(Re)presentation and
supposition
Prof.
dr.ir. Taeke de Jong
2001-10-28
Before a
design is drawn, a program of demands can be object of empirical research and
after realisation its evaluation as well. Is the design inbetween science
itself? If science concerns making more explicit presuppositions of thought and
investigating them, than design could be scientific. There is a direct relation
between designing and varying suppositions in a representation. This article
looks for such starting-points for scientific research by design. They don’t
have to be the same as in empirical research. A technical science may use an
assumption of possibility instead of probability. ‘Technically scientific’ here
is defined as: ‘concerning a scientific way of thinking not only taking
empirism as a starting-point, but also a not yet existing (possible) design.’
The article ends by defining context as the set of suppositions that can be
varied as well as the object to be designed. This results in a classification
of empirical design research and types of not fully empirical ‘research by
design’.
People are
capable of imagining – proposing – something that does not exist. Empiricists
state that this kind of pre-sentation of an object is a falsehood, but the
design profession consists of these kinds of lies. The statement (expression)
of such an image in a document or other medium is a scheme[a]. A design is a scheme
that is capable of being realized and through that a model (Argan 1965). This means that a design cannot only be a
(re)presentation, but can also be a proposal. Once it has been implemented it
is, from an empirical perspective, no longer a lie; it has been ‘realized’. It
can then be empirically evaluated in terms of its spatial, ecological,
technical, economic, cultural an managerial effects. Which scientific
starting-point applies to RESEARCH BY
DESIGN, before a design has turned into a realisable model?
The powers of
human imagination are subject
to two forms of limitation, which are of importance to the scientific
development of research into design. The first limitation is that humans are
capable of the simultaneous consideration of only a restricted number of
components and details. Only in a dialogue with paper or some form of tenacious
– but simultaneously pliant- medium (an alternation between imprint, expression
and impression) a representation can outgrow this limitation. Only a few (for
instance Carel Weeber and Frank Lloyd Wright (Duin 1987), (Brooks, Gossel et al. 1991), (Smith 1998).) claim to be able to conduct this dialogue in their
heads[b].
Once this dialogue has been completed the conception needs only to
be committed to paper. And when the idiom has been rendered definitive this
presentation on paper can be performed by others, making use of the customary
specifications employed within the design bureau. The more these specifications
are laid down in the minds and computers of the bureau, the less difficult it
will be to conduct this dialogue internally, in camera. The content of the
message can be decreased in proportion to the amount of software available to
the recipient for its interpretation.
The second
limitation involves our unconscious involvement of numerous (pre-)suppositions in a
pre-sentation, pro-position or a pro-posal. Moreover we never need to explain
or justify them, since they are a self-explanatory part of the culture in which
we express ourselves, our language game (Wittgenstein
1953). This results in tremendous savings in the necessary
argumentation. No one asks us to justify self-evidences, except for the
occasional sceptic who, throughout the centuries, has been a source of
scientific and cultural renewal. Some of these suppositions are exposed during
inter-cultural communications, which is a reason why students should be allowed
plenty of opportunity to travel (at least for as long as differences in
suppositions and linguistic expression, differences in culture, are still
determined by geography[c] ).
However contacts,
and above all cooperation, with others and other language games cannot only
expose unexpressed suppositions; they can also confirm them to an extent such
that they remain, more deeply ingrained than ever, in the form of a collective
underlying myth beneath the
powers of imagination. They can induce a warm feeling of well-nigh-religious
solidarity – a situation in which the born sceptic is experienced as a
nuisance. They are of commercial interest (for the client and the design
bureau), although not of interest to technological science. The world is full
of myths, even the world of science. Their number is not decreasing, but
increasing, in view of the financially lucrative flow of commercial funds. In
particular the will to achieve consensus, the neglect of doubt and honest
debate, compel many a scientist to the superficiality that everyone can see and
understand. Here scientific justification is comprised of quotations that are
verified by no one. That this superficiality is founded on unexpressed and
sometimes inexpressible myths[d] is no longer of interest – in view of
the lucrative consensus – to those financing the research.
Boelen[e] defines creativity as the powers of
imagination that are able to break free from at least one unexpressed
supposition, for example that the five-man editorial board of an architectural
journal can be the judge of what is scientifically correct and architecturally
good. However, care should be taken to avoid bringing too many collective
suppositions into doubt simultaneously, since otherwise every general form of
linguistic or drawn expression would become unintelligible. A design is 99% tradition
and 1% inspiration. The cultural context allows itself to be challenged to only
a marginal extent. The local and temporary cultural context, and its
perspective, allows itself to be caressed by avant-garde – but not stung. Art,
like innovative science, is but a ripple on the boundaries of culture (the set
collective presuppositions in communication). The driving force of a creativity
is powered by the fuel of tradition, but cannot do without the oil of doubt.
Deciding on a
suitable method to teach a knowledge of tradition is no major problem[f],
but how should we teach creativity? If we adopt the definition proposed by
Boelen then the first step amounts to creating an awareness of the unexpressed
suppositions[g]. Which is as difficult as explaining
what water is to a fish (Einstein
1998). If the fish had been able to understand that, then
it would have been able to design a niche on dry land. This forms the basis of
the human race’s capability of climate control to break free from their home in
Africa – and from the Earth, by designing space suits and space ships.
Architecture used to make a niche is a branch of technical ecology. This is no
longer a question merely of a spatial or ecological niche, but also of a niche
in a technical, economical, cultural and managerial context. During the past 3
billion years the empirical discovery of a niche and the technical realization
of a niche has been a question of trial (and the genetic storage of the
successes) and error (and frequent death, with a new beginning based on sexual
dualism). And now there is a species that can imagine something that does not
exist. How does someone arrive at such a representation? To some extent this is
still a question of trial and error, but it can also be achieved by a
scientific approach. Science starts by doubting collective myths. And if this
scientific approach did not exist, then academic education in design would lack
its reason for existence.
If you come to a
creative impasse you can try to break free by evoking random thoughts, or by
contemplating a metaphor such as a paperclip. This approach will create a slim
chance , say 1 to 1000 per design per year, of you discovering something both
feasible and desirable by trial and error. Soppose that chance for a culture
with a thousand designers will be sufficient to be able to rejuvenate itself.
Furthemore traditional solutions are locally optimised to find a suitable and
viable alternative in a continually changing context. With the present number
of graduation students at a Faculty of Architecture this approach would result
in something new once every three years. A chance of this magnitude does not
really constitute sufficient motivation to study Architecture, or to subsidize
a traditionally-oriented vocational education of this type in the form of an
academic enterprise. What are technological sciences other than applied
empiricism? How do we systematically make ourselves aware of unexpressed
suppositions in each individual instance – and then omit them, one after the
other by means of experiment? In my opinion there are two approaches:
contextually-oriented historical science and conditional analysis.
History is
comprised of a catalogue of spatial, ecological, technical, economical,
cultural and managerial contexts, contexts within which each building was
constructed. Other periods of history lacked many of the numerous suppositions
we now take for granted and, against our background, can no longer perceive.
When studied in a certain fashion historical science will reveal suppositions
in the same manner that geography (to a decreasing extent) will reveal them to
us on our travels. However, this will not reveal those unexpressed suppositions
that have been unexpressed since the beginning of history.
The conditional
analyse of suppositions is a technique in which propositions are compared with
each other. For example, if I am not able to imagine proposition B without
proposition A, but am able to imagine the reserve, then A is an supposition for
B. This means that A can accommodate propositions other than B. This is the
approach used by the Chair in Technical Ecology and Methodology Faculteit
Bouwkunde TUD. To this end, a few years ago all educational tools used in our
foundation course were set down in keywords, and the resultant lists were
submitted to the Professors with the request to check those falling within
their own discipline. The underlying mutual sequence of suppositions for
approximately 200 scientific and technological propositions has now been
established[h]. This
required, in principle, the solution of some 40,000 equations with 200
unknowns. However, not only are there a restricted number of verbal concepts,
but above all a virtually unlimited number of (time and) spatial propositions,
images, that can exhibit a conditional interrelationship with each other. The
first question of relevance is the question as to which images, in a scientific
sense, are intrinsically capable of comparison with each other. For example, an
urban-development plan cannot be compared directly to a detail of a
construction.
This has become a
pressing question in the “Image Archive of Architectural Interventions” (IAAI)
project of the Architectonische Interventie (Architectural Intervention) on the
Internet (Jong, Damen et al. 2001). The storage and retrieval of graduation-study images
in this archive does not only involve the registration of the usual
characteristics such as author, date, keywords, etc.: it also requires a system
to register the context (set of suppositions), thereby largely
determining the extent to which they can be compared with each other. It is now
possible to simultaneously retrieve images of a specific scale (frame) and
level of detail (grain) and to view them from a specific perspective with a
specific plan horizon to observe spatial, ecological, technical, economical,
cultural or managerial effects, and to be able to compare these effects with
each other. This archive safeguards the genetic storage of graduation study
material in which the object as well as the context were variable. It enables a
begin to be made in the methodological quest for suppositions as a part of the
research of design (Jong, Cuperus
et al. 2000).
In a university
of technology, designs are made (research
by design), examined (design
research) and evaluated. Making a design, the preliminary
investigation and its conclusion, the programme of demands, only partly direct
the solution. The design does not follow unequivocally and reproductably from a
programme like a scientific prediction from its basic assumptions ceteris
paribus. Even with a strict programme, alternatives (eventually
unexpectable) are possible in design. This is most explicit in building design. The choice of a final alternative is determined by
the context of the object to be designed. The market, the location and the
designer (context of invention) belong to the broader present and future
managerial, cultural, economical, technical, ecological, and mass-space-time context and perspective of the
object. ‘Context’ is different on different levels of scale and cannot be
foreseen completely in the programme.
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CONTEXT PERSPECTIVE |
|
|
Variable per level of scale and period of change. For example: tentative
nationally: managerial/political: initiative <
> laissez-faire 7 years cultural: traditional < > experimental 15
years economics:
growth < > shrinkage 30 years technical:
combination < > specialization 60
years ecological:
heterogeneous < > homogeneous 120 years mass-space-time:
concentration < > deconcentration 240 years |
|
|
Context and changing
context (perspective) |
|
The number
of imaginable alternatives for
buildings, mostly with a long term multifunctional programme of (conflicting)
demands, is unconceivably large, subject to a combinatoric explosion of
possible forms. Buildings and urban designs have a long period of
use and they are earthbound. So they have to function in a changing context
(perspective) that is unpredictable and not influenced by the programming
authority, designer or user. From the viewpoint of their durability they should
be able to accommodate varying programmes and daily changing aims of their
inhabitants and users. This quality of building design is called ‘robustness’. ‘Flexibility’ is only part of it. So, from all artefacts,
buildings have the most context sensitive function for use, perception and
market, not to be evaluated without that context and therefore hardly comparable to each other
(sometimes even unique). It is difficult to find comparable examples for
design research to draw more general conclusions for design.
Design research concerns
determined objects within determined contexts. Research by design (below grey) varies either the
object (identifying design) or the context (typology) or even both (designing
study):
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OBJECT |
|
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determined |
variable |
|
CONTEXT determined |
Design Research |
Identifying Design |
|
variable |
Typology |
Designing Study |
Even with a
comparable programme of demands, not only their own diversity of solutions, but also the diversity of their contexts or
perspectives to function in, is very large. Consequently, the diversity of
rational reasons (determined by context) to choose a final alternative is even
larger. So, building design research often has the character of an n=1 study
with limited general value to other designs. Design research, based on more
examples than one, is often ignored by designers, because on location many
design relevant circumstances appear different from what the examined examples
had in common. The descriptive interpretation of context by researchers differs
from the imaginative interpretation of designers, that stresses possibilities
rather than probabilities. Moreover, the principal often asks for a unique
design, ‘exploiting’ rare qualities of context. So design decisions seldom can
be founded on examples univocally and professionally by the lack of material
for comparison.
REFERENCES
Argan, G. C. (1965) Sul concetto di
tipologia architettonica in:
Progetto e destino (Milaan) ?
Brooks, B., Gossel,
P. and Leuthauser, G. (1991) Frank Lloyd Wright (Koln) Taschen Verlag.
Duin,
L. v. (1987) Architectonische studies 4 (Delft) Delft University Press.
Einstein, A.
(1998) Space-time in:
Encyclopedia Brittannica CD-ROM.
Fukuyama,
F. (1992) Het einde van de geschiedenis en de laatste mens (Amsterdam)
Contact.
Jong,
T. M. d. (1992) Kleine methodologie voor ontwerpend onderzoek (Meppel)
Boom.
Jong,
T. M. d., Cuperus, Y. and Voordt, D. J. M. v. d., Eds. (2000) Ways to study architectural, urban and
technical design (Delft) International conference of Research by design
Faculteit Bouwkunde TUD.
Jong, T. M. d.,
Damen, E. and Stelpstra, F. (2001) Image archive of architectural interventions
IAAI http://iaai.bk.tudelft.nl/.
Smith (1998) Frank
Lloyd Wright America's Master
Architect (New York) Abbeville Press Publishers.
Wittgenstein, L.
(1953) Philosophical Investigations/Philosophische Untersuchungen
(Oxford) Blackwell.
KEY WORDS