Introducing Design History Lectures 2015

This compilation of slides from eleven lectures spans the core content themes about design history including: what, when, how, where, who, why, heritage and future history. Examples are drawn for these design disciplines: architecture, fashion, industrial design, interactive & visual design, interior design, and landscape architecture.

Visual openness in urban environments: Measuring visual openness and visibility to natural landscapes in a changing urban landscape in Gold Coast, Australia

The visual characteristics of urban environments have been changing dramatically with the growth of cities around the world. Protection and enhancement of landscape character in urban environments have been one of the challenges for policy makers in addressing sustainable urban growth. Visual openness and enclosure in urban environments are important attributes in perception of visual space which affect the human interaction with physical space and which can be often modified by new developments. Measuring visual openness in urban areas results in more accurate, reliable, and systematic approach to manage and control visual qualities in growing cities. Recent advances in techniques in geographic information systems (GIS) and survey systems make it feasible to measure and quantify this attribute with a high degree of realism and precision. Previous studies in this field do not take full advantage of these improvements. This paper proposes a method to measure the visual openness and enclosure in a changing urban landscape in Australia, on the Gold Coast, by using the improved functionality in GIS. Using this method, visual openness is calculated and described for all publicly accessible areas in the selected study area. A final map is produced which shows the areas with highest visual openness and visibility to natural landscape resources. The output of this research can be used by planners and decision-makers in managing and controlling views in complex urban landscapes. Also, depending on the availability of GIS data, this method can be applied to any region including non-urban landscapes to help planners and policy-makers manage views and visual qualities.

Envisaging change: Supporting grassroots efforts in Colombia with agonistic design processes

Design has become increasingly engaged with bringing about social change. Shifting domains and perspectives to conflict stricken contexts yield opportunities to explore emerging forms of design that enable the expression and articulation of difference in productive ways, which can contribute positively to efforts related to civic issues and struggles in urban settings from developing countries. We explore the recently developed notion of Adversarial Design to support the integration of diverging perspectives and grassroots voices in the design process. This paper presents the findings and design insights from our study with two grassroots organisations in Bogota, Colombia. We present three themes that expose ways in which conflict motivates bringing about change, the importance of the social and physical features of the urban landscape, and the way in which social change acts as catalyst for acquiring new knowledge. To finalise, we discuss two design areas and how design could be used to integrate dissimilar worldviews.

Caught in the act of collaboration: Students’ experiences of collective learning within a real-world design studio context

This study is an evaluation of design students’ perceptions of the benefits of collective learning in a real-world collaborative design studio. Third year students worked in inter-disciplinary teams representing architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and industrial design. Responding to a real-world brief and in consultation with an industry partner client and early childhood education pre-service teachers, the teams were required to collectively propose a design response for a community-based child and family centre, on an iconic koala sanctuary site. Data were collected using several methods including a participatory action research method, through the form of a large analogue, collaborative jigsaw puzzle. Using a grounded theory methodology, qualitative data were thematically analysed to reveal six distinct aspects of collaboration, which positively impacted the students’ learning experience. The results of this study include recommendations for improving real world collaboration in the design studio in preparation for students’ transition into professional practice.

On imagining in spatial design

Using the imagination during the design process is a critical part of how designers design, using it in the synthesis phase to generate ideas and find creative solutions to a given problem. However, what designers imagine - see in the mind’s eye - during the design process is a complex and difficult to articulate phenomenon, which, until recently, has been not been greatly understood or articulated. This early study reports on an education context where exercises were integrated into undergraduate design studies aimed to enhance the imagining process. Outcomes suggest that exercising the imagination in this context assists future designers to become more skilled in design synthesis practices which explore various temporal, existential and physical qualities in future spaces, as well as be able to articulate the seemingly ‘mysterious’ aspects of the design process.

Themes in landscape architecture publishing: Past trends, future needs

Many scholars acknowledge the need for rigorous research in landscape architecture to improve practice and teaching, and several recent studies have explored research trends in the discipline. This study continues this exploration by reviewing the articles published in the three prominent English- language landscape architecture journals: Landscape Journal, Landscape Review, and the Journal of Landscape Architecture. Specifically, this study analyzes the abstracts from 441 research articles to determine specific themes and publishing trends over 31 years (1982–2013). Findings indicate that “history” is by far the most prominent research theme, followed by “social and cultural processes and issues” and “aesthetics.” Several themes—such as “sustainability and green infrastructure,” “participation and collaboration,” and “research methods and methodologies”—have become more prominent in recent years. However, topics of current social and political concern—such as “climate change,” “active living,” “energy,” and “health”—are not yet prominent themes in the research literature, and could be key areas for future contribution. With the exception of a few themes, findings also suggest a moderate degree of alignment between research and practice. The article concludes with recommendations for future areas of research that will better position landscape architecture as a research- oriented profession with broad social relevance.

Design studio terrains: Mapping the learning landscapes of Australian architectural education

It has been nearly 25 years since the problems associated with passive learning in large undergraduate classes were first established by McDermott (1991). STEM education, for example North Carolina State University’s SCALE-UP project, has subsequently been influenced by some unique aspects of design studio education. While there are now many institutions applying SCALE-UP or similar approaches to enable lively interaction, enhanced learning, increased student engagement, and to teach many different content areas to classes of all sizes, nearly all of these have remained in the STEM fields (Beichner, 2008). Architectural education, although originally at the forefront of this field, has arguably been left behind. Architectural practice is undergoing significant change, globally. Access to new technology and the development of specialised architectural documentation software has scaffolded new building procurement methods and allowed consultant teams to work more collaboratively, efficiently and even across different time zones. Up until recently, the spatial arrangements, pedagogical approaches, and project work outcomes in the architectural design studio, have not been dissimilar to its inception. It is not possible to keep operating architectural design studios the same way that they have for the past two hundred years, with this new injection of high-end technology and personal mobile Wi-Fi enabled devices. Employing a grounded theory methodology, this study reviews the current provision of architectural design learning terrains across a range of tertiary institutions, in Australia. Some suggestions are provided for how these spaces could be modified to address the changing nature of the profession, and implications for how these changes may impact the design of future SCALE-UP type spaces outside of the discipline of architecture, are also explored.

Rockhampton's Resilient Future Design Charrette

The QUT Centre for Subtropical Design conducted a design-led interdisciplinary collaborative workshop (charrette) to develop some initial ideas for how innovation in research and practice can be applied to the complex problem of resilient future-focussed urban renewal in Rockhampton’s flood-prone suburbs and core grid. Three creative teams explored a range of scenarios for Rockhampton’s resilience in built form over the longer term. A large number of sketches, drawings and text were produced over two days. This report identifies themes, principles and strategies which emerged from the charrette. Each group proposed multiple guiding principles that fell into three strategic approaches: defend (through construction of a levee); adapt (by designing with flood in mind); retreat (a long term view to relocate populations in flood-prone areas). All three groups identified the importance of design that accommodates art, heritage, recreation, sustainability and tourism, and proposed these as principles to guide future strategies that mediate between Rockhampton’s broader ecological landscape and urban living to accommodate more affordable housing options, demonstrate sustainability and be climate responsive to predicted increased extreme weather events including flooding. The charrette outcomes pave the way to investigate wider issues and solutions to Rockhampton’s resilient future, beyond a levee as an isolated structure.

Identifying landscape meanings: Images and interactions at Gas Works Park

This thesis contributes a substantial new theoretical understanding of what 'landscape meanings' are, and what constitutes the specific meanings of particular landscapes to individuals. Further, it proposes how landscape architects may identify these meanings to inform critical and ethical research, theory, professional practice and education. What emerges from this representative case study of the landscape of Richard Haag's Gas Works Park in Seattle is the understanding that a person's expressions of their 'cognitive landscape images' of a particular landscape, coupled with their expressions of their 'interactions' with that landscape, constitute the specific 'meaning-narrative' they attach to it.

Crop design for specific adaptation in variable dryland production environments

Climatic variability in dryland production environments (E) generates variable yield and crop production risks. Optimal combinations of genotype (G) and management (M) depend strongly on E and thus vary among sites and seasons. Traditional crop improvement seeks broadly adapted genotypes to give best average performance under a standard management regime across the entire production region, with some subsequent manipulation of management regionally in response to average local environmental conditions. This process does not search the full spectrum of potential G × M × E combinations forming the adaptation landscape. Here we examine the potential value (relative to the conventional, broad adaptation approach) of exploiting specific adaptation arising from G × M × E. We present an in-silico analysis for sorghum production in Australia using the APSIM sorghum model. Crop design (G × M) is optimised for subsets of locations within the production region (specific adaptation) and is compared with the optimum G across all environments with locally modified M (broad adaptation). We find that geographic subregions that have frequencies of major environment types substantially different from that for the entire production region show greatest advantage for specific adaptation. Although the specific adaptation approach confers yield and production risk advantages at industry scale, even greater benefits should be achievable with better predictors of environment-type likelihood than that conferred by location alone.

Transcending disciplinary, cultural and national boundaries: Emergent technologies, new education landscape and the cloud workshop project

As technology continues to become more accessible, miniaturised and diffused into the environment, the potential of wearable technology to impact our lives in significant ways becomes increasingly viable. Wearables afford unique interaction, communication and functional capabilities between users, their environment as well as access to information and digital data. Wearables also demand an inter-disciplinary approach and, depending on the purpose, can be fashioned to transcend cultural, national and spatial boundaries. This paper presents the Cloud Workshop project based on the theme of ‘Wearables and Wellbeing; Enriching connections between citizens in the Asia-Pacific region’, initiated through a cooperative partnership between Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) and Griffith University (GU). The project was unique due to its inter-disciplinary, inter-cultural and inter-national scope that occurred simultaneously between Australia and Hong Kong.

Auditing design and innovation programmes within a multinational insurance provider

The financial services industry is key to the success of the Australian economy, however even established businesses need to continually push to innovate. At present, design is becoming widely accepted as means to innovate and many companies currently have design and innovation programmes. The goal of these programmes is to foster a design capability amongst staff members. However, little is known as to the impact of the innovation capabilities such design programmes claim to instil. Therefore, this paper seeks to investigate how a financial services firm is currently attempting to build a design capability amongst staff members. Using a case study approach the research team audited four design capability programmes currently being deployed by the case firm. The study highlights the strengths and weaknesses of current efforts by the firm and current barriers to achieving design capability. The implications of this paper include key insights for both academics and industry.

The Mid-Century Showroom: Knoll, Herman Miller and the Retail Exhibition of Modern American Design

Although occasionally illustrated and referenced in contemporary histories of modern furniture and design, there is surprisingly little critical discussion or consideration of the role of the showroom in the promotion and dissemination of modern design during the mid-twentieth century. In these years, when the American lifestyle was popularly articulated and forcefully propagandized, the furniture showroom served as a principle site of professional and public indoctrination. Appropriating display techniques from modern exhibition design to showcase the American lifestyle as an abstracted, spatially integrated art form, the showroom provided an unencumbered landscape ideally suited to camera’s lens and the public’s imagination. Leading modern American furniture manufacturers, such as Herman Miller and Knoll Associates collaborated with major cultural institutions as well as department stores and retailers to maximize exposure and consumer demand for their products. Through such integrated marketing and merchandising strategies, showrooms also contributed to the broader social project to educate American consumers about modern design and the advantages of modern living. Related to the many model home programs and “good design” exhibitions of the 1950s, the furniture showroom occupies a unique place within the history and discourse of the postwar era. The peculiarities of the furniture showroom and its position as a point of intersection between the trade and the consumer, the commercial and the cultural, and the aesthetic and the ideological form the focus of this study.

A landscape approach to conservation of birds

Landscape ecology as a discipline in science is rather young. However its principles appear promising in outlining conservation strategies including a wide range of organisms, particularly birds. Birds due to their mobility use a variety of environmental resources, especially habitats. However, currently these habitats are only available in patches over most of the tropical world. Further whatever is left is under constant human pressure. This paper, therefore, addresses this problem and suggests means of dealing with it using the landscape approach as outlined by landscape ecology. The landscape approach starts with the realization that patches of habitats are open and interact with one another. Corridors of trees along roads, hedgerows and canals in a landscape can aid in the movement of species. Hence the landscape approach considers patches of habitats as interacting elements in the large matrix of the landscape. The landscape approach also integrates concepts. It puts together often debated issues such as whether to preserve maximum species diversity, to maximize representativeness, or to preserve only the valuable species. Based on a case study of the Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka, these oft-opposing views and complications can be dealt with practically and synthesized into a conservation strategy far the diverse avifauna of the Western Chats.

Polymorphs, Pseudopolymorphs, and Co-Crystals of Orcinol: Exploring the Structural Landscape with High Throughput Crystallography

An extensive search of the structural landscape of orcinol, 5-methyl-1,3-dihydroxybenzene, has been carried out with high throughput techniques. Polymorphs, pseudopolymorphs (solvates), and co-crystals are described. Several packing modes driven by O-H center dot center dot center dot N hydrogen bonds were identified for the orcinol N-base co-crystals and their hydrates. In these several structural variations, the OH group conformations in the orcinol molecule were found to depend on the choice of co-formers and the crystallization conditions employed. The structural landscape of a molecule is properly described by a sufficiently large number of related crystal structures, and high throughput crystallization followed by rapid structure determinations enables one to access these structures efficiently. Any understanding of this landscape would enable the crystal engineer to reasonably anticipate crystal structures of benzene-1,3-diol co-crystals with N-bases.