Design methodologies and metadesign

Frederick van Amstel http://fredvanamstel.com

Architecture and Design SchoolDigital Design

PUCPR

“I can’t withstand hearing anything else about design methodology. Each professor comes with a

different one and ask us to work in his way, which is not the way we

like to work.”

Design student from Unisul

Methodology is not a procedure.

Methodology and method

• Methodology is the critical study of methods from a theoretical perspective

• Method is a coherent structure of techniques needed to reach a result

Design methodologiesare based on

• Worldview

• Theoretical foundations

• Practical experience

Agile methodology

• Seeing it working is better than imagining it

• Evolve by iterations

• Dialogue with users

• Lean teams

• Sharing knowledge

Interaction design methods

• Paper prototyping

• Usability test

• Interview

• Shadowing

• etc...

How to develop your own methodology?

• Stick to a certain school of thoughts

• Act in a thoughtful way

• Experiment new ways of doing old things

• Think about the process as much as the product

Don’t just design.Design the design.

Welcome to metadesign.

La Sagrada Familia inverted model (Gaudi)

Metadesign

• A practice identified by Van Onck (1966) in which designers redesign their own process to deal with new complex entities

• Theory extended by Caio Vassão (2008), including its own critique (the bias towards formalizing everything in society) and an alternative path (arquitetura livre)

Metadesign concepts

• Abstraction levels

• Diagramas as reality

• Parametric design

• Emergent phenomena

Abstraction levels

The house as a bundle of information

Diagrams

A face diagram created to change a human face

Parametric design

Parameters to configure a house

Emergence

A customized web page based on the combination of many choices, some unexpected

Are design machines possible?

Benefit Brow Genie (2015)

Thegrid.io: articial intelligence websites (2015)

Soft Architecture Machines (Negroponte, 1975)

Metadesign criticism

• Excessive formalization of activity through technology

• Activities become sluggish and bureaucratic

• Conservatism to keep the status quo

• Metadesigners have too much power

• Design activity is reduced to a mechanism

Arquitetura Livre (Vassão)

• The project as a question not an answer

• Diagrams that do not represent anything

• Informalization over formalization

• The body as the basis of a project

• Multiple bodies, multiple voices

Design Livre (Van Amstel & Gonzatto)

• From low-tech to high tech

• Counter-project innovation tactics

• Designing in the public

• Generous infrastructuring

• Shared objects that matter

• Raising awareness for contradictions

Thank you!

Frederick van Amstel http://fredvanamstel.com

Architecture and Design SchoolDigital Design

PUCPR