Architect and user interaction: The spoken representation of form and functional meaning

The paper is an investigation of the exchange of ideas and information between an architect and building users in the early stages of the building design process before the design brief or any drawings have been produced. The purpose of the research is to gain insight into the type of information users exchange with architects in early design conversations and to better understand the influence the format of design interactions and interactional behaviours have on the exchange of information. We report an empirical study of pre-briefing conversations in which the overwhelming majority of the exchanges were about the functional or structural attributes of space, discussion that touched on the phenomenological, perceptual and the symbolic meanings of space were rare. We explore the contextual features of meetings and the conversational strategies taken by the architect to prompt the users for information and the influence these had on the information provided. Recommendations are made on the format and structure of pre-briefing conversations and on designers' strategies for raising the level of information provided by the user beyond the functional or structural attributes of space.

A multi-agent architect for CSCW systems: from organisational semiotics perspective

This paper describes a multi-agent architecture to support CSCW systems modelling. Since CSCW involves different organizations, it can be seen as a social model. From this point of view, we investigate the possibility of modelling CSCW by agent technology, and then based on organizational semiotics method a multi-agent architecture is proposed via using EDA agent model. We explain the components of this multi-agent architecture and design process. It is argued that this approach provides a new perspective for modelling CSCW systems.

Learning to talk to users in participatory design situations

In participatory design situations the competence of the facilitator will influence the opportunities for a user group to become engaged in the process of design. Based on the observation of the conversations from a series of design workshops, the performance of design facilitation expertise by an expert architect is compared with a less experienced architectural graduate. The skills that are the focus of this research are the conversational competences deployed by architects to engage users in the design of an architectural project. The difference between the conversational behaviour of a project architect and a less experienced graduate was observed to illustrate with examples the effect the performance of facilitation had on the opportunity for user engagement in design, and of learning the skill of facilitation that occurred in these situations.

'Does this compromise your design?' Interactionally producing a design concept in talk

How a design concept was interactionally produced in the talk-in-interaction between an architect and client representatives was studied. The empirical analysis was informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to observe structures and patterns of talk that accomplished actions and practices of design. Some differences were observed between the properties of the design concept in comparison with the design ideas that were considered during these conversations. The design concept was observed to be significant for assessing why some moves in a design space were considered better than others. The importance of the design concept to these interactions raised more general questions about what a design concept is and how it can be described as an object type. With reference to studies of science, technology and society these concerns were provisionally engaged with and further study of the object properties of design concepts is suggested.

Using objects to coordinate design activity in interaction

The coordination of design is a multi-faceted problem in construction. In design interactions in particular the real-time coordination of design activity is a persistent concern. The use of objects to coordinate the activity of design is studied as this happens in interactions between an architect and a building user group, in a setting where maintaining awareness of the design situation is important. An account of ways in which this was accomplished and how design activity is coordinated through interactional practices is provided. The empirical analyses examine design interaction from an ethnomethodological/conversation analysis (EM/CA) informed perspective to examine: ways in which mutual orientation to design issues are accomplished, how objects can provide a resource for the recognition of the activities of others and ways in which objects might be observable as momentarily intelligible. Subtle interactional practices involving talk, gesture and gaze were some of the small ways in which mutual orientation to the design actions of others became observable. The production of actions sequentially, in response to another's action, marked the real-time coordination of design moves in this setting. The relevance of accounts of micro-interaction to develop understanding of design activity and how it is coordinated are considered.

House in the Shape of a Stretcher

In an essay from 1910 the architect and critic Adolf Loos distinguishes between buildings that are for everyday practical use and buildings made for contemplation. The latter type he asserts may be considered as both architecture and works of art. He refers to only two types of contemplative architecture namely the tomb and the monument. There are certain paintings made in the early part of the twentieth century that do not observe this separation such as certain works by Hopper and de Chirico. Here the commonplace is simultaneously experienced in the way a tomb might be. This mortifying gaze condemns building by inducing a sense that space has become inhospitable and alienating. It could be argued that these and other paintings made around this time such as Carlo Carra The Abandoned House 1916 are like premonitions of what will occur when building observes the prescription laid down by Loos and omit an aesthetic dimension. However it might also suggest that buildings need their tombs or at least some space that is not completely assimilable by the daily, practical and functional needs of an inhabitant.

Designer buildings: an evaluation of the price impacts of signature architects

This study investigates whether commercial offices designed by signature architects in the United States achieve rental premiums compared to commercial offices designed by nonsignature architects. Focusing on buildings designed by winners of the Prizker Prize and the Gold Medal awarded by the American Institute of Architects, we create a sample of commercial office buildings designed by signature architects drawing on CoStar's national database. We use a combination of hedonic regression model and a logit model to estimate the various rent determinants. While the first stage measures the typical rental price differential above the typical building in a particular sub-market over a specific timeframe, the second stage identifies a potential price differential over a set of buildings closely matched on important characteristics (such as age, size, location etc.). We find that in both stages offices design by signature architects exhibit a premium. However these results are preliminary. The premium could be indeed an effect of the name of the architect, but others factors such as micro-market conditions might be the cause. Further tests are needed to confirm the validity of our results.

Design meetings and the coordination of expertise

The coordination of work and expertise in construction projects is often treated in terms of models or formal rules. However, much is to be gained, if we are to understand it, by examining actual coordination practices. The objective in this article is to address practices of coordination of expertise in the context of design team meetings. The focus is specifically on conversational practices between the structural engineer and the landscape architect part of the design team in a healthcare infrastructure project. The central argument is that the coordination of expertise relied on and was organised by mundane and everyday methods, and not by formal and abstract ones. This argument is drawn from ethnomethodology, a form of sociological analysis that focuses on the situated methods by which activities are produced, but shares concerns found in the literature on actual project management practices. The ethnomethodological stance, however, offers a different perspective on the significance of the empirical reality of projects and a possibility to incorporate within this literature a concern with the ordinary methodical organisation of project activities.

Incorporation of different and changing client interests in the course of a project

There is a widespread assumption that clients’ expectations should be accommodated during a building project. However, there may be conflicting expectations within a client organization and these may change over time in the course of a project. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is used to study the incorporation of client expectations into the on-going development of a building project. To illustrate this, negotiations over a particular decision, namely the location of a building on one university campus was analysed. Negotiations went through a number of stages, involving a master plan architect, members of the public, campus maps and the Vice Chancellor. An ANT analysis helped to trace diverse actors' interests in a series of discussions and how these interests conflict with each other as one option was chosen over another. The analysis revealed new client interests in each negotiation process. Also, the prioritisation of client interests changed over time. The documentation of diverse and dynamic client interests especially contributes to the understanding of how some client interests fail to be incorporated in decision-making processes