Tool as design variant

Abstract

Tools, as base elements of technology, constitute the form of cognitive mediation between actor and the world (Preston, 1998). When technologies are up and running ubiquitously surrounding and defining our environment, they do far more than merely allowing for the external storage and transmission of thoughts. According to Clark (2003), they constitute "a cascade of mind-ware upgrades" (Clark, 2003). Some of these are the printing technology, the invention of the assembly line and the in-numerous design tools we have generated and these have re-shaped the way we think, work, live and design. In other terms have become mind-ware upgrades that allow us to think differently This thesis claims that design tools also work as "mind-ware upgrades" and participate not only in production of external representations but in also how designers think through internal representations thus; they have become variants in a design situation which is argued to take on different forms by Visser (2009). Visser (2009) suggests that although design has specific characteristics that distinguish it from other cognitive activities, it also takes on different forms depending on the main dimensions of the design situation. According to this, she confirms that there are both significant similarities between the design activities carried out in different situations and significant differences between design and other cognitive activities as stated in the generic design hypothesis. In addition, she introduces a third position to augment the generic design hypothesis by proposing, characteristics of a design situation introduce specifities in the corresponding cognitive activities and structures that are used, and in the resulting design (Visser, 2009). This thesis inspires from Fish (2004) who believes that a mental tree of design possibilities exists in designers' mind; and this thesis claims that design tools adopted effect the paths followed among the branches of this tree. Therefore, it aims to investigate how design tools effect not only how architects communicate their design but also how they affect the cognitive practices of a designer. This study aims to investigate how a tool individually affects dynamics of the way a designer thinks through the media and the process that the tool dictates with different types of design problems. In order to do this, a case study is conducted in which, a pair of relevant design tool is selected and two types of tasks, design and non-design, are prepared. The study is pursued in two phases: In the first phase the aim is to understand the affect of a design tool during the process of physically building a geometry that have been given to the participant. In the second phase the aim is to understand the impact of the same design tool during the process of re-interpreting the geometry in a creative fashion. The first phase therefore, investigates the design tool as means of production and the second phase investigates the same tool as means of design. First of the analytical comparisons of the sessions elaborates on two types of problems, design and non-design, based on the same tool. The second analytical comparison is based on design task setting and investigates the actions recorded during x-acto knife and laser cutter. It focuses on the relations and dependencies between the actions to figure out action couples that would help characterize each design session later. Detailed action charts are generated in order to calculate which actions are dependent on each other. The final analytical comparison consists of process-based readings, which divide each session into five-minute intervals and aims to understand the design behavior of the designer through action couples and changes of intensity in design phases defined. The results of the study conducted reveal that adopted design tool combined with the task, has an influence on defining the character of the design process and on the intensity of internal representations produced in the form of mental imagery and mental simulation that are distinguished to be necessary mental abilities for architects. The findings suggest that the nature of design task given converges the way a designer thinks to a certain extent. However, each design tool adopted requires a distinct procedure that alters the way the designer acts and thinks. The findings of this thesis indicate a potential in studying the strategic use of design tools for implicit teaching in design studios that will prevent over-emphasis of the same skills, encourage adoption of new ones, yield cognitive flexibility and propose design tool as an anchor in designing studio curriculum as an alternative teaching method.