Collaborative design procedures for architects and engineers

This book argues for novel strategies to integrate engineering design procedures and structural analysis data into architectural design. Algorithmic procedures that recently migrated into the architectural practice are utilized to improve the interface of both disciplines. Architectural design is predominately conducted as a negotiation process of various factors but often lacks rigor and data structures to link it to quantitative procedures. Numerical structural design on the other hand could act as a role model for handling data and robust optimization but it often lacks the complexity of architectural design. The goal of this research is to bring together robust methods from structural design and complex dependency networks from architectural design processes. The book presents three case studies of tools and methods that are developed to exemplify, analyze and evaluate a collaborative work flow.

Risks, resources and reason: understanding smallholder decisions around farming system interventions in Eastern Indonesia

Adoption of new cattle management practices by Indonesian smallholders occurs less as a ‘technology transfer’ in the classical sense but rather as a series of conscious decisions by farming households weighing risks and resources as well as matching innovations to livelihood strategies. This paper uncovers the context of decisions and communication of innovations by way of social networks. The research looks at two geographically distinct cases where new cattle management practices have been introduced. We apply the lens of a common sense framework initially introduced by Clifford Geertz. Smallholder decisions are analysed within a socio-cultural context and a particular set of resources, risks and livelihood objectives. We show that the respective value placed on land, cattle and food security is central to adoption of new cattle management techniques. Far from accepting everything novel, smallholders are selective and willing to make changes to their farming system if they do not conflict with livelihood strategies. Innovations are communicated through a range of existing social networks and are either matched to existing livelihood strategies or perceived as stepping-stones out of agriculture.