🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2AUG199217140406@misvax.mis.arizona.edu>  writes:
>    I think the question you ask ("...will it be humane, or merely  
enhance
>    the tendency towards complex large structures...?") is an appropriate
>    question to ask of CAD and other related DSS modelling tools.  CAD,  
for
>    example, enables object-oriented architectural design (plugging banks
>    of predesigned rooms into building templates over and over again)  
which
>    has the potential to take on very dehumanizing qualities.
>
>    However, it is the specific technology of groupware that has the
>    opportunity to rehumanize the design process by providing a mechanism
>    for programmatic input by the user (ie. client.)  Groupware, at least
>    the flavor of groupware I am working on, provides a mechanism for an
>    environment's users to participate in the program and design process. 
>    Groupware can collect their opinions and organizes those opinions in  
a
>    form designers can use.  Groupware can invigorate the process of POE
>    (post occupancy evaluation) as well completing the feedback loop with
>    databases to provide for project memory.
>
>========================================================================= 
==
>daniel david mittleman     -     danny@arizona.edu     -     (602)  
621-2932


On the one hand you say that groupware can rehumanize the process by
bringing in the user, but then you say that users will input their
opinions 'programmatically' ... which are then collected and organized
and presented to the designer in a useful form. That sounds like you
are putting a wall (the groupware system) between the users and the
designers. You have to remember that the true users of architecture
spaces are different from the clients who pay the architects. If you
really want to do participatory design, then you need to devise
simple ways (such as board games and simulations) in order to bring
the design to the users' world. To have them input stuff into computers
or to 'average' their opinions through statistical methods is just
as remote and dehumanizing as not involving them at all.


CAD, like any other medium, facilitates the creation of certain forms
while hindering others. It is a weakness of the designer to "give-in"
to the system and design what it 'allows' him/her to design. What's
the solution?, Augment what the CAD can do with what other tools can do
to achieve the desired result rather than saying "oh well! let's
just make the building a shoe box so that we won't have any trouble
with XCAD"...

Groupware, as you pointed out, has the potential of solving
this problem, but I see it more from a tool perspective:

Groupware, should not only gather the viewpoints/skills of other people
(including users), but also gather the capabilities of other tools.
If your tool can not accomplish a certain task, then maybe someone
else (linked and integrated through groupware) can offer his/her
tools.  Furthermore, groupware, by streamlining networks, will allow
more efficient use of idle computing power (distributed rendering,
time consuming calculations are already being done this way).

On the social side, I'm not so sure about groupware. I saw meetings
that use groupware systems (I actually participated in one). They
tend to be very 'anti-social', formal... somehow artificial.
They also seemed like an overkill in some instances. Instead of
discussing the issue verbally, we wrote down five reasons for and
against a certain issue. Why not just hammer it out the good ol' way!!
 
--
Wassim M. Jabi                            (313) 936-0229
Doctoral Program in Architecture, University of Michigan
2000 Bonisteel Boulevard  Ann Arbor  Michigan 48105-2313
wjabi@libra.arch.umich.edu             NeXTMail-friendly