Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Lecture 8

Ecology of the artificial

Luke talked about sustainability and design.

Before we can work out how to protect nature we have to look at what nature actually is. Luke then narrated a slid show of stunning picture depicting different parts of nature. He then showed a fictitious video about little people living in the Kalahari Desert being compared to the western world. The point was do we change to fit the environment or do we change the environment to fit us.

He then talked about how we live in a limited environment in which everything is conserved. –life is balanced but as humans we effect the balance. For example mining which causes destruction through chemicals, the cutting down of trees, the fossil fuels, acid rain, and bad effects on the wild life.

He then gave the example of Easter Island as a limited environment where they used up all their natural resources making statues when that ran out they turned to cannibalism and effectively destroyed themselves. Is that what we’re doing today but on a larger scale?

Luke then compare the person cutting down the last pine tree to us and excuses that person may have offered for doing so. –it’s my pine tree I can do what I want to it. – They’ll find some technology to fix it. – they’re just paranoid they are too afraid there’s probably some other trees else where they just don’t know about.

Luke then drew some other direct parallels- they had a smaller technology and a smaller population and smaller environment. We have big technology big population and big environment are we going to die out too?

Luke went on to talk about out eco foot prints how that is calculated and at what rate that we are consuming our resources. At the moment if everyone had the eco footprint of the USA then we would be using the resources of 3 earths.

Luke talked about the lithosphere and the biosphere and how we are putting things back in to the wrong places in our environment.

He discussed where our responsibility end is it at the concept or through to the manufacture or do we need to be responsible for the whole product life cycle or even past that point.

Up cycling where the product becomes more valuable as it is reused and recycling where the value is equal or often less than the original product.

He then talked about the transition from green design to the ecological model of the artificial. To stop the throw away culture and move to where products have long-term value. Changing from green design to ecologically sustainable design.

Green design- eg energy saving sleep function – rebound effect people leave the computer on all the time (and often people no longer think they have to be responsible)

Ecologically friendly design- time based products with long life – easy to upgrade and repair (products almost become a service because of their intent to be repaired and upgraded)

He also talked about de constructivist architecture and folded architecture.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Destroying the midset of them and us

The conflict and mutual distrust between industrial designers and the scientific world hinders the process of design. Too often in the design community, derogatory statements about engineers and scientists are heard. Whether said in jest or earnest, these statements break down the communication between the parties and fuel the general distrust. Statements along the lines of “They just build ugly, unrefined monstrosities” and “Forget the sciencey stuff; design from how you feel it should be – you don't want to be an engineer” immediately separate the designer from the science world, cutting out a whole area of inspiration and of valuable refinement resources. This conflict narrows the starting point of idea generation and creates a much narrower, unaccommodating field. Engineers [The science world also has] also have similar prejudices and their distrust or dislike of designers makes the process of communication even more difficult. This essay considers the causes and consequences of this conflict, and explores what would be required to create cooperation and understanding between the two fields.

many designers can happily work with engineers, but those who don't and then make it well known what they think of this scientific world create a situation where conflict is more likely in the future.

Before considering the conflict, it is important to have a clear understanding of the terms used. These definitions may also clear up some of the more basic misunderstandings in reference to the field of science. A scientist is someone trying to understand how some aspect of the world works and come up with precise and rigorous descriptions of its properties and behaviors. Designers will very seldom come in contact with a scientist; rather, they come in contact with people who could be called technologists. These are people who have a science background and are in jobs where they apply the principles of science to solve problems. A scientist knows why and how something works; a technologist takes what the scientist discovers and applies it in useful ways. For example a physicist (scientist) studies how the world works and creates definitions which describe it (the laws of physics). A civil engineer (technologist) will then apply these description/laws to design and test a structure which will stand up.

Conflict is caused by a number of factors on both sides. Designers have difficulty working with technologists because technologists either ignore or do not value the goals and methods of the designer such as aesthetics or intuitive reasoning. Technologists stereotype designers as people who “just make stuff pretty” and ignore function and how the world works. They may have a very negative stereotype of designers as being fussy, stubborn and impossible to work with. Technologist also become frustrated with “fuzzy designers”— designers who do not seriously consider the feasibility of their design in the real world, giving the impression that it doesn’t really matter. These preconceived ideas create a rift.

Technologists have difficulty working with designers because designers do the same thing to them. Designers either ignore or do not value goals and methods of the technologists, such as function, reliability, and analysis by scientific methods. Designers have the stereotype that technologists just make big, ugly, functional things. Designers are frustrated that in a response to a design, technologists will say “it can’t be done”, or ask “why would you want to do that, it’s stupid”. Because of this, designers don't share their ideas and the problems become much larger later down the track.

These stereotypes and prejudices are not the only things that hinder the relationship. Some designers appear to fear that if they if they accept and use science in the design process that the discipline of design will become formulaic or a science and that the beauty of variety and acceptance of diversity will be lost. It is possible that this fear arises from a misunderstanding of science as being purely an application of formulas void of human influence, combined with ????a rejection of design movements where the design become to wildly accepted and lesser designers start applying the basic ideas of the design in unthought-out ‘formulaic’ ways…..????

Another cause of conflict is that some designers judge the value of science through the designs that the technologists produce. For example a civil engineer may produce a very ugly bridge. A designer then sees it and comes to the conclusion that if that is what science produces then it must be of no use to design. However, it is not the science that generates the ugly bridge, rather it is the lack of aesthetic skills of the technologist.

There is also often a misunderstanding on the technologist’s part as to what a designer does. Technologists often consider designers to be just stylists. This results in the designer’s potential not being used or appreciated. More importantly it results in the designer being unwilling to work with technologists because they are prevented from designing the product itself and limited to trying to cover it up afterwards. “Designers have always been engaged to add a bit of style to an otherwise undistinguished product, and will continue to be so. But the best designers have always insisted on being in at the birth of a product concept and working closely with both the engineers and the many other specialists involved in its development.” […] (John Hendry and Angela Dumas 3)

This problem is not just the fault of the technologist: designers frequently do not communicate what they do in a way in which the technologist can understand “...designers in general, tend to eschew words and to communicate to the outside world only in visual images, which themselves reflect the completed design rather than the design as process. This is indeed one major reason why outsiders see their work in terms of “simple creativity”: by keeping the process hidden in a shroud of mystique, they positively encourage such a view.” […]

paragraph on problems caused by not recognizing constraints and requirements from the other side and designing separately, instead of early consultation and cooperative design.

There are two major factors underlying all these problems. The first is the realization that each group is trying to create something, but with different sets of values and goals. The solution of the technologist may not meet the values and goals of the designer, just as the solution of the designer may not meet the values and goals of the technologist. [ find an example] judged according to a design scale it would fail in the same way If Philippe Stark’ ‘JUICY SALIF’ citrus-fruit squeezer is likely to fail when judged by engineering standards because perform its doesn’t for its function smoothly.” is said to spill lemon juice all over the fingers” (1)

Secondly they are both creating things within their sets of values and more importantly out of their knowledge and view point. Both technologists and designers have ‘know how’ knowledge. A technologist know how something will react according to the scientific principles they have learned. A designer know how something will react from design principles they have learned. For example a mechanical engineer (technologist) will know how to work out the effect of a ball when it is dropped in terms of the path it will take, the velocity it will be traveling, the energy released on impact etc.; a designer will know how to work out the effect of the ball in terms of its proportion, balance, placement, function within the design, etc. This means that when the two groups interact, they will be talking in different terms. However, some of the know how is shared (though expressed differently and appearing contradictory) and some will be complementary, …… explain complementary, diagram .

[ when an engineer says “no, it can’t be done”….maybe not trying, or …[separate paragraph on hard problems where outside routine knowhow of both sides – needs insights from both to solve] There will also be there will be gaps in the know how knowledge where neither know how to do it but a solution is needed and there will be places where the knowledge overlaps and can appear to contradict.

These two factors become a problem when people on either side refuse to accept or try to understand the other side. Both designers and technologists become frustrated with the narrow-mindedness of the other party who will only accept what they know.

This distrust has the effect of not only making communication hard for designers but also making them seemingly distrust the entire science field. This cuts off all the possible benefits science has to offer. If the distrust is overcome, and the communication mended, then the door would be opened to better collaboration with technologists, new sources of inspiration, new methods of approaching design, new ways to measure or test designs, and new resources of knowledge. It would enable designers to push designs to new levels and mature the field of design.

Opportunities for inspiration can come from many different places in science. It can come through a new discovery, for example a materials scientist could create or discover a new type of material that has interesting properties that could be used in design. It could be through talking and interacting with technologists or scientists who could illuminate a different view point which sparks and idea or an idea could be developed together through the interaction. It could also come through borrowing an idea or method and applying them in a design situation. [For example, a project called grow by Samuel Cabot Cochran Samuel Cabot Cochran a solar and wind power generator “take its cues from how trees work in nature. After all, thousands of years of evolution can’t be wrong: if a more efficient design for gathering solar energy lay in developing huge slabs (see most existing solar panels installed on houses these days), trees ought to produce a single huge leaf! “

Science offers ways of testing or measuring the effectiveness a design. For example [cognitive science reference]

The field of science is also a huge resource for designers that can be accessed in many ways. When designers are faced with a difficulty in finding a solution to a design problem often research in to the area is necessary. This could require extensive experimentation on the designer’s part taking large amounts of time. Depending on the problem it is likely that this experimentation could be lessened or even eliminated by looking at research that has already been done. The science field is all about research so it offers a huge amount of information that can help solve the problems. For example [example of design issue being solved by science principle.]

Science can enable designers to go further with designs. [Examples metal tubing modernist design, metal- tool design, plastic - fluid forms, injection molding and industrial revolution - mass production, cad programs faster visualizations of designs. Physics tall buildings, smart materials- milk bottle packages.]

It helps to [ futher mature the field of design] likely to be cut

It is inevitable that designers will have to work with technologist in their career in most likely engineers. If the boundaries between the two field are broken down it will make the process very much easier.

time paragraph – it’s more efficient to solve problems early instead of late. and redoing.

A way to inform, justify, or correct intuition ( particularly in terms of psychology of perception) (intuition comes as a package, “this is what I think”, by analyzing, may get rid of invalid elements.)

How to reach a place of understanding and cooperation: last section of essay

Respect !!!

Understanding

Explanations of the others goals, values and approaches of each discipline and a realization that they are both good

Carnegie Mellon course teaching cooperation

Understanding of what the other party brings and their limits

recognizing and understanding the requirements and constraints from the other side.

A knowledge of each other’s concepts and terms

Communication

Quotes from the principles of design example of collaboration in PDA design

Conclusion

References

Adam. “I am not a stylist.” I AN ADAM. Adam. Wed, 03/28/2007 - 08:45. <http://adam.theoherns.com/content/i-am-not-stylist >march 2008.

Andrew Ingram. “What is Form vs. Function?” Andrew Ingram . Andrew Ingram. 21 Feb 07. <http://www.andrewingram.net/articles/what_is_form_vs_function/ >march 2008.

Authors not stated. “Brooks Stevens. Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World” Milwaukee art museum. Editors not stated. June 2003. <http://www.mam.org/exhibitions/_sites/brooks/biography.asp >march 2008.

Author not stated. “Designers vs. engineers” petting-zoo. Editors not stated. Fri, 09 Jan 1998 http://www.petting-zoo.net/~deadbeef/archive/3354.html originally from http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/9526.html which is no longer available.

Mark Biasotti. " Where art meets science." Machine design. Editor(s) of website. 1/25/2007. SolidWorks/ Machine design. April 08 <http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/69414/Whereartmeetsscience.aspx >

Jonathan Cagan, Craig M. Vogel, Laurie R. Weingart." Developing a New Breed of Engineer –Integrated Product Development at Carnegie Mellon University " (pdf). ©2003. Carnegie Mellon University. April 08. <http://files.asme.org/asmeorg/Governance/Honors/1105.pdf >

Csven. “The Death of “Industrial Design.” reBang weblog. Csven. February 27th. <http://blog.rebang.com/?p=711 >march 2008.

Mauro F. Guillen. The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical. Contributors. New Jersey : Princeton University Press, 2002.

Michael Glover. "Is Philippe Starck a raving ...genius?." Times Online. Editor(s) of website. May 16, 2007. Times Newspapers Ltd. April08. < http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article1793832.ece>.

John Hendry and Angela Dumas. " What do you do with an industrial designer?." (pdf). 1988. Cranfield University. April 08.

<http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:8080/bitstream/1826/730/2/SWP2589.pdf>.

Gary Legg . " Slick Slidin'. Design News. Editor Gary Legg. June 2, 2003. Design News. April 08 < http://www.designnews.com/article/CA299821.html>.

Esko Kurvinen. "How industrial design interacts with technology – a case

study on design of a stone crusher." (pdf). May 18 - 21, 2004. international design conference - design 2004. Date of access <http://www.hiit.fi/~ekurvine/publ/design2004_149_kurvinen.pdf>.

Robin Spence, Sebastian Macmillan, Paul Kirby. Interdisciplinary Design in Practice. London: Thomas Telford Pbulishing, 2001.

http://jrp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/17/12/1096

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dreyfuss

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_methods

http://www.designmuseum.org/design/ross-lovegrove

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/design-is-rocket

http://ciid.dk/solar-biomimicry

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/02/27/bubble-building-national-swim-center-in-beijing/

http://www.biomimicryguild.com/guild_biomimicry.html

http://www.designsojourn.com/2007/02/08/biomimicry-the-answer-to-your-design-question-is-all-around-you/

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article1793832.ece

notes and quotes from references

Select Bibliography with quotes and brief descriptions

But worse, many engineers who practice their trade and produce new products are isolated from the many disciplines that all contribute to the creation of a breakthrough or even revised product. It is our contention, supported by best practices in industry, that engineers must participate in a team that not only includes other engineering disciplines (of many classifications, the better of which have a broader understanding than their own narrow educational focus) but also includes industrial designers, marketing researchers, financers. In particular, mechanical engineers must have a higher level, systems understanding of the product and the process necessary to develop it.

The course has four main goals:

• Learn a state of the art product development process;

• Learn how to work in diverse but integrated teams;

• Learn how to communicate ideas in both written and oral form;

• Create potentially patentable products.

At Carnegie Mellon we see the need for a “New Breed of Engineer”, one well trained in (mechanical) engineering fundamentals, but also one with a broader context. This engineer not only has exposure to the above issues, but also has the follow characteristics:

• Appreciates aesthetic implications – technology is only one aspect of a successful product solution;

• Creates connection to user/stakeholders – a product created independent of the target user, no matter how well executed, will likely fail in the marketplace;

• Understands brand and connection to form – the product development team creates the brand identity for the product, and often company;

• Connects to lifestyle, emotions and culture – products, whether stand alone consumer or components within a larger business-to-business system, create the experience that must fit within the user’s context;

• Demands integration with equal discipline contribution – engineers, industrial designers, and marketing and finance all bring equally important roles to the development of a product, and one’s discipline cannot lead without full participation of the others; and

• Contributes to soft quality as well as hard quality – quality manufacture programs and cutting edge technology must work in concert with the users’ emotion, the products’ form aesthetics and brand identity, and the ergonomics of use of a product. A well made product that finds no enthusiasm in the market is a failure.

Many of our students have taken advantage of the open engineering curriculum at Carnegie Mellon to minor in industrial design or art,

• For engineers, an understanding of industrial and communication design and the ability to communicate with designers. For designers, an understanding of the basic requirements of engineering and the ability to communicate with engineers.

Developing a New Breed of Engineer – Integrated Product Development at Carnegie Mellon University

Jonathan Cagan, Fellow Professor

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, PA 15213

cagan@cmu.edu

Craig M. Vogel, Professor

School of Design

Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, PA 15213

cv2g@andrew.cmu.edu

Laurie R. Weingart, Professor

Graduate School of Industrial Administration

Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, PA 15213

weingart@cmu.edu

http://files.asme.org/asmeorg/Governance/Honors/1105.pdf

What is an industrial what are their roles, how are they seen, why are they important working in industry study of how it has been done illuminating issue, More to do with how employer and companies see designers not how technologists do.

The new product design process is in fact a complex and sophisticated one. It needs time. And above all it needs a close collaboration between marketing, engineering and design experts throughout the development and realization of the product concept. This collaboration in turn needs an understanding on the part of non-designers of what industrial designers do, and how they do it.

Industrial designers themselves, like designers in general, tend to eschew words and to communicate to the outside world only in visual images, which themselves reflect the completed design rather than the design as process. This is indeed one major reason why outsiders see their work in terms of “simple creativity”: by keeping the process hidden in a shroud of mystique, they positively encourage such a view.

For many designers, the prospect of employment in a large corporation is instinctively repellent. This is not to say that they are unable to work in a corporate environment, but rather that their training emphasizes individualist values and freedoms. In most cases they can work in a corporate team as effectively as anyone, but they are psychologically resistant to giving up their perceived freedom.

This integrative quality of industrial design is important, for it has always the quality which, more than any other, has distinguished the most notable and lasting achievements of design from the rest, Designers have always been engaged to add a bit of style to an otherwise undistinguished product, and will continue to be so. But the best designers have always insisted on being in at the birth of a product concept and working closely with both the engineers and the many other specialists involved in its development.

http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:8080/bitstream/1826/730/2/SWP2589.pdf

What do you do with an industrial designer? JOHN HENDRY Cranfield School of Management Cranfield University Cranfield Bedford MK43 OAL United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1234 751122 Fax: +44 (0)1234 781806 and ANGELA DUMAS London Business School Sussex Place, Regent’s Park London NW1 4SA Tel: 071 262 SOS0 Copyright: Hendry and Dumas 1988

Interesting about pda design designer and engineers

They want this PDA to physically stretch. They want you to be able to pull on one end and extend the PDA to reveal even more features. They want a lot. A whole lot. And, finally, the industrial designers turn to Fuhs and his guys and ask if it can be done. And Fuhs and his guys say no. But that "no" was only tentative, fortunately, or this story would end right here. When feasibility studies showed that the proposed PDA was theoretically possible, but very challenging, the answer changed to yes. Barely a year later, Palm's Tungsten T was launched.

Finally, someone—no one seems to remember who—came up with the idea of a "push-push" telescoping mechanism: Push once on the end of the stylus to collapse it into the Tungsten T, push again to extend it far enough to grab and remove it. In essence, it's a lot like a retractable ballpoint pen, which served as inspiration. "We went out and bought several Bic pens to see how they work," says engineer Joel Friedrick. "The problem with Bic pens, though, is that they're too big in diameter, so we couldn't use their mechanism." The Tungsten T's stylus, Friedrick explains, has an outside diameter of only 5.2 mm; the inside diameter, where a push-push mechanism needs to be, is even smaller

http://www.designnews.com/article/CA299821.html

Industrial designers focus on making sure that a product exceeds customer's expectations in function and form while striving to create a truly innovative and unique design. They concentrate on how a consumer will interact with the product, how to build brand loyalty, and elicit an emotional response by imbuing style, novelty, and ingenuity into a product. Mechanical engineers pay heed to equally important concerns: Will a product break? Will it function as intended? Can we manufacture it efficiently and cost effectively?

With experience, however, I have come to realize that it does not have to be that way, especially when both professionals focus on shared interests instead of their positions.

When conflict erupts, it typically happens at this point, and stems from a failure to communicate.

http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/69414/Whereartmeetsscience.aspx

brief article on the struggle and why it shouldnt be.

http://www.hiit.fi/~ekurvine/publ/design2004_149_kurvinen.pdf

Case study: How industrial design interacts with technology – a casestudy on design of a stone crusher

http://www.icsid.org/education/education/articles491.htm

THEM AND US? EXPLORING THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER & ENGINEERING DESIGNERS

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/9652/30543/01408763.pdf?arnumber=1408763

Who are Biologists at the Design Table:

* Biologists who are uniquely adept at combing through nature's R&D labs and translating nature’s strategies into strategies that effectively meet your company’s challenges.

* Biologists who are trained in the biomimicry design methodology and excel at helping develop products and processes which are sustainable, innovative, effective, cost-saving and life-friendly.

* Biologists who move easily from biology to business, taking complex biological data and translating it into language digestible by any department, from marketing to R&D.

* Biologists who can be part of your company’s team from brainstorm to prototype, continually adding biological insight to the process.

* Biologists who have access to full-text scientific databases worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. This makes our research service fast, thorough, and highly cost-effective for clients.

The system, called GROW.1, was conceived by Samuel Cabot Cochran as part of his Industrial Design thesis project, and was later developed and produced by SMIT (Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology), the Brooklyn-based company he co-founded with his sister. What’s nice to see with this invention is that they have applied Lifecycle Cost Analysis and have thought about disassembly. The SMIT site describes this aspect in more detail:

The biomimicry part of GROW is that it seems to take its cues from how trees work in nature. After all, thousands of years of evolution can’t be wrong: if a more efficient design for gathering solar energy lay in developing huge slabs (see most existing solar panels installed on houses these days), trees ought to produce a single huge leaf! However, as trees very elegantly demonstrate, there are multiple forces at work in nature beyond the mandate to collect solar energy.

http://ciid.dk/solar-biomimicry

Monday, April 14, 2008

Reading

Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers
Ana Biseu
This paper talks about wearable computers and the social and ethical issues presented by them. She explains what wearable computers are and what they can be ued for.
One of the biggest issues that she presents is of privacy and the control of information. If the user has control of what information is revealed then wearable computer becomes positive but when a boss or exterior people have control over your personal information the questions are raised as to how that information is used and more importantly how it can be abused.
She also talks about issues of reliability and over dependence on technology.
I found the issue of privacy very interesting because I can see the ways in which it can be abused and the negative effects it could have upon society. These points make me very wary about the rushing to accept this new technology but at the same time I have issue with basing decisions primarily on fear. If all decisions were made from a place of fear then progress would not be made.
I think this is a very interesting field with problems that I have no answers for but am interest in seeing how it progresses.
My guess would be that it will slowly infiltrated wether we like it or not, as is the way for many issues which are not easily answered. If anything this is more dangerous to our privacy and society than issues that are confronted and dealt with head on allowing for safety precautions to be put in place.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Research

Since my thesis proposal have done a fair bit more research. I went and talked with Timothy in the library who gave me a good idea of some key word to help with my searches. I have found several books which seem interesting. I found one book in particular about interdisciplinary design which I think will be extremely helpful. I also have found several of the lectures helpful. I spoke with Greg and Diego and they also said they would be happy to talk to me about working with different disciplines, at Carnegie Mellon if I need it. I also see this essay as helpful for me because hopefully it will show me some of my own prejudices and help me understand the thought patterns of designers.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Cornstarch

The last 30ish seconds of the clip are pretty cool I think is also relates well to Luckes lecture showing how form can be created by the intensive structure. The form is made by the way the material naturally acts in different circumstances. Cornstarch naturally takes this form when it is vibrated at certain speeds. Intensity creates form when a material is at its lowest point of energy within the system in which it is contained.


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.

Lecture 6

Anne talked about Wearable technology, mobile media, Interactive design, and telematics.

She started off talking about wearable technology,

What wearable technology is being used for:

  • Health
  • Entertainment
  • Biometric devices
  • High-tech jewelry
  • Fashion
  • Safety

She gave many examples of wearable technology; Smart fabrics which react to being worn and programmable fabrics to display images. The two that stood out to me the most were the tazor jacket, and the scarf which had the key board and screen and was able to be a cell phone and everything else. The tazor jacket was memorable because of the reaction of the class in the lecture and the comments after particularly to do with ways it could go wrong. She spoke about Steve Mann creating wearable computers. Wearable computers must be: worn, user controllable, and operate on real time. Steve Mann created a wearable computing group. He also experimented with surveillance camera uses ‘sousurveillance’ wearing surveillance cameras in jewelry or clothing and the how these effects people socially. I found his sweatshirt with a fake but labeled camera on the front the most interesting. This is because it really plays on peoples insecurities and to an extent becomes a psychological experiment. She also talked about Benoit Maubrey and his audio group and his Audio jackets-1982, Audio ballerinas and the audio peacock-2003.

Anne then talked about mobile technology the most memorable being the cell phone orchestra where music was played through the ring tones on peoples phones.

She talked about interactive installations the Rain Dance(98) and Fire Birds(04) by Paul De Marinis where music is controlled by peoples interaction with the water or the flame. In rain dance when you walk under the water shower with an umbrella you can hear the music.

She showed an instillation where as you walked digital ripples would emanate from you fee those ripples translated seamlessly into a pool of actual water next to the path way.

One of the ‘installations’ I found most awe provoking was the digital stage and costume design. I found it amazing because of the difficulties of sensing the real and projecting the digital that they overcame, and the complex and inventive ways in which they solved the problems.

David Rokeby also did experiments with sensing, and camera tracking. He did an installation with Paul Garrin(a video artist activist) called border control where the camera would track you as you walked by then “shoot you” it had immense shock value. (94-96)

Anne moved on to talk about telematics, Paul Sermon set up interesting installations where people could interact together on screen through cameras though in totally different places. These installations were called telematic dreaming and telematic vision. Telematic dreaming was a bedroom setting where two people interacted. Telematic vision was a living room setting where people would sit on a couch in front of a TV (which displayed the knit together picture) and interact with people sitting in the same setting miles away.

Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz danced together on screen while miles apart in 1977.

In 1980 “hole in space” was created where there was a video link between two cities. It was not publicized but within in 3 days people were arranging meeting to see family members etc.

Nam June Paik organized a live broad cast between San Francisco, New York, and Paris, called ‘good morning ,Mr. Orwell’ it was done in 1984 to show that television has positive uses combating the ‘big vrothr’ fears voiced in George Orwell’s book 1984.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

awesome video of robots

Lecture 5

In the first half of the lecture Greg and Diego came and spoke about their exchange to Carnegie Mellon University. I found this very interesting because it related to my essay topic. They had to take courses outside of the design field and therefore were required to work with people in different disciplines. They said how they found it really interesting and it showed them a different point of view. They also talked about one class where they with a diverse group of people and there were quite a few arguments about the different perspectives. In the lecture they showed the work that they had done there, what the school was like, and talked about the experience of the exchange. This is something I hadn’t really thought about. I don't think that I would want to go for under graduate study but I would defiantly consider it for post graduate study.

In the second part of the lecture Luke talked about net working. About when the ideas started, living within a net worked society, culture being networked. About collaboration through networking, and how a whole lot of separate things networked becomes one thing, lots of people net worked together become one movement of people. The whole also becomes more valuable than the total value of the individual pieces. “1+1=3”. He talked about how a network can be used. It can create new ideas through collaborative work and through things like open source programs/designs. He talked about Negative Land and there unorthodox use of the networked media to gain publicly. He then gave lots other examples and types of networks and looked at how they have affected culture and the different ways in which people look at them.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Reading

Cold War Hothouses
Beatriz Colomina
Cold War Hot-Houses looks at how the Cold War effected design, in particular the field of architecture.
The first part of the paper focuses on the domestication of space. The author uses the examples of the automobile, drive-in theaters and national parks as public spaces which are treated as domestic spaces.
When discussing this paper in class, I had found it difficult to decide whether I agreed with the author’s statement of public spaces becoming domestic or not. The arguments within the text are very strong. My issue was the fact that I act differently in my house, in our car, and in public places like school or in a movie theatre. They have different levels of domestication and I react accordingly.
However, this experience may not contradict her argument because I am living in a slightly different time and culture may have changed and, more importantly, I am not living in America.
The second part of this paper, still with a focus of domestication, talks about the Cold War being fought through standards of living as opposed to military fighting. It talks about the technology that was used and borrowed from World War II to create everyday objects -- for example, the forecast program of ALCOA, which looked at new ways of using aluminum for home use. They also borrowed ideas from the military – for example, ideas of logical and changeable layouts were used to divide spaces in office buildings. Ideas of the importance of compatibility and portability were used in all sorts of products such as tables, picnic, shelters, etc. It affected all parts of the American post war culture down to toys – even the kite design was borrowed from the military. Also things that came in kit sets from furniture to houses to toys all had military influence.
This quote sums up her conclusions: “The entire Cold War blurs the distinction between work and play, business and entertainment, appliances and toys, buildings, and dollhouses.”