Pointers

to the Future of Design

Musings inspired by a book
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School

Pointers to the Future of Design

Musings inspired by the book 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
-Uday Dandavate
The fields of architecture and design have a lot in common. I consider the field
of Architecture an elder sibling of design. The body of knowledge present in the
literature on architecture reflects a vast amount of wisdom accumulated over
years of life experience. I therefore often refer to literature in architecture to
evolve my personal concepts and frameworks in design. For example,
Christopher Alexanders work in Pattern Language has shaped my values and
conceptual frameworks in Design.
Recently I came across a book, 101 Things I learned in Architecture School,
by Matthew Frederick. It is a slim volume that carries byte-size pearls of wisdom
embellished with simple doodles. I was delighted to go through the book
because in it was a compilation of simple insights that resonated with my own
views on the pointers to the future of design.
Early in the book Frederick quotes the famous architect Louis Kahn,
Architecture is the thoughtful making of space. This quote immediately
resonated with me because the word thoughtful aligned with one word that
has occupied my thoughts for the past several weeks: Mindfulness. Mindfulness
incorporates almost all the values I have inculcated as a designer. It refers to a
multitude of character traits that must be present in a designer: the power of
observation, empathy, the power of observing ones surrounding with all of our
senses, the ability to tune into our intuition, the ability to balance a learning
process that relies on both rational and experiential information, good
citizenship, sensitivity to preserving ecological balance, respect, humility the
list goes on.
All of these traits are possible if a designer embraces humility. Additionally, the
idea of bringing focus on the space surrounding the architectural form reminds

me of the need to understand the experience of living within the social space
created by our design as opposed to being solely obsessed with the form and
features of physical design.

Our Experience of an
architectural space is
strongly influenced by how
we arrive in it.
Frederick suggests, "Our experience of an architectural space is strongly
influenced by how we arrive in it. For those of us who believe that the design
process is the process of conceptualizing an experience, as opposed to a
product, will find the idea of arriving into an experience compelling. It
underscores the idea of designing a ritual and the need to consider a larger
context or Zeitgeist surrounding how people arrive at the experience as much as
what the experience is.
Just as there is a Zeitgeist surrounding a design there is also an experiential
essence at the heart of design. A Parti is the central idea or concept of a
building. In order for a design to be meaningful and the experience to be
compelling, a designer must discover a core experiential theme that will live at
the inner sanctum of her design. Gaining clarity on what the parti should be
involves design research- a process of learning and translating insights about
how the design will meaningfully blend with the life of the people it is supposed
to serve. Frederick emphasizes, Parti derives from understandings that are non
architectural and must be cultivated before architectural form can be born.
The field of design research draws people from different academic disciplines.
Due to different views on the right way of doing Research,multi-disciplinary
design research teams often experience tension between those focusing on

scientific research based on deductive and inductive thinking (the process of

finding the truth) and those championing abductive thinking (the process of
finding what is possible). Their respective tools of insight gathering and analysis
differ and often put them in confrontation with each other. Frederick has an
advice for us in this area as well. He suggests,
objectivity is the province of the scientist, technician, mechanic,
logician and mathematician; subjectivity is the milieu of the artist,
musician, mystic and free spirit. Citizens of modern cultures are
included to value the objective view- and hence it may tend to be
your world view- but both modes of engagement are crucial to
understanding and creating architecture.

Reality may be engaged

subjectively, by which one
presumes a oneness with
the objects of his concern,
or objectively, by which a
detachment is presumed.
Frederick also quotes, Louis Sullivan, A proper building grows naturally,
logically and poetically out of all its conditions, poetics of design is an area of
my interest. How should we, the designers, encourage design as an organic
process that is participatory: where both the people who have a stake in it and
the events that surround it shape the evolution of design in a poetic manner? In
the future, the designers should become the catalysts of a creative discourse
and a co-imagination process that will guide the evolution of design organically.
Design discourse is a critical component of a participatory design process.
Design discourse shapes collective imagination of possible design alternatives
in the minds of people who have a stake in the design. It is therefore the
responsibility of a designer to help facilitate the organic designing process by
moderating the design discourse. Who would be best qualified to moderate
such a discourse? Frederick suggests that the most effective and creative
problem solvers engage in a process of meta-thinking, or thinking about the

thinking. He suggests, Meta-thinkers engage in continual internal dialogue of

testing, stretching, criticizing, and redirecting their thought process.
A discourse must allow multiple perspectives and counterpoints. A design
discourse must allow for contradictory aspirations to co-exist and cohabit. A
designer must restrain herself from imposing a personal point of view as the only
experiential component of her design. Frederick points out that ...any aesthetic
quality is usually enhanced by the presence of a counterpoint. The dynamic
interface between conflicting points of view makes the creative process more
exciting and rich in outcomes.

Any aesthetic quality is

usually enhanced by the
presence of a counterpoint

That takes me to another important aspect of design presented by Frederick. He

presents the idea of informed simplicity as a new way of balancing a designers
predisposition to making either simplicity or complexity the guiding principle of
her design philosophy. "Informed simplicity is an enlightened view of reality. It is
founded upon an ability to discern or create clarifying patterns within complex
mixtures. Pattern recognition is a crucial skill for an architect, who must create a
highly ordered building amid many competing and frequently nebulous design
considerations. Frederick names the three levels of knowing simplicity,
complexity and informed simplicity.
The future of design must not only accommodate multiple perspectives, but also
allow a design to mean different things to different people, depending on their
context and predisposition. Frederick identifies a good building as one that
reveals different things about it when viewed from different distances. A
designer must imagine multiple representations of how her design appears or
feels when seen or experienced from different perspectives. Frederick goes on

to suggest that no design system is or should be perfect. A good design is

always under construction. It is the users who continue to define, refine and
evolve the design by living with it.
This means a designer must give up his/her emotional need to control the
designing process. The designing must not end when it leaves the office of a
designer. To achieve this Frederick suggests a process different from the
conventional authoritarian control approach. He recommends that we engage
the design process with patience, to accept uncertainty. To recognize as normal
the feeling of lostness that attends to much of the process.
As a design researcher who has borrowed much of my learning and inspiration
in recent years from the domains of anthropology, sociology and psychology I
have a greater appreciation for the authors observation that there are two
points of view on architecture- that architecture is an exercise in truth and that
architecture is an exercise in narrative. I belong to the community of designers
who believe in design as a storytelling process rather than the old notion of form
being an authentic representation of function. I envision the future of design as
one that offers meaningful experience shaped by a narrative than a functional
design embodied in a physical form.
In the final pages of his book Frederick recommends that designers put their
ego aside. He wants designers to strive to accommodate and express universal
concerns in their work- the human quest for meaning and purpose. That way, he
suggests there will always be an interested audience for your design.
My key takeaway from reading this book was that the designer of the future is
going to be a storyteller who engages communities of people and facilitates a
discourse that shapes co-imagination of multiple design alternatives that are
always under construction.