Kinds of Seeing and their Functions in Designing

Abstract

Architectural designing is described as a kind of experimentation that consists in reflective'conversation'with the materials of a design situation. A designer sees, moves and sees again. Working in some visual medium -- drawing, in the article examples -- the designer sees what is'there'in some representation of a site, draws in relation to it, and sees what has been drawn, thereby informing further designing. In all this'seeing'the designer not only visually registers information but also constructs its meaning -- identifies patterns and gives them meanings beyond themselves. Words like'recognize,''detect,''discover'and'appreciate'denote variants of seeing, as do such terms as'seeing that,''seeing as'and'seeing in.'The purpose here is to explore the kinds of seeing involved in designing and to describe their various functions. At local and global levels, and in many different ways, designing is an interaction of making and seeing, doing and discovering. On the basis of a few minuscule examples, the authors suggest some of the ways in which this sort of interaction works. Some conditions that enable it to work are described. And some of its consequences for design education and for the development of computer environments useful to designers are draw