AKIN, Ömer_eXtreme Design.pdf

8/10/2019 AKIN, mer_eXtreme Design.pdf

1/10

eXtremeDesignALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY MER AKIN

MER AKIN,SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURECARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

PITTSBURGH,PA15213,USA

Abst ract

Agileor eXtremeis an emerging new trend in some fields of design. The field of architecture, dueto the complexity of architectural problems, has been engaged in such practices, without namingthem as such, for a long time. The field of architectural education, however, is yet to recognizethe value of eXtremedesign instruction. We present the design problems and products of a studiowhich was conducted in the eXtreme mode, during the Summer of 2003, by the School ofArchitecture, Carnegie Mellon University, in Prague, Czech Republic. We also provide aqualitative evaluation of the studio experience.

What is eXtremedesign?

It is likely that you have seen at least a little bit of extreme sports on television: young kids onroller-boards or dirt bikes, making loop-de-loops in midair without the benefit of safety nets.eXtremedesign takes its name from the genre of things that are of that ilk. However, the intent ofeXtremedesign is far from those of its sports cousins. It is not for the thrill or even the challengethat is involved. It is to respond to needs that are immediate which demand the kind of agilethinking and acting that is required in most popular eX-domains.

eXtreme, or agile, design is not an entirely novel idea. Software engineers have been at it for awhile.1,2,3The agile approach, also calledAgile Modeling(AM), is a philosophy for softwaredesign that emphasizes new set of values, principles, and practices, rather than the prescriptiveprocesses of the old. The websitehttp://www.agilemanifesto.com/ declares some of thesevalues and practices. An abridged version is provided below:

..Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over

processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan ...We follow these principles :

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harnesschange for the customer's competitive advantage.

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with apreference to the shorter timescale. .

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support theyneed, and trust them to get the job done.

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a

development team is face-to-face conversation. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and

adjusts its behavior accordingly.

AM provides rapid and meaningful turnaround of design products by incorporating continuousfeedback in the design process from the users and other experts. At a minimum, it provides analternative to conventional and more cumbersome processes. The Waterfall Model, duringwhich every stage of work must be completed before the next stage can be started, dominates

12/12/2003 1


2/10

the conventional approached to software design. Such approaches have the distinct drawback ofcostly backtracking due to volatile requirements, particularly if the design process takes a longtime to complete.

AM approaches do not run the same risks since they work with very rapid turnaround cycles. Bythe same token, AM products strive to be just good enough, not perfect. While this matterattracts criticism from those who prefer more conventional methods of software engineering, the

lowering of standards for interim products does not translate into the same for the final product. Ifanything, it means just the opposite. As more cycles of meaningful input from the client andconsultants are incorporated, the quality of the final design is expected to improve.

Proponents of eXtremedesign argue: We will continually refine the design of a system, startingfrom a very simple beginning. We will remove any inflexibility that doesn't prove useful. Sometimes it is significantly more productive for a developer to draw some bubbles and lines tothink through an idea, or to compare several different approaches to solving a problem, than it issimply start hacking out code. 4

eXtremeDesign in Architecture

While the term may be new, the spirit of eXtremedesign is not new for architecture. When theprofessional is asked to produce a complex building design within a matter of months, weeks,even, in some extreme cases, days, she uses a form of eXtremedesign. Armed with thisoptimistic view, let us, now, adopt some of the issues cited in the manifesto above to architecturaldesign: rapid change, quick delivery, individual motivation, face-to-face work, simplicity ofexpression, self-organizing teams, and self-evaluation.

Architects are accustomed to adjusting their designs to changes that emerge from evolving clientneeds and the problem context, sometimes all the way through the construction process andeven beyond.5 They can deliver design products as rapidly as the market requires them.Personalities involved in the design team are, more often than not, part of the intent behind teamcomposition. Clients, consultants and contractors do their best work, through negotiations aboutdesign decisions face-to-face. Simplicity of means to obtain the greatest effect with the leastmeans is often expressed through universal mantra: less is more. Finally, architects have to beself-organizing and self-critical, in order to survive in the ever changing world of designinformation. As the design solution takes shape, clients and contractors can express more andmore tangible requests to be met by the architect. This, in turn, alters the design, causing aniterative refinement process to dominate all design activities, rather than the classical WaterfallModel.

In fact, it would not be difficult at all to argue that architects are already trained to behave likeagile or eXtremedesigners that software engineers, or other professionals working in ill-definedproblem domains6aspire to become.

eXtreme Design in the Studio

The question is when and how do architects become agile or eXtremedesigners? Are theytrained as eXtreme designers in school? Do they acquire this skill later, in professional life? Inany event, are they given the tools in school to master these skills once they graduate?

As an educator with 25 years of field experience in the studio in one of the well-respected schoolsof architecture in the USA, I consider the emphasis on methods and principles of eXtreme designinadequate. Designs studios deal with singular problems for periods of time much longer thannecessary. Problems usually get overworked; topics get stale; and the energy of the studiodiminishes below acceptable levels, from time to time. In the process, the students become self-conscious, hesitant, timid, and even pedantic in their thought processes.

From the standpoint of eXtremedesign, the conventional studio process is far less demanding, insome respects, than those of the professional world. Presentations are more often than not,incomplete, poorly rendered and labeled, and stop at a scale of resolution far from satisfactory.Also, design requirements are not volatile enough. Once a program is set, students are requiredto abide by it, until the bitter end. If there are changes, these are made to smooth the way to

12/12/2003 2


3/10

some long range project completion objective. There is a sense of false stability achieved byeliminating key program elements or avoiding any program changes once the design hascommenced in earnest. The formality of review processes also tend to make students reticentand cautious rather than bold and risk taking.

I consider the contemporary studio design environment too sterile an academic setting to fosterthe proper training setting for the eXtreme designer.

An eXtreme Studio in Prague

During the summer of 2003, I and a colleague, Henry Hanson, form the School of Architecture atCarnegie Mellon University, had been assigned to conduct a studio for a group of twelve of ourstudents, at the Czech Republic. Realizing, first hand, the difficulties of running a studio in suchnovel settings and on the move, I seized the opportunity to propose the eXtreme studio idea.Professor Hanson agreed and we set out to design and implement the studio described below.7

This studio is all about agile design. It took advantage of the volatility of the design environmentas the excuse to create a battery of rapid, unorthodox, and vigorous design exercises. Wedevised ten exercises to be completed in 30 working days. We allocated 10 days for the finalassignment which meant that the remaining nine, all agile problems, had to be done in about twodays each. We had some single day problems as well as two or three day ones. It was like rapidfire. For the single day problems, students had a few hours to decide what to do, several hours toshape their solutions and then some more hours to present them. For the two-or three-dayproblems, they were asked to do some field work which kept their work pace at the same highlevel as it was for the single-day problems.

We explained the eXtremeintent of the studio, to the students, in the following terms.

Originality is not a goal, it is a byproduct (of the journey)

use precedents; be irreverent with design rules; steal do not borrow; use metaphors

Work in teams

pool your talent; do not do redundant work; talk to each other while you design nowthats a novel idea!; play the telephone game with design pass around crypticsketches

Visual brainstorming

incorporate foreign elements in your design; exploit personal hunches, hobbies,hubbies, hopes; pack in random features; invert your design (idea); collage programelements

Pace the work

play, work, play, work, play,..; rev, idle, rev, idle, rev, idle, rev, ; draw, talk, draw, talk,draw,.; generate, evaluate, generate, evaluate, generate,

Immersion in site

talk to people; talk to experts; draw, photograph, record, collect; read

Limitations

use only charcoal on newspaper; use only thick curvy lines; use only finger paint; useonly body motion to design; use only words; use found materials

Problems and Products

Students were required to keep a sketchbook for studio work, separately from their regularsketchbook. This became an invaluable repository of ideas, tokens, icons, images, andtransmissions (Figure 1). Some eXtremedesign solutions were represented directly in thesestudio sketchbooks. Other solutions were represented in the form of drawings on other media andmodels constructed from found materials. The entire studio, very quickly acquired an agile tenor,patina and ethos. It was rich, rhythmic, and utterly satisfying for all of us.

In the students sketch books, we discovered a rich repertoire of sketches and annotationsrecording and interpreting the sites visited and buildings analyzed. Most of this material found its

12/12/2003 3


4/10

way into the work of the students if not as architectural ideas emulated in their designs, then asideas against which to evaluate those that were generated by all, in the studio.

Figure 1: Sketchbook of a student

Now let us look at a sampling of some of the problems and submissions made by the students.

Problem DX1 -- X-istential First impressions

Think about your first impressions of Praha. Write them out. Focus on the nouns and adjectivesyou used. Picture them in your mind. Draw them out. As you draw you should make a switch fromwhat is to what could be. Be prolific in drawing. Distill and make a model. Make sure this isconsistent, in some way, with your first impressions of Praha.

Figure 2. A proposal by one of the students propped to create the fifth elevation in an urban plaza

The model in Figure 2 depicts one of the many urban plazas that were frequented by our group.This particular one is defined by the facades of four to five storey buildings. It is permanentlyoccupied by trees. Prague is characteristically a city of facades. The proposal by the studentcreates the fifth faade, overhead, through light weight elements stretched over and around thetrees.

Problem DX2 X-ploration -- Path

The objectives of this exercise are to explore:

the dimensions of the City,

the relationship between components of the urban environment and their relationships,particularly to the human, and

the City with use of human senses rather than reliance on representation.

.. Describe (SCORE) the path from origin to destination. Use multiple methods to represent theexperience, the people and the places along the path. Each student will be given a differentorigin, a tram or metro stop, and they all have the same destination. There is an agreed time tomeet at the destination. The review and discussion will occur at the destination. The elapsed timewill be 6 hours. Each student will begin with roll of bond paper, approximately 9 x 50. The

journey will be recorded with a line of passage as the primary reference. Features, experiences,references notes etc. will correspond to the line of passage.

Figure 3. A partial scroll from one students work

12/12/2003 4


5/10

The scrolls were typically 10-15 feet of continuous sketching, depicting a variety of visual andanalytical sequences experienced by the students. Some annotated the sounds and smells alongthe path taken by the students. Others captured the pulse of these paths through materials,architectural styles, scale of spaces traversed, intervention of trees vs. buildings, to name a few.These spaces and experiences became reference points throughout the remaining assignmentsof the studio. In the span of a mere six hours, the total sum of the twelve paths taken by as manystudents produced a collective memory for all of us, for a very large portion of the city.

Problem DX4 X-ray --Voyeurs Venue

You are to design a place from which to view the urban setting, for a voyeur who is a novice ofPraha. Make sketches of a place to be occupied by the voyeur. Develop a script of the voyeursexperiences for a typical 24-hour cycle. Your design should enable the voyeur to improve herunderstanding of the urban and residential condition in Praha. Think about your design as a filter orlens that helps interpret the view.

Figure 4. Voyeurs venue proposal by a student

The proposal in Figure 4 recognizes the rich collection of the sights and sounds of the urbansetting particularly through the intersections of the streets where buildings, cars, pedestrians, andplazas come together. It attempts to create a series of paths and nodes embedded on, in, andunder the urban pavement, allowing the occupant of these spaces to perceive the environmentthrough a variety of senses, in particular the auditory and olfactory ones.

Problem DX5 eXtential-too -- Character-istic

The objectives of this exercise are:

To identify a character(istic) theme that describes the City

To describe the presence of that character-(istic) in multiple and diverse settings

To translate that character(istic) into various forms of communication

Based on your experiences thus far, prepare a description of a singular thematic character(istic)of the City that most succinctly describes the essence of Prague.

This problem is a second iteration of the first exercise where a dominant urban characteristicbecomes the medium of communication for the occupants of the city. The particular proposal inFigure 5 transforms the festive and diverse activities that take place on the Charles Bridge into adynamic outdoor art exhibition.

Figure 5. A submission by a student for eXtential-too

Problem DX6 Meta-X-phor Frozen Music

Architecture is frozen music. Try to capture what you heard during the live performance onThursday in an architectural idea. Sketch and model this idea. Feel free to use found as well asmade things, in your design.

12/12/2003 5


6/10

Figure 6. Folding the colors of music

The folded model, shown in Figure 6, reinterprets the sights and sounds of one of severalconcerts attended by the students. It depicts the folding of the various colors of musicalintonation into forms that envelope the listener and then allows them to escape from the grip ofthe melody, through the random but well-framed openings, into flights of fancy, both spatial andmusical.

Problem DX10.1 X-ceptU -- Design an individual apartment for liv ing in Praha.

Model your client after someone who is present here and now, except yourself. Draw sectionsplans and elevations or make a model. Present your work to the person who is the model for yourclient and document her response. Review and evaluate your design in light of these comments.

The proposal in Figure 7 exploits the wonderful contours of Prahas rooftops. It complements themwith a series of dwelling units that extend the interior spaces onto them, creating almost amakeshift yet delightful roof-scape.

Figure 7. Extending the rooftops

Problem DX10 X-patrio t --Apartment bui lding for foreign visi tors

.Design a condominium complex to be rented by non-Czech visitors to Praha, just like you.Respond to the urban condition, including, massing, materials, circulation, transportation,(mix)use, privacy and community. Define its interface with the individual apartment...

In Figure 8, two suburban areas, occupied by the dilapidated and unsound Paneluxhouses arebeing turned into two very different housing proposals, one, a series of terrace houses, and theother, a modern, vertical apartment complex. The Panelux are poorly built, Soviet-style,prefabricated apartment buildings that are in the process of being removed or transformed intomodern and well-maintained housing complexes for the upwardly mobile Czechs of today.

In Figure 8A, the designers completely refurbishing the palenux have developed a delightfullyterraced housing scheme that sports a fabulous view of Prague, from a distance.

12/12/2003 6


7/10

Figure 8A. A submission for the suburban X-patriotproblem

In contrast, in Figure 8B, the modern way of Czech life is captured in flats that are stacked on topof each other to reach heights from where they enjoy the urban panorama along the broadspectrum of exterior windows along their fenestration.

Figure 8B. A submission for the urban X-patriotproblem

Discussion and Conclusions

eXtreme design has been an eye opening experience for the Praha students and faculty alike.

The students produced a collection of significant designs, equivalent to the normal output of atypical study-abroad studio of the School of Architecture. The remarkable thing is that this wasaccomplished without work on weekends or multiple all-nighters during weekdays. There were afew occasions during the two-day and three-day long problems when the students spent longevenings, almost out of habit, to finish their presentations. However, the stress levels neverreached those of the normal studio work, in-house or abroad. Even more remarkably, neither theintensity nor the quality of the work suffered. Students were unanimous in their approval of theeXtremeapproach.

This glowing evaluation however does not represent the complete picture, especially consideringthe students first encounters with this studio. The possibility of coming up with design solutionsduring a 24- or 48-hour period initially created a certain feeling of anxiety. After a few tries,however, the students confidence was restored and their apprehension all but disappeared. Thisis a proclamation of neither a miracle nor an oversimplification. There are well recognizedmechanisms that account for the rapid production of high quality design work.

First, even in the face of extremely short deadlines, architects are known to produce remarkablework. There is plenty of anecdotal, professional experience to substantiate this. Frank LloydWrights Fallingwater, for instance, comes to mind. Eventually when he designed the firstscheme for the house, Edgar Kauffman writes, [it] was also really the last scheme for thehouse 8Robert Moser and Edgar A. Tafel, reported, years later, in 1986, that the designemerged out of Mr. Wrights hands during the period it took Mr. Edgar Kauffman, Jr. to drive toTaliesin West, which was purported to be a total of three days.9Design faculty will freely admit

that some students do their best work during the final week of a semester, just before the finaljury. Finally, we all know the charette tradition of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, which required thatfully rendered plan parti were produced during a single 24-hour period.

I believe that all of this is possible simply because it is indeed possible to design, and design well,agilely. First, in the eXtrememode, one has to dismiss insecurities, doubts and the beginning

jitters. There is no time for any of these. Second, one has to quickly identify a viable approach.There is not time to fuss about the long shot or the yet, next alternative. A single goodenough design will do.

12/12/2003 7


8/10

Good enough designs are relatively easy to come by,10but, given sufficient time, architects keepsearching for other solutions, regardless. The tight schedule curbs the designers appetite forextended exploration. It helps carve out shortcuts towards reliable solutions. This is an invaluableskill mastered by the professional architect if not for necessity then for a sense of parsimony andintellectual economy.

The concentrated design effort also helps regulate the pace of work so that students have short

spurts of work spaced by rest and sight-seeing experiences. The latter tend to restore their abilityto be productive by healing their production fatigue that seems to set in after each charetteexperience. This has been almost universally true for all of our students. After a weekend ofsocializing, they were ready to roll up the sleeves and jump in, almost with enthusiasm, onceagain.

Finally,eXtreme design problems had been designed to build on each other. Through thisprocess of accumulating successive design features we realized benefits that exceededindependently designed solutions. Ideas developed before were allowed, even encouraged to berecycled. A design exercise steal, do not borrow, for instance, required students to recycle eachothers ideas.

The eXtreme design approach also had its perks for the faculty. There was no occasion forpsychoanalysis or babysitting due to failure anxiety. The rapid pace was the great equalizer that

eliminated over-achieving or over-obsessing, just as it eliminated procrastination and designers-block. Design products were suggestive and evocative, rather than over-worked and labored.This, inevitably, led to discussions about matters of design as well as surrounding social, cultural,economic and artistic issues, with student participation, reaching levels that are unprecedented inthe normal studio environment. There was room to see students design attitudes within theirpersonal and cultural backgrounds, rather than in the abstract.

Faculty remained engaged with every stage of the studio work. Everyday literally meant either theissuance of a new design problem or the evaluation of a completed one. This heightened theintensity of student faculty interaction and helped move the same onto a more informal platform.

In conclusion, the eXtreme design studio presents an educational model that is: (1) efficient in itsuse of design-time towards the production of designs, (2) intense in engaging students in thedesign-task at hand, (3) effective in cumulatively building on previous design work and ideas, (4)powerful in the frequent and elaborate input from the instructors towards the students intellectualdevelopment, (5) instrumental in dispensing with in the box behavior, and perhaps mostimportantly, (6) innovative in bridging pedagogy with design behaviors that are explicitlyconnected to architectural practice, such as agile design.

12/12/2003 8


9/10


10/10

Figure Captions

Figure 1: Sketchbook of a student

Figure 2. A proposal by one of the students propped up by several others for the right effect

Figure 3. A partial scroll from one students work

Figure 4. Voyeurs venue proposal by a studentFigure 5. A submission by on of the students for Xistential-too

Figure 6. Folding the colors of music

Figure 7. Extending the rooftops

Figure 8A. A submission for the suburban X-Patriotproblem

Figure 8B. A submission for the urban X-Patriotproblem

12/12/2003 10

Documents

AKIN, Ömer_eXtreme Design.pdf