Designing for adaptability in architecture

The research is framed on the premise that designing buildings that can adapt by accommodating change easier and more cost-effectively provides an effective means to a desired end a more sustainable built environment. In this context, adaptability can be viewed as a means to decrease the amount of new construction (reduce), (re)activate underused or vacant building stock (reuse) and enhance disassembly/ deconstruction of components (reuse, recycle) - prolonging the useful life of buildings (reduce, reuse, recycle). The aim of the research is to gain a holistic overview of the concept of adaptability in the construction industry and provide an improved framework to design for, deploy and implement adaptability. An over-arching research question was posited to guide the inquiry: how can architects understand, communicate, design for and test the concept of adaptability in the context of the design process? The research followed Dubois and Gadde s (2002) systematic combining as an over-arching approach that continuously moves between the empirical world and theoretical models allowing the co-evolution of data collection and theory from the beginning as part of a non-linear process with the objective of matching theory with reality. An initial framework was abducted from a preliminary collection of data from which a set of mixed research methods was deployed to explore adaptability (interviews, building case studies, dependency structural matrices, practitioner surveys and workshop). Emergent from the data is an expanded and revised theory on designing for adaptability consisting of concepts, models and propositions. The models illustrate many of the casual links between the physical design structure of the building (e.g. plan depth, storey height) and the soft contingencies of a messy design/construction/occupation process (e.g. procurement route, funding methods, stakeholder mindsets). In an effort to enhance building adaptability, the abducted propositions suggest a shift in the way the industry values buildings and conducts aspects of the design process and how designer s approach designing for adaptability

The influence of practice culture on designed artefacts

Design can be viewed as a complex and on-going social accomplishment, a product of everyday trajectories between a milieu of human and material registers. Seen in this way the design practice serves as an arena for these quotidian activities. We seek to construct a more dynamic picture of architecture by connecting process and product, supplementing a project narrative with one of practice, highlighting the context in which the outcome was created. We address the research question: how does practice culture become intertwined within the designed product? A research model emerged from the review of the literature and evolved as a loose framework to discuss the practices and projects at hand. The research focused on the particular design consideration of adaptability in an effort to direct and ground the study. The research was conducted in two stages -at first a set of interviews were conducted to gain broader insights into the everyday accounts of the practices and secondly, project case studies were selected to further investigate the topic. The narratives reveal the culture of each practice to stress a particular meaning in each context: for Make it is about a beautiful object; for ABA a piece of social infrastructure and; for CGL a business asset. Adaptability finds itself subdued, promoted, compromised and sold as part of the design process and the resultant architecture. Our contribution extends the argument that design is entangled within its socio-cultural surroundings and grounds the culture of practice in the designed artefacts - the way in which a practice handles decision-making contingencies, both endogenous and exogenous forces, will together shape a practice disposition towards design (adaptability). Design that is driven by a strong culture that embeds exogenous influences in the approach tends to provide more adaptable solutions as part of a quest to satisfy long-term, societal concerns

The role of the design practice as an arena for innovation

Typical monographs on design practice showcase the architect's generative concept sketch along with drawings and images of a final asset, but very little attention is paid to the environment within which creativity and innovation takes place. As such, the role of the practice environment and culture in shaping design innovation is often downplayed in comparison to the designer's agency which is usually given primacy over other influences. This paper presents a research framework and early findings of research which explored the culture of three design practices to gain fuller insights into their role in shaping design innovation. The particular focus is on the design of adaptable buildings, the development of which demands innovative design practices which challenge much of the traditional design orthodoxy associated with modern buildings. It examines to what extent certain tools, mindsets, and interactions play a role in shaping design outcomes, and explores how decisions are made, by whom, and at what point in the process. This comparative approach helps to reveal the different levels of organizational culture which enable creative solutions to burgeon. On the basis of these findings, a set of provocations are proffered for encouraging designers to think about the way in which they innovate and frame their design interaction and decision making

Lessons from Japan: a look at Century Housing System

Japanese traditional wooden houses are a good example of system architecture. Originating from Chinese temple construction, the housing is based on the distance between column centres known as a ken. Both the widths and depths of all spaces were multiples of this standard unit and formed the frame of reference for the remaining components – timber structure, tatami mats, doors, and even furniture. Modern housing moved away from this type of construction in an effort towards mass production. In the mid-70s, when the number of houses surpassed the number of households, a shift occurred from focusing on quantity to quality, and the emphasize returned to a more systemic approach in the context of the industrialized era inspired by a systems approach to schools in the UK (CLASP) and the US (SCSD). [Continues.

Designing adaptable buildings

This paper builds on the introductory paper (Schmidt et al., 2008) submitted for the 2008 DSM conference

Understanding adaptability through layer dependencies

This paper looks at change from the perspective of building design (i.e. building adaptability), and how a better understanding of product architecture can bring about an easier accommodation of change for an unforeseeable future. The work explores the use of a design structure matrix (DSM) to understand the building's capacity to accommodate change using building decomposition methods (Brand's layers) and component interactions as initial guides to suggest possible product architectures. Research for this study took place along side the design stage of an ongoing BSF school project. The systematic analysis of design drawings and reports was undertaken in three phases: code documents using Brand's layers; identify all variant components to create a work breakdown structure; and classification of all component relationships populating a DSM. Simple principles, such as achieving modularity between component dependencies, can potentially reveal the implication of changing components. Insights that have been gained through the data include the appropriate layer placement of components, the possibilities of new/different layers, and the highlighting of unwanted/ hidden dependencies. The DSM permutations have also provided a deeper understanding of the software used and its algorithmic behavior, giving greater clarity of the organization of the components, and the development of component typologies in an effort to provide a consistent, logical approach to refining the matrix

Accelerated creep(ing): A 'buy & forget' mentality for Chinese homes

Accelerated creep(ing): A 'buy & forget' mentality for Chinese home

Exploring the business case for more adaptable buildings: lessons from case studies

This paper explores the business case for designing more adaptable buildings, an issue that has, for the most part, been overlooked in the literature. It reviews some of the existing literature on adaptability and discusses the drivers for and barriers to designing buildings that are more adaptable. In doing so, it draws upon lessons from the developing market for ‘greener’ or more sustainable buildings. The costs and benefits of designing more adaptable buildings are explored through a workshop with industry stakeholders and illustrated with evidence from case studies. The findings of this research highlight the circumstances that would need to change, in terms of industry mindsets and market conditions, in order for adaptable buildings to become more widespread

Improving the design process for adaptability: linking feedback and architectural values

Designing for adaptability intuitively requires an understanding of how buildings tend to change over time. This, in turn, suggests that architects could learn from and accumulate knowledge as their buildings evolve and change over time. On the other hand, the ways architects learn through conventional forms of feedback are not conducive to them learning about the effectiveness of their designs in use. For example, they tend to focus on the visual, whereas most feedback is provided in the form of check boxes and reports. Current feedback techniques are also heavily focused on performance metrics captured at one point in time. In this paper it is argued that feedback focused on how buildings are adapted over time should be integrated as part of the design process, informing architects of what has or hasn't worked, and what could be improved. The research addresses the need for a technique that will inspire architects to utilise feedback more effectively. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven UK architects in order to better understand how feedback informs their design decisions and whether more appropriate methods could be devised to improve the design process for adaptability. The analysis reveals that current feedback mechanisms are not sufficient for capturing feedback for adaptability, nor do they present the material in a format that fits into an architects' current mode of operation. The data suggests that architects are interested in learning about how buildings can accommodate change and that a tool that presents the captured lessons of past projects in a visual way, could improve the utilisation of this feedback

Improving the design of adaptable buildings though effective feedback in use

For many years the issue of how to design buildings which can adapt to changing demands has posed a considerable challenge. This debate has had renewed significance given the emergence of the sustainability agenda and the need to extract additional value from built assets through life. Developing a better understanding of how buildings change over time is arguably crucial to informing architects concerned with extending the life of buildings. This paper critically reviews literature on adaptability, together with that relating to knowledge feedback and architectural practice, in order to construct a theoretical platform for understanding how knowledge of how buildings change can be used to inform design decisions. A pilot case study is used to illustrate the ways in which buildings change could be captured to inform adaptable designs in the future. The work reveals a lack of knowledge in how buildings change and how, if this was fed back to architects, it could support design decisions that might increase the life of many buildings