Every time Heracles cut of a head, two new heads grow out. The paper contributes to the understanding of the relationship between the visual and the verbal (dialogue) in complex design process in the early phases of large construction projects, and how the dynamic interplay between the design visualizations and verbal dialogues develops before the competition produces, or negotiates “a winning design”

The Aesthetic as an Aspect of Praxis: - Architectural design as a cooperative endeavor

Commonly the aesthetic is understood as sensuous private pleasure, which other people cannot experience, but maybe talk about, and on the other hand as created by individual artists' talents. We will attempt to bring the aesthetic back into praxis by arguing that aesthetic experience is tied to Gibson’s notion of perceptual systems. The article builds on observations of a design project for a community center in a Danish village. We argue that the aesthetic is shared pleasure resulting from struggles by participants in praxis, where aesthetic, material, functional, ethical, political, and economic aspects are formed by each other in a dialectic process. The struggles are found in the community council's reasons for starting the process, in the design and construction process and the use of the results. This means that descriptions of the aesthetic appearance of buildings should incorporate relevant discussions and struggles of the design, construction and use of the building, and that aesthetic experience is enriched the more aesthetic experience it is based on. It also means that the key to a fruitful ongoing collaborative process producing good aesthetic designs comes from managing together the many aspects of praxis in an open way

Design as redesign in the case of architectural competitions: the role of design visualisations and juries

Organisational research positions design as complex and open-ended. We contribute to research on design and the organisation of competition by conceptualising design as redesign and as a collective ‘thing’ consisting of an interconnected and dynamically evolving set of new design issues and matters of concern that blur actors’ professional roles. Our approach builds on actor-network theory using an ethnographic study to follow architects’ design work in a commercial case of a dialogue-based architectural competition. Building scales and design concepts were translated and inscribed into different forms of design visualisations and circulated amongst the client, the architect office, and the workshop during the encounter between the team of architects and the jury. As circulating references, design visualisations retain and transform the design and give rise to new contradictory design issues during the actors’ verbal dialogue

Visualizing ribonuclease digestion of RNA-like polymers produced by hot wet-dry cycles

Polymerization of nucleotides under prebiotic conditions simulating the early Earth has been extensively studied. Several independent methods have been used to verify that RNA-like polymers can be produced by hot wet-dry cycling of nucleotides. However, it has not been shown that these RNA-like polymers are similar to biological RNA with 3'-5' phosphodiester bonds. In the results described here, RNA-like polymers were generated from 5'-monophosphate nucleosides AMP and UMP. To confirm that the polymers resemble biological RNA, ribonuclease A should catalyze hydrolysis of the 3'-5' phosphodiester bonds between pyrimidine nucleotides to each other or to purine nucleotides, but not purine-purine nucleotide bonds. Here we show AFM images of specific polymers produced by hot wet-dry cycling of AMP, UMP and AMP/UMP (1:1) solutions on mica surfaces, before and after exposure to ribonuclease A. AMP polymers were unaffected by ribonuclease A but UMP polymers disappeared. This indicates that a major fraction of the bonds in the UMP polymers is indeed 3'-5' phosphodiester bonds. Some of the polymers generated from the AMP/UMP mixture also showed clear signs of cleavage. Because ribonuclease A recognizes the ester bonds in the polymers, we show for the first time that these prebiotically produced polymers are in fact similar to biological RNA but are likely to be linked by a mixture of 3'-5' and 2'-5' phosphodiester bonds

Characteristics of the gut microbiome in women with gestational diabetes mellitus:A systematic review

BACKGROUND: The incidence of women developing gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is increasing, which is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) for both mother and child. Gut microbiota dysbiosis may contribute to the pathogenesis of both GDM and the accompanying risk of T2DM. Thus, a better understanding of the microbial communities associated with GDM could offer a potential target for intervention and treatment in the future. Therefore, we performed a systematic review to investigate if the GDM women have a distinct gut microbiota composition compared to non-GDM women. METHODS: We identified 21 studies in a systematic literature search of Embase and PubMed up to February 24, 2021. Data on demographics, methodology and identified microbial metrics were extracted. The quality of each study was assessed according to the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. RESULTS: Sixteen of the studies did find a GDM-associated gut microbiota, although no consistency could be seen. Only Collinsella and Blautia showed a tendency to be increased in GDM women, whereas the remaining genera were significantly different in opposing directions. CONCLUSION: Although most of the studies found an association between GDM and gut microbiota dysbiosis, no overall GDM-specific gut microbiota could be identified. All studies in the second trimester found a difference between GDM and non-GDM women, indicating that dysbiosis is present at the time of diagnosis. Nevertheless, it is still unclear when the dysbiosis develops, as no consensus could be seen between the studies investigating the gut microbiota in the first trimester of pregnancy. However, studies varied widely concerning methodology and study design, which might explain the highly heterogeneous gut microbiota compositions between studies. Therefore, future studies need to include multiple time points and consider possible confounding factors such as ethnicity, pre-pregnancy body mass index, and GDM treatment