Carl Steinitz led off the plenary on day two of the GeoDesign Summit and his presentation related the different approaches to design. He asserted that the process is by no means linear, and that understanding the decision process is far more important than understanding the technology.
He related different rules that inform the design approach, and that scale matters greatly in the approach. The vision and strategy are generalizable, but the tactics and actions are unique. On the vision and strategy side there is a requirement of experience. And scale matters greatly to the approach as things that work at a small scale don’t often work at a large scale. At the large scale there is a focus on strategy. At the small scale there is a focus on detail.
Before the design process begins there are a number of questions that must be asked and a number of models that must be constructed in order to understand how the landscape operates to understand if it’s working well. This involves evaluation models, change models, impact models, and decision models.
At the next stage after the various data is gathered and a clear picture of problems is understood, then the design process begins. Steinitz outlined five different design approaches and gave examples of each.
Anticipatory – with a holistic view of the future, we use deductive logic to see how we get there.
Sequential – A series of steps that get us to the result with a directed approach that uses abductive logic.
Combinatorial – Most valuable when we’re not sure what to do. Uses inductive logic. We see the choices that you have to make and work to choose the best plan. Some things are more important than other things, and understanding the combinations helps assure the right approach.
Constraining – Getting people to understand what they want by narrowing their choices. This is an experimental approach that uses sensitivity analysis to narrow the response to defined constraints.
Optimizing – This is a directed and objective-driven approach. With this approach the designs are as much about what not to do, as they are about what’s best.
The framing of design outside of technology’s influence provided a good reminder that there are many different approaches that work. Steinitz left us with the thought that designing something is an art that requires judgment. That science is important, tools are important, but there are tradeoffs and ultimately the designers make a choice.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
“… and that understanding the decision process is far more important than understanding the technology.”
Not to know how to do it (understand the technology), means that nothing can be done – apart from theoretical talking.
{ 1 trackback }