I actually find little to disagree with here. What you say makes sense. To key on your comment about survival --
The survival issue is admittedly a tough one. There are lots of external forces on this that we can't change as architects, but we can certainly try to set an example. Per your commentary, I am a strong proponent of "design leadership", which is lacking by many definitions. While you are taking a specific approach to this, my own personal bias guides me towards using architecture to encourage lifestyle changes, which I think is key to changing people's habits and priorities to better meet sustainable outcomes. There are serious issues with how our culture handles food supply, water, and health care, which are in bad need of modification. But architects tend to be tiny compared to the large clients who control these things, so we have to be very gentle in our coaxing, lest the beast bite us in the neck. In a way, forces like LEED have given us a pleasant excuse to fall back on, to allow us to do the right thing. I see these movements as forces that begin to form examples that allow us to create necessary momentum in the right direction.
I also believe there are some aesthetic design benefits to some of the goals of LEED. For example, using local materials as a credit, I believe will help build back regionalism again in our design vocabulary. In other words, it will be nice to see stone from Austin used on Austin buildings, and stone from Rome used on Roman buildings. Transporting building materials 10,000 miles because a designer just has to have it, helps to ruin the great potential for regional specific differences that were commonplace in previous centuries. A good designer should be skilled enough to enhance a local context with it's own specific personality and local resources. I also believe it would help America's neglected manufacturing base, if we tried to utilize more locally made building materials. The cross benefits add up. But it's a bit of a conflict with very large corporate interests.
In a world that is getting smaller and smaller due to our electronic age, erasing our cultural diversity as it grows, it would be nice to find ways to make the world feel "bigger" and more diverse again. Encouraging the use of regional materials, I believe, will do wonders, not just for LEED objectives, but as a form of tempering of the entire international movement that multinational corporations have been hell bent on promoting for their own financial gain.
But I'm not totally confident the 'good guys' are going to succeed in this, to be perfectly honest.
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-14-2011 09:56
From: Walter Hosack
Subject: Design Research
Mr. Ferris, your interpretation of what I have written takes my breath away. Let me just respond to three of your comments.
COMMENT 1: "However, what he considers valid and invalid for consideration is where we part ways, and I believe this represents a huge, historical divide in our architectural profession. Similar to your comment, he has basically written off any artistic perspectives as pure opinion, which can't hold a candle to the true "validity" of proven scientific facts, or perhaps in your case, of true client desires."
RESPONSE 1: I have not written off artistic perspectives and opinion. I have said that the art of architecture needs a stronger foundation of knowledge to support its arguments in the public arena, since this is where public benefit and value are determined. This will require a measurement, forecasting and evaluation system equal to the challenge of debate.
I'm glad you mentioned that architecture is an art and science. I've seen little original architectural science in my lifetime, however, because the measurement system, language and motivation have been inadequate. This is one reason why I began work on the language of intensity in the book and software I've mentioned. This work does not replace the art of architecture. It attempts to provide the tools needed to build a more persuasive foundation.
COMMENT 2: "So using Mr. Hosack's only model of validity, we could say the political science, economics, psychology and philosophy are of little use to excellence in architecture, because you can't really completely prove anything scientifically in these fields. It's just opinion."
RESPONSE 2: I have never said that these professions are of little use. I have said more than once that if their observations are to be useful, they need to be recorded against a consistent architectural system of measurement, forecasting and expression. Without this leadership tool, the observations of many related professions cannot be assembled into a body of architectural knowledge that can provide shelter, improve our quality of life and contribute to symbiotic survival with the city design of urban form.
COMMENT 3: "We can't just lob off half the brain, and count off the other half has just opinion. The most uncreative designers in the world have typically been the ones who see the world in very strict, objective terms. I believe they are simply wearing their pants too tight. And then they accuse those with access to creativity as being arrogant. That's a very common conclusion, but flawed all the same. . . . in my opinion. Architecture staddles art and science. It's a very priviledged position."
RESPONSE 3: This reads like a rant. I hope you have not conducted a survey to correlate tight pants with creativity. Disparaging the creativity of others is an artistic tantrum not worthy of a professional effort, and reveals the arrogance being denied.
Design is not limited to art. The term represents creative effort in all fields of endeavor, including science. I acknowledge that architecture straddles art and science. The same is true for medicine, law and engineering; but they've done more to support art with science. I'm not sure you'll ever get this message, since you seem to pass all comments through a filter that separates this fundamental relationship. Architects have borrowed science from others, but the shelter produced has contributed to sprawl that is a threat to survival. This is a leadership challenge that will test the creativity of all involved, and the language of intensity, or development capacity evaluation, is a tool that can help.
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Walter Hosack
Author
Walter M. Hosack
Dublin OH
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-14-2011 09:39
From: Randall Deutsch
Subject: Design Research
Speaking of preaching by the "evidence-based design" camp, be sure to check out these free videos from an AIA event I attended in SF back in April...
KA Connect partnered with AIA San Francisco and The Center for Health Design to put on a forum on Evidence-Based Design on April 26, 2011.
Speakers specializing in a variety of industries such as healthcare, justice, workplace, and sustainable design, introduced their frameworks for applying the evidence-based design process, shared their experiences, and engaged in active question and answer sessions.
Enjoy the videos!
http://ka-connect.com/blog/?p=254
or, as I tweeted at http://twitter.com/#!/randydeutsch
Excellent New Videos from KA Connect: Evidence-Based Forum 2011
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Randall Deutsch AIA
Deutsch Insights
Winnetka IL
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-13-2011 20:15
From: William Farris
Subject: Design Research
That was fantastic. Thank you Mr. Ytterberg. Mr. Hosack has been in need of a fellow defender.
What Mr. Hosack has been saying, from my best interpretation, is that architectural excellence will require better degrees of real measurement of fact, complete with peer reviewed research, not so unlike what I have seen preached by the "evidence based design" camp. Somewhere in there, is a comment I think, where he wants these facts to be very dense, because more facts per square foot would mean a better result. Could be wrong, but that's what it sounds like, said in far more words.
In some ways, I agree. More 'stuff' in a design tends to be a good thing. Research is also good. No arugment there. However, what he considers valid and invalid for consideration is where we part ways, and I believe this represents a huge, historical divide in our architectural profession. Similar to your comment, he has basically written off any artistic perspectives as pure opinion, which can't hold a candle to the true "validity" of proven scientific facts, or perhaps in your case, of true client desires. Supposedly architects can only reach higher ground, when their 'facts' put them beyond reproach and above simple, vaccous "opinion." Or in your case, where the fact most perfectly mirror the desires of the client - another flowed model. For those of us who seek to defend our ground from an artistic basis, we are labeled cut off, arrogant, and selfish. That is a very common conclusion used by those who attack art. I expect it from clients, but it always surprises me to hear it from architects, who I personally believe should know better.
My response has been that this is an extremely flawed point of view that will never lead to better architecture, because a particular concept used in science is being used like a blunt instrument, being "uniquisitive" (to use your own words) to huge branches of knowledge that do not fit this very narrow model. There are 3 ways to attack this position. Well, actually more, but these are some of the big ones:
1. Functionalism, especially client based 'desire functionalism,' as you just proposed, is a very unprofessional approach, because if you study how design innovation actually works, it's hardly based on client desire. The worst car manufacturers in the world, if you haven't noticed, are the ones who have become so completely stupid on how to design cars, that their entire business model becomes "we know what the client wants." Each year, as they go down the tubes further, they say, 'well, we haven't listened to our clients yet. But now we will. Then we'll be good again.' I got news for you. Clients are not car designers. They are customers. How can they know more about how to design a car than a real car designer? Do you know more about surgery than your surgeon? Here's a phrase from a competent car company that shows they don't reduce themselves to what the client wants, but instead, far exceed what their clients can ever imagine. That's real innovation. Remember the phrase "the car that sells itself?" That's a concept based more on real professionalism rather than simply giving a client what they want. It also lines up with a concept I heard from Frank Ghery a while back, accusing architects of doing bad work because of their obsession of trying to 'serve the client.' We could write a whole book on this topic alone. Well, actually, I am writing a book on this topic. But Frank is definitely on to something that separates the great designers from the poor ones.
2. Science, as peer reviewed tested 'fact' is another problem we have to address by all of the functionalists who think they can prove their way to a great design via some sort of double blind study. For those who see this approach as the end all to all reasoning, have not carefully studied primary philosphy of science, and all of the large flaws and limits that any kind of scientific theoretical construct processes. Peer review is a great model. Don't get me wrong. I'm not denigrating the model as something useful to scientists for particular purposes. But I am critical of people who push it to Godly levels that it doesn't quite possess, trying to get it to replace everything else in sight. It's not unlike those who take Darwin's theory of Evolution and apply it to everything else they know from economics to spanking their kids. Others do the same with free market capitalism theory. I think sometimes people get so impressed with a particular construct, they don't know how to let go of it enough to broaden their base to other ways of seeing things. They suddenly thinkg they 'understand' everything via their 'facts.' One more reason all architects really need to study philosophy, as I have stated earlier, so they can be careful about trying to sum up the world in such simplified ways. The fact is, most of what we do probably has more to so with the social sciences, where real human interaction is - which you alluded to. And that is never something we can ever be sure of when we go the route of trying to prove anything with hard facts, because you can never do a completely controlled study in the social sciences. So using Mr. Hosacks only model of validity, we could say the political science, economics, psychology and philosophy are of little use to excellence in architecture, because you can't really completely prove anything scientifically in these fields. It's just opinion.
3. To accuse art of being a baseless route to excellence because it's only 'opinion' is huge denigration of a body of knowledge. If that is true, then we may as well eliminate art departments from universities because it's just opinion. Why give grades? Why even teach it? We have enough problem with certain clients who see art this way, but it's made far worse by architects who seem to be just as distant. Art has strong links to science, as serious thinkers have shown, for those who care to read about it. The links between constructions of scienctific equations and math have many roots in metaphorical construction, which has links to how art functions. Art, as an abstract form of communication, has links to our origins of language. Art has links to our biological thought processes, as shown in anthropology. Art knows more than just about any other educational model about discovery processes, because art is almost 100% discovery process. Art and science, together, are the extremes of the human brain. We can't just lob off half the brain, and count off the other half has just opinion. The most uncreative designers in the world have typically been the ones who see the world in very strict, objective terms. I believe they are simply wearing their pants too tight. And then they accuse those with access to creativity as being arrogant. That's a very common conclusion, but flawed all the same. . . . in my opinion. Architecture staddles art and science. It's a very priviledged position.
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Rich Farris AIA
Architect
Dallas TX
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