creating design expertise Bryan Lawson

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creating design expertiseBryan Lawson

• Now for the evidence, said the King, and then
  the sentence.
• No ! said the Queen, first the sentence, and
  then the evidence!
• Nonsense! cried Alice, so loudly that everybody
  jumped, the idea of having the sentence first !
• Lewis Carroll

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It is a well known fact that all inventors get
their first ideas on the back of an envelope. I
take a slight exception to this, I use the front
so that I can incorporate the stamp and then the
design is already half done. Roland Emett
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Design expertise Lawson and Dorst 2008 after
Dreyfus 2003
visionary
master
expert
competent
advanced beginner
novice
naive
Develops new ways of doing things in
field Operates on margins of domain and other
domains Seeks anomalies for new vision of
domain May be less interested in competence
Radical change Seeks opportunities, some
reflection Elements of situation selected for
relevance Makes plans to achieve goals
Reliance on maxims But more sensitive to
situation Begins to be aware of exceptions to
rules
Much more contingent in action Focuses on success
and failure in overall field Acute sense of
context and subtle cues
Looks for and adheres to strict rules Tries to
copy results of experts
Intuitively performs appropriate
actions Recognises situations Little problem
solving and reasoning
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Naive
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Naïve (practiced maybe?)
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A recent book celebrating the work of the best
upcoming architects in Singapore defines young
architects as those under 45 years of age. -
(URA Singapore)
in architecture, you are young if you are under
50, an infant if you are under 40 and a babe in
arms if you are under 30. - Hugh Pearman
It would be greatly to the advantage of all
concerned if they (scientists), like the
military, were normally taken on for a
career-length term, say 25 years.at age 45 they
would, subject to performance, normally be
promoted by one grade and retired immediately on
half pay. - Professor John Postgate FRS
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extracted from letters by employers of design
graduates -

• (I ask) whether the basics are being taught
  properly in order that the products of our
  schools of architecture are equipped adequately
  to progress in whichever facet of modern
  professional practice they choose to work in.
• The student of today needs extensive supervision.
  I have to check all his drawings. It is all very
  well encouraging students to come up with wacky
  ideas but the universities really need to
  concentrate on covering the basic competencies
  first. Without that their graduates are
  increasingly unemployable by practice.

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design knowledge A designerly way of knowing.
Nigel Cross

• theoretical or
• semantic memory
• versus
• experiential or
• episodic memory

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the congregational space began to float free
like a ship.
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shared references Belvedere

• Design as a team /social activity

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referential drawings
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Novice the development of Schemata Bartletts
remembering experiment
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The childs schemata in action
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Student schemata
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ways of knowing
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parallel ways of knowing
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materials only join in a certain way
comfortably Eva Jiricna
Modellers or Carvers Adrian Stokes (1934) The
Stones of Rimini
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Interacting with drawings

• The designer has a conversation with the drawing
  
• Donald Schon

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Novices and Advanced BeginnersMies van de
Rohe Paul Klee
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Novice Year 1
Advanced Beginner Year 6
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Novice Year 1

• Year Six

Advanced Beginner Year 6
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sun
Using SCHEMATA
sausage
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Some Results

• Compare top 5 with worst 5 reproductions
• top five showed
• 98 more cognitive actions
• 55 more formal references
• 155 more symbolic references
• Increased symbolic descriptions
• 55 more for non-architectural sketch
• 255 for the architectural sketch.
• When the drawing is in the designers domain of
  expertise they use more symbolic references to
  concepts they expect to be shared.
• Thus appears to show that designers are able to
  see more conceptual ideas in drawings from their
  own domain.

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Some Results

• Compare top 5 with worst 5 reproductions
• top five showed
• 98 more cognitive actions
• 55 more formal references
• 155 more symbolic references
• Increased symbolic descriptions
• 55 more for non-architectural sketch
• 255 for the architectural sketch.
• When the drawing is in the designers domain of
  expertise they use more symbolic references to
  concepts they expect to be shared.
• Thus appears to show that designers are able to
  see more conceptual ideas in drawings from their
  own domain.

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recognising

• Its a sort of imperative for me you know. I
  insist upon having my concentration on quite a
  small area, like a chess player. I could not
  imagine playing chess in an open place with big
  chequers.
• Herman Hertzberger

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recognising gambits Richard Seymour
music stand
Concorde
origami
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JD noticed air filter in ballbarrow paint spray
room clogged. built a cyclone cleaning tower to
remove particles by centrifugal force
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integrationGeorge Sturt, (1923). The
Wheelwright's Shop. Cambridge University Press.
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Integration Lasduns strata

• Support the interior functions while allowing for
  flexible planning
• radical
• provide coherence to a large scheme which is,
  nonetheless, broken down to the human scale
• formal
• Give visual expression to the public nature of
  the institution for a theatre must be a place
  where human contact is enriched and a common
  experience shared
• symbolic

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modes of researchGibbons, M., C. Limoges, et al.
(1994). The production of knowledge the dynamics
ofscience and research in contemporary
societies. London, Sage Publications.

• MODE 1
• the classical natural science model
• gaining knowledge
• finding causes
• developing theories
• oriented to peers
• discipline based
• rule based knowledge
• knowledge production separate from application

• MODE 2
• an emerging in practice model
• solving problems
• predicting effects
• developing services
• oriented to client
• transdisciplinary
• consensual knowledge
• knowledge production integrated with application

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Richard MacCormac

• I think that my role in the practice is to
  initiate the design processes in all the major
  jobs, not so much in building types like housing
  where I think we have established a kind of
  repertoire, a typological repertoire, which is to
  do with density and to do with the main problems
  like car parking and so on which are.... it's
  sort of vernacular if you like, we do quite a lot
  of it for housing associations and so on.....
  vernacular in the sense that its a language
  that's the common language.

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A novice design process

• We have an outdoor play space
• Identifying / naming
• The problem is how to design the building so the
  outdoor play space is safe
• Construing / framing
• We could have an L shape on the site
• Moving
• They draw
• Representing

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Expert Tutor v Novice Student

• Student
• The scheme is almost like two cubes at an angle,
  kind of two separate parts, bottom level is
  public, next is studio and top is dwellings
• Tutor
• And that runs across the two cubes?
• Student
• Yeah both of them, initially I was trying to
  separate them but when I put one floor on top of
  another you cant.

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Expert Tutor v Novice Student

• Tutor
• Whats that kink there?
• Student
• Its been really annoying me, but I want the two
  cubes to relate to the site so it kinda needs to
  be there.
• Tutor
• You need to take a decision about this.
• Actually the idea of the two cubes at an angle
  may introduce something else. Look you could pull
  them apart a little and then it becomes the
  starting point that makes me think.

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Expert Tutor v Novice Student

• Tutor
• You can articulate them and have the circulation
  drop down theredistinguish the public
  spacetheres a potential light well developing
  herebring light into the place in the slotit
  suggests strongly a place to put the toilet.and
  youve got ventilationand some privacyat the
  moment the bathroom is on this prime
  elevationthen it connects better to the bedrooms
  too.in fact the kitchen can come in too
• (Louis Kahns notion of served and servant
  spaces)
• Student
• Oh and now we get the clarity back too, we run
  the slot right across

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Conversation protocol segmented
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Segmentation

• Originator
• tutor, student
• Action
• formulate, evaluate, move
• Cognitive Dimension
• symbolic, structural, componential
• Cognitive Level
• process, content
• Transformation
• vertical, lateral

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Protocol segments classified
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Tutors make more Moves (plt0.001)
Number of segments
Duration of segments
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Tutors make more Lateral Moves (plt0.001)
Vertical transformation (numbers of segments)
Lateral transformation
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Tutor roles

• Consultant
• Fix the problem, make the solution better
• Teacher
• It works like this.
• Parrot
• If you like that you might like this..
• Master
• Employee in practice

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Unbounded knowledge
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Unbounded knowledge
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Expert Guiding Principles
materials only join in a certain way comfortably
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Santiago Calatravacompetition design for the
Cathedral of St. John the Devine, New York
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Learning to be creative Laxtons modelLaxton,
M. (1969). Design education in practice.
Attitudes in Design Education. K. Baynes. London,
Lund Humphries.
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developing design expertise

• Schemata NOVICE
• constructing concepts that enable symbolic
  perception
• Precedent ADV. BEGINNER
• acquiring a store of experiential knowledge
  potentially useful in design
• Guiding Principles COMPETENT
• a set of over-riding principles that influence
  and select material to be collected in the
  precedent store and feedback on their use
• Recognition EXPERT
• being able to recognise deep underlying
  structures enabling links to precedent to be made
• Gambits MASTER
• developing schemata that integrate problem
  situations and ranges of possible moves into the
  precedent store

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Studio versus LabIshmael Samsuddin PhD 2008
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How well are we doing?

• Hubbard 1996
• showed that town planners quite clearly used
  different values about architecture to the public
  they serve
• Wilson 1996
• showed that architects use different evaluative
  systems to others about buildings
• this tendency is acquired during education
• strong correlation between preferences within
  each school of architecture
• that these preferences are linked to stylistic
  attributes

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Visionary
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Visionary.competent ?