Is metacognition indispensable for decision-making in design?

This paper presents a theoretical and methodological description of metacognition in architectural design. In a design task, participants were required to think aloud and report confidence levels in judgment at equal intervals over the course of design. Their verbal protocols were transcribed into semantic data. This was further coded into declarative, conditional, and procedural metacognition. The semantic data was further modelled into a linkograph, and few measures such as centrality betweenness, entropy and number of critical design moves (distinguishing clusters of design moves that link distant actions) as measures or indicators of metacognition. Evidence on metacognition indicates potentials for a higher order understanding of causalities and consequences of design actions. Confidence levels reported by participants were further modelled to highlight how and when architects operationalize metacognition at different degrees of confidence to navigate and switch between different problem spaces. The semantic data was further coded in terms of design constraints, and design constraints were modelled into knowledge graphs, in order to expose how architects navigate the conceptual problem space, and selectively utilize knowledge to construct the solution space. This type of coding would enable us to judge on whether metacognition is indispensable for problem solving in design, and how far confidence levels are deterministic in terms of number and range of problems solved within each design episode. An understanding of the role of metacognition and confidence levels in design would enable us to discursively illuminate the parts-whole structure of problem decomposition and solution synthesis that characterizes design activity

Urban growth: modelling street network growth in Manhattan (1642–2008) and Barcelona (1260–2008)

In this paper, we argue for the case that cities are self-organised complex systems by presenting evidence on positive and reinforcing feedback mechanisms and robust global trends that characterise historical growth patterns. In two case studies; Manhattan and Barcelona, historical stages of urban growth were mapped and analysed. The analyses revealed regularities that may help define the local and global processes that characterise urban growth marked by alternating periods of expansion and pruning in street networks. The global trend marked by a lognormal distribution of segmental integration (closeness) in street networks was consistently restored following planning interventions. The overall street network growth trend appeared to fit an exponential or power law distribution, along with a linear change in fractal dimension. Underlying these global trends, we found evidence for local positive and reinforcing feedback mechanisms; explained by preferential attachment to well-connected street structures, and pruning of weakly integrated local street structures. The findings are likely to improve our understanding of urban growth

Network and ABM models of SARS-CoV-2

This research investigates the role of road network infrastructure and the socioeconomics of urban space in enabling the spread of airborne disease (SARS-CoV-2). Data from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office was modelled on the national scale, modelling the relationship between road network accessibility and SARS-CoV-2 cases (SARS-CoV-2 14 day incidence rates per 100k of the population) aggregated per Local Electoral Area (LEA). We also modelled time series of SARS-CoV-2 cases in Ireland (August 2020 – November 2021), cases aggregated per 100k for each LEA, to highlight the peak and look for socioeconomic and mobility factors. On the city scale, we modelled Dublin’s road network infrastructure in order to investigate its impact on access to healthcare and the rise in SARS-CoV-2 infections. We used unsupervised learning (PCA analysis) and multivariate analysis to model urban variables and distinguish those that bear a relationship to SARS-CoV-2 cases. On the local neighborhood scale, we presented an agent-based modelling simulation of Dublin’s city center, using standard automata, agents weighted by longest line of sight, and agents weighted Per bin distance. Outcomes of a survey on SARS-CoV-2 cases and the underlying socioeconomic and spatial factors will be presented in order to understand the local dynamics of disease spread on a neighborhood scale, and distinguish socioeconomic and built environment factors that may have contributed to the rise of SARS-CoV-2 cases. These factors may include the size of household, occupation, air pollution, exposure to biohazards, dwelling conditions (age of building, records of mold), and underlying health conditions that are likely to increase vulnerability. ABM models of survey variables will be presented in order to simulate the dynamics of disease spread

Attention, An Interactive Display Is Running! Integrating Interactive Public Display Within Urban Dis(At)tractors

Display or interaction blindness is a known problem for interactive public displays where passers-by simply ignore or pay little attention to them. While previous research created interventions that tried to address this problem or reported on differences between experiences in the lab and in the real world, little attention has been given to examining different attractors surrounding the interactive public display, i.e., people, artifacts, and stimuli that compete for people’s attention in the urban settings and distract them from interacting with public displays. This paper reports on a systematic examination of attractors around a case study of an interactive urban display in London. We outline the initial spatial exploration with the aim to identify suitable locations for the placement of the interactive public display within the urban setting, followed by a two-hour observation of attractors and stimuli around the urban display. We highlight the main attractors that compete for people’s attention and distract them from potentially interacting with the public display. We also note our attempt to reflect the environment and integrate the public display within its setting

Discursive design thinking: the role of explicit knowledge in creative architectural design reasoning

The main hypothesis investigated in this paper is based upon the suggestion that the discursive reasoning in architecture supported by an explicit knowledge of spatial configurations can enhance both design productivity and the intelligibility of design solutions. The study consists of an examination of an architect’s performance while solving intuitively a well-defined problem followed by an analysis of the spatial structure of their design solutions. One group of architects will attempt to solve the design problem logically, rationalizing their design decisions by implementing their explicit knowledge of spatial configurations. The other group will use an implicit form of such knowledge arising from their architectural education to reason about their design acts. An integrated model of protocol analysis combining linkography and macroscopic coding is used to analyze the design processes. The resulting design outcomes will be evaluated quantitatively in terms of their spatial configurations. The analysis appears to show that an explicit knowledge of the rules of spatial configurations, as possessed by the first group of architects can partially enhance their function-driven judgment producing permeable and well-structured spaces. These findings are particularly significant as they imply that an explicit rather than an implicit knowledge of the fundamental rules that make a layout possible can lead to a considerable improvement in both the design process and product. This suggests that by externalizing th

Natural processes in cities

In their physical form, cities embody humans’ collective minds, in that they are shaped by humans’ sensory-motor mechanisms. On aggregate, human actions plot invariant patterns that characterize urban structures. In search for natural processes that mark these structures, we outline cross-cultural invariants that cities share in their growth patterns. These invariants are particularly visible in the way cities imitate natural growth in response to large-scale human interventions. Positive feedback mechanisms are enforced by means of preferential attachment where there is an increase in accessibility. Reinforcing feedback mechanisms appear in the form of pruning of weak local structures. On the global scale, steady state monocentric patterns are conserved matching reaction-diffusion in biological systems. The observations yield that cities have inherent natural processes that build their complexity from the micro scale to the macro scale. These observations are part of an on-going PhD research by Kinda Al_Sayed at UCL, BSGS Space Group

An investigation into the cognitive and spatial markers of creativity and efficiency in architectural design

This paper presents a preliminary study into the spatial features that can be used to distinguish creativity and efficiency in design layouts, and the distinct pattern of cognitive activity that is associated with creative design. In a design experiment, a group of 12 architects were handed a design brief. Their drawing activity was recorded and they were required to externalize their thoughts during the design process. Both design solutions and verbal comments were analyzed and modeled. A separate group of mature architects used their expert knowledge to assign creativity and efficiency scores to the 12 design solutions. The design solutions were evaluated spatially. Protocol analysis studies including linkography and macroscopic analysis were used to discern distinctive patterns in the design processes that are marked with the highest and least creativity scores. Through this investigation, we suggest that expert knowledge can be used to assess creativity and efficiency in designs. Our findings indicate that efficient layouts have distinct spatial features, and that a cognitive activity that yields a highly creative outcome corresponds to higher frequencies of design actions and higher linkages between design moves. These linkages build up from local sequential design decisions to global design decisions linking the problem definition stage to the solution definition stage

Metacognition in architectural design

This poster presents a theoretical model description of metacognition in architectural design. The assumption is that metacognition happens when an architect expresses self-awareness and that’s likely to happen when he/she acquires a global view of the design process. During design, architects are immersed in a sequential decision-making process with limited links/references backwards and forwards to immediately adjacent design actions. At certain points during design, possibly evoked by a stimuli or a challenge, architects rise to a higher order awareness where they construct a global view of parts or the whole of the design process, and understand, in parts or in full, the structure and causalities underlying their design decisions within the context of the design process and perhaps within a wider context that is situated in the social world. This is where architects are likely to declare or express their level of confidence about the actions they have made thus far and set longer term strategies on how they are going to manage their design decisions

Metacognition in architectural design

This poster presents a theoretical model description of metacognition in architectural design. The assumption is that metacognition happens when an architect expresses self-awareness and that’s likely to happen when he/she acquires a global view of the design process. During design, architects are immersed in a sequential decision-making process with limited links/references backwards and forwards to immediately adjacent design actions. At certain points during design, possibly evoked by a stimuli or a challenge, architects rise to a higher order awareness where they construct a global view of parts or the whole of the design process, and understand, in parts or in full, the structure and causalities underlying their design decisions within the context of the design process and perhaps within a wider context that is situated in the social world. This is where architects are likely to declare or express their level of confidence about the actions they have made thus far and set longer term strategies on how they are going to manage their design decisions