The slow and incremental "revolution"

Journal of Architectural Education

Volumn 56, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 49-54

  Johnson, Scott ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 57549115174     PISSN: 10464883     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/10464880260472611     Document Type: Review

References (24)

1. See the debate in Scott Johnson and Brian Johnson, "Binary Oppositions: Should Designers Learn to Think Differently in Order to Better Utilize Digital Design Tools?" ACADIA Quarterly 19/4 (2001): 2-4.
2. and in Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Précis des Leçons d'Architecture Données a l'Ecole Polytechnique (Paris: Ecole Polytechnigue, 1802).
3. Thomas Thiis-Evensen, Archetypes in Architecture (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1991) discusses similar elements, albeit with a more hierarchical breakdown.
4. See Donald A. Schön, "Designing: Rules, Types, and Worlds," Design Studies 9/3 (1988): 181-190 for a discussion of the importance of seeing things as examples of types, and how this is used in architectural reasoning.
5. Donald A. Norman, "Cognitive Artifacts," in J.M. Carroll, ed., Designing Interaction: Psychology at the Human-Computer Interface (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 29, notes that performing translations (or having to "map" from less natural representations, to use his terminology) will result in degraded performance in times of peak cognitive demand.
6. Irving Biederman, "Recognition-by-Components: A Theory of Human Image Understanding," Psychological Review 94/2 (1987): 115-147.
7. Herbert A. Simon and Michael Barenfeld, "Information-Processing Analysis of Perceptual Processes in Problem Solving," Psychological Review 76/5 (1969): 473-483
8. and William C. Chase and Herbert A. Simon, "Perceptions in Chess," Cognitive Psychology 4/1 (1973): 55-81 examine the manner in which chess experts look at a board, and what it reveals about how they think about chess.
9. The conclusion is that chess experts literally see the board in terms of functional relationships (for example, attack and defense) between pieces. These relationships are so deeply ingrained in an expert's thought processes that these relationships actually structure subconscious processes of eye movement. These conclusions are usually held to be generalizable; that is, experts in any domain are assumed to have mental processes for guickly recognizing elements they work with and relevant aspects of situations they encounter. See Michelene T.H. Chi, Paul J. Fertovich, and Robert Glaser, "Categorization and Representation of Physics Problems by Experts and Novices," Cognitive Science 5 (1981): 121-152
10. and John R. Anderson, "Acguisition of Cognitive Skill," Psychological Review 89/4 (1982): 369-406 for related articles dealing with expertise and recognition of significant features in other domains (physics and geometry problems, respectively).
11. See Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1983) and "Designing: Rules, Types, and Worlds," for related discussions about "seeing as" in architecture and other disciplines.
12. Peter G. Rowe, Design Thinking (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987), pp. 34-35.
13. Durand, in Précis des Leçons d'Architecture Données a l'Ecole Polytechnique, seems to argue that the "grandeur" and "magnificence" of a place of worship can be ascertained by considering the building dimensions and the number of columns that can be seen from various locations.
14. See Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed., A Documentary History of Art Vol. III, From the Classicists to the Impressionists: Art and Architecture in the 19th Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), s.v. "J.N. Durand," pp. 209-211 for a translation of Durand's line of reasoning. However, such simple algorithms for computing aesthetic guality are not generally given much credence.
15. A debate concerning the ability of computers to generate designs (and concerning how to tell if this ability has been achieved) can be found in Scott Johnson and Ganapathy Mahalingam, "Binary Oppositions: Will Computers Be Able to Design as Well as Human Designers in the Foreseeable Future?" ACADIA Quarterly 19/2 (2000): 21-23.
16. Ganapathy Mahalingam, "Representing Architectural Design Using Virtual Computers," in J. Peter Jordan, Bettina Mehnert, and Anton Harfmann, eds., ACADIA '97: Representation and Design (Cincinnati: The Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, 1997), pp. 51-61.
17. Liousa G. Caldas and Leslie K. Norford, "A Genetic Algorithm Tool for Design Optimization," in Osman Ataman and Julio Bermúdez, eds., ACADIA 99: Media and Design Process (Salt Lake City: The Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, 1999), pp. 260-271.
18. Jun H. Jo, "Design Genes: Knowledge Representation for an Evolutionary Design Process," in Robert Amor, ed., Product and Process Modelling in the Building Industry (Garston, UK: Building Research Establishment, 1998), pp. 251-258.
19. An excellent description of rule-based systems can be found in George N. Stiny, "Computing with Form and Meaning in Architecture," JAE 39 (1985): 7-19.
20. This view is expressed, for instance, in Paul Doherty, "June 1998 Monthly Column: 10 Emerging Trends of the Internet and AEC," www.cyberplaces.com/columns/archive/jun98.htm, last modified July 1, 1998, viewed Mar. 31, 2002.
21. John R. Hayes, The Complete Problem Solver (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1989), pp. 293-298.
22. This phenomenon, called interference, is described in Best, Cognitive Psychology, pp. 227-230.
23. Donald Norman writes, "Make the task dominate; make the tools invisible." See Donald A. Norman, "Why Interfaces Don't Work," in Brenda Laurel, ed., The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1990), p. 217.
24. A stereotypical storage tube display had a monochrome green screen that held a single, static, high-contrast image until the user pressed a "refresh" button, allowing the screen to be updated. Modern displays utilize raster graphics (like TV screens, but higher resolution) that allow for color and animation. Virtual reality can include such output devices as headsets displaying a different image for each eye, or stereoscopic images projected onto walls of a room and viewed through glasses with special synchronized lenses. Augmented reality combines virtual reality with the real world, for instance, making a virtual object appear in a real space, or making a real space and a virtual one seem adjacent. Note that the progress is not just a matter of advancements in electronics technology. Technigues to produce and utilize the improved graphics are also reguired, and continue to be developed. For a timeline of computer graphics developments, see www.accad.ohio-state.edu/waynec/ history/timeline.html, last modified Dec. 17, 2001, and viewed Mar. 17, 2002.