Lecture 7

Luke spoke about two topics firstly what is design and secondly what is form and what is mass.

He started off by saying how artists see design , as techno freaks, and how engineers see design, as people who paint flowers on stuff.

Design is applied creativity and analytical reading

He talked about different way which design can be seen.

Design as cognitive psychology/problem solving - Goals must be clear and the solutions must be able to be comparable.

• Pose the problem
• Search for the solution ( All possibilities)
• Generate
• Test

Design as learning- a process of trying stuff out to see if it works and you learn your way to a solution.

Design as evolution- where the initial ideas are primitive and evolve to the finished process and it is a gradual process.

Design as a moving target- the more knowledge you get the more the problem seems to change, and it is about matching the solution to the problem.

Design as a team collaboration- working with other designers and people in other disciplines to create a solution. (Good designers are good negotiators)(Personally I think good designers are also good communicators and collaborators I don't see working with other disciplines as a war where you have to negotiated to have your side come off better)

Design as a game – it is a challenge with little known and as you move through you learn and overcome the challenge.

He then talked about two different classes of problems wicked or messy problems and tame problems. Tame problems have clear goals and clear rules. Horst Ruttle wrote a list defining a wicked problem:

(This is paraphrased)

• No definition of the problem
• No stopping rule
• No true or false but a better or worse
• No test of a solution
• Only one chance of solving it
• It is unique no other examples to rely on
• Each problem is a symptom of another
• Can be explained in many different ways
• Planners have no right to be wrong

Luke then talked about the levels of mastery of a designer.

1. Naive designer
2. Novice – applies the rules
3. Advanced beginners- have new sensitivities and know exceptions to the rules
4. Competent designer- has an ability to select and seeks opportunities, is also able to take risks.
5. Expert- years of experience with a high level of patterns but are vulnerable to change in the world of design.
6. Master- recognizes that it is not set in stone has ‘anxiety’ or awareness of change
7. Visionary- extends the domains they work in. stretching out beyond what is known a leader in a field.

Luke also gave us a list of how not to design

Do not:

• Cling to the first idea
• Jump to detail
• Try and surprise tour tutor or client
• Ignore an aspect of the brief
• Ignore a test that suggest the design may not work
• Wait for inspiration
• Not plan
• Be inflexible about your ideas or approach
• First design from then work out how it works.

The second part of the lecture was about what is form. I found this part of the lecture particularly interesting because parts of it touched on topics very relevant to my essay topic illustrating parts of the relationship between designers and scientists.

Luke started off asking why something is the way it is. He brought up scientific realism and that ‘form is made by laws’ as an example he showed lots of example of a vortex happen in different circumstances in water, clouds, etc. He then presented a set of ideas of what is form, matter, science and design by someone whose name I missed. This is looked at form as intensive and extensive. The intensive structure being the underlying natural structure or ‘state’ of the matter with in a set of circumstances. In a mountain it is the movement of the tectonic plates and magma are the intensive form. The extensive, as I understood it, was an opposed form or a form or crust of the structure.
Luke explained it through water by adding heat to the water you changed the intensive structure by ‘cutting’ the volume of water in half the extensive structure is changed. Luke then showed some work by Frei Otto who did lost of experiments in finding natural ‘intensive’ forms. He did things like look at what structures glue formed when stretched or when sheets were hung. Intensity creates form when matter is at its resting point with in a system.
He then goes on to say the in science it is the laws that govern matter/form. Metallurgy – refining the metal so it will be pure and have certain properties. A black smith understands the metal better and knows that the different bits of metal will work differently, from the knowledge of their craft and their experience.
I found the way in which science was viewed in this perspective I completely disagree with this view of scientist applying laws and I am confident that most scientists would agree, however I found it very interesting because it brought to light an interesting misunderstanding between the two disciplines.