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ED 044 796 EA 003 149

AUTHOR Broadbent, Geoffrey.TITLE Systems and Environmental Design.PUB DATE Oct 70NOTE 12p.; Paper presented at Environmental Design

Research Association Conference (Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania, October 2P-30 1970)

EPPS PRICEDESCRIPTORS

ABSTRACT

EPPS Price ME-50.25 BC-$0.70Building Design, *Design, *Design Needs,*Environment, Environmental Technicians, Glossaries,Human uving, *Systems Approach, *Systems Concepts

Design, which is basically a decisionmaking process,requires certain information. Although the nature and quantity ofinformation needed vary greatly from task to task, the designer couldhe greatly assisted if some means were devised to help him decidewhich information is essential for his particular task. Tn the designof buildings, the architect requires not only the basic dataconcerning building technology, but also information about thecultural and physical contexts of the structure, the objectives ofthe client, and the requirements of the users. The union of thesedata constitutes the Environmental Design Process, and is anapplication of general systeMs theory to architectural design.Systems approaches appear to provide the best method of incorporatinginformaticn from diverse fields into building design to create astructure that is aesthetically and functionally rewarding. (Documentmay reproduce poorly in hard copy because of marginal legibility.)(RA)

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!'Paper by Geoffrey BroadbentHead of the Portsmouth School of Architecture, England.

1970 ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN RESEARCH ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE

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Abstract.

The paper opens with a discussion ofdesign processes for general application andquestions their viability with reference todifferences in the range and complexity ofinformation required for designing in differ-ent fields. It refers to the author'sEnvironmental Design Process as an attemptto control the flow of information intoarchitectural design and suggests that thisis a special case of a more general struc-ture within which all the factors relevantto the design of buildings can be plottedsystemically. The nature, difficulties andadvantages of systems thinking in general arediscussed and the paper concludes withreference to systems applications in thearchitectural education programme atPortsmouth.

Introduction

The first ten years or so of designmethod studies have been concerned largelywith the identification and description ofgeneralised procedures which could be used bydesigners in different fields'." That was aworthwhile aiM, but for,many reasons - someof which haVe been discUssed at previousEDRA meetings .;."it:seeMs unlikely now to be

realised. Designers in different fieldscertainly will share common techniques -derived from operational research, systemsanalysis, cybernetics, information theory,creativity studies and so on, but the waysthese arc put together into coherent.designprocesses probably will vary from field tofield.

Information for the Designer

The nature, quantitY, and quality of theinformation required in design varies greatlyfrom one field-to another. Architecture andchethical engineering for instance, have muchin common (see Gregory 1969). Both areconcerned with more or less closed vessels:'

within which environmental conditions haveto be controlled and with means of trans-porting people and chemicals between thesevessels. But whereas the same chemicals, insimilar quantities, will behave consistentlyin the same environment, the architect knowsthat individuals will show quite differentresponses to the environment he designs.They will differ in physiological responses,not to mention the aesthetic and symbolicvalues which, whether he likes it or not,they bring to the perception of architecture.

Differences, arise then because rangeand complexity of the factors which have tobe taken into account vary greatly from onefield to the other. It is virtuallyimpossible in any design field, butespecially where "human" values have to betaken into account, to ensure that all therelevant factors have been considered, inter-related with others in the decision makingprocess, and allowed to play their appropriatepart in determining the final design.

So most design processes, as distinctfrom design techniques resolve themselvesinto attempts to control this flow ofinformation, on the twin assumptions thatif the designer has too little information,then his decisions will be inadequate,whilst if he has too much, then he may havethe greatest difficulty in actually reachinga decision. Some design theoristS (e.g.Alexander 1969) assume that given the sameproblem, all designers, eventually, willcollect the same information, knowingintuitively when to stop. Others, such asDrucker (1955), in the field of management,suggest that no decision-maker ever canhave,all the information which theoreticallyhe needs, that his skill, in fact, liesessentially in making viable deCisions onthe basis ,)f incomplete information. ethersagain, such as Jones (1969) have written ofthe "information explosion" which. afflicts

tin! designer whose enthusiasm for "briefing"leads him to pursue every piece of data to

its logical conclusion, whilst governmentagencies, research institutions and thetechnical press in many countries, providethe raw material for such an explosion bytheir unremitting production of reports,analyses, working papers, statutory con-straints, design check lists, and so on.Best (1;69) has analysed three contrastingdesign processes in terms of informationflow - Alexander's, Aalto's and a student'sof design method, concluding that: in eachcase, and in different ways, the designerhad to effect a homomorphic reduction of theinformation available before he could copewith it in his designing. Needless to say,the chosen process of reduction itselfaffected considerably the nature of the finaldesign.

Clearly it will help the designer ifsome means can be found of helping himdecide what information is essential to histask, thus helping him collect preciselywhat he needs, but at the same time protect-ing him from the information explosion. Asimple check list will not be enough. Heneeds a rather more comprehensive structurewhich also tells him what to do with theinformation he has collected. TheEnvironmental Design Process, which I describedto the Portsmouth Symposium of 1967, wasintended to be just that, and whilst it hasbeen described in detail elsewhere(Broadbent 1969); the premisses on which itwas based are relevant here.

Environmental Design Process

It is based, as one might expect, on aseries of assumptions, deriving in this casefrom the historic origins of architecture asdescribed by Clarke (1952), Mongait (1961)and others in the mammoth hunters' tent andother primitive forms of dwalling. Invariablywhen man started to build, he put the avail-able materials together to form a shelter, insuch a way that the indigenous climate at aparticular (and inhosOitable) place wasmodified, thus providing internally conditionswithin which human activities could becarried out conveniently and in comfort. Iassume that architecture still possessesthis primary function, although the conceptof climate may be extended to include social,political, economic, cultural and aestheticclimates, in addition to the phsyical one,whilst the notion of comfort may he broadenedto include other forms of sensot stimulus;certain activities will need a "stimulating"environment. In order to design a building,therefore, one needs three kinds of informa-tion; concerning the pattern of activitieswhich it is to house, the available site, andits indigenous climates, and the technologyof building available for reconciling the two.

The process goes on to describe how thisinformation can be used in the design ofbuildings and with certain modifications thathas been used quite extensively in architecturaleducation. It allows inexperienced studentsto design buildings well, because among otherthings, it forces them to consider interactionbetween the various kinds of information avail-able to the building designer. But that alsosuggests a possible limitation; it is directedspecifically towards the design of buildings,on particular sites, according to particularsets of functional requirements, so that itmay result in a fit between building andactivities which is so close that changes inuse become difficult. It is intended to leadalso towards phygical solutions, in terms ofbuilt form - and is unlikely therefore, toresult in a new pattern of organisation, avehicle of some kind, a life-support packageor some other non-building solution.

These limitations led to the search fora more generalised approach - keeping strictlywithin the field of environmental design.Markus (1969) suggested the basis for such anapproach in the structure for buildingappraisals which he described to the PortsmouthSymposium, against which certain aspects ofthe building fabric, and of human demands onthat fabric, are plotted in terms of four"systems"; the building system, the environ-ment system, the activity/behaviour system andorganisation objectives. This classificationis extremely useful, within its defined limits,because it deals in the interactions betweendifferent classes of factors, but it leavesout any references to the site, adjacentbuildings, climate, and so on, into which thebuilding may be placed, on the grounds that bydefinition any "system" operates within an"environment" and that the latter thereforeneeds no further description. There arecertain advantages, however, in describingthis physical environment so that thepressures it imposes on the building's designcan be taken into account. They can be subsumed overall within an environmental system ,Interactions between people - the client'srequirements, the users' needs (physical,social and psychological), can be taken toform a human system. The architect's task,then hinges on the design of a building systemwhich will reconcile and interrelate the two.The overall pattern of interrelations betweenth @se three systems then can be plUtted on achart (Chart 1).

This chart could be expanded in many ways.Certainly we should analyse each system asMarkus does, in cost/benefit terms, and onecould elaborate each of the systems further,not to mention the subsystems within them.But before we do this we should test eachaddition against a simple question: "Does this

CHART I -

INTERRELATIONS IN BUILDING DESIGN

ENVIRONMENT SYSTEM

BUILDING SYSTEM

HUMAN SYSTEM

CULTURAL CONTEXT

PHYSICAL CONTEXT

BUILDING TECHNOLOGY

INTERNAL AMBIENCE

USER REQUIREMENTS

CLIENT OBJECTIVES

Social

Political

Economic

Scientific

Technological

Historical

Aesthetic

Religious

The site as given

terms of:

Physical

characteristics:

climatic

geological

topographical

Other constraints:

land use

existing built

forms

traffic patterns

legal

in Modifications of

external environ-

ment to provide

suitable ambience

for specified

activities by

means of:

Available resources

in terms of :-

cash

materials

labour/equip.

Structural

mass

planar

frame

systems

Space separating

system:

mass

planar

frame

Services system:

environmental

information

transportation

Fittings system:

furnishing

equipment

Provision of

physical conditions

for performance of

activities in terms

of:

Structural mass

.

v2ible surfaces

space enclosed

Sensory environment

lighting

sound control

heating/vent

( G H Broadbent, adapted from T L Markus: Building-Environment-Activity-Objectives model)

Provide for speci-

fied activities

in terms of the

following needs:

Organic:

hunger & thirst

respiration

elimination

activity

rest

Spatial:

functional

(inc.fittings)

territorial

Locational:

static

dynamic

Sensory:

sight

hearing

heat & cold

smell

kinaesthetic

equilibrium

Social:

privacy

contact

Return for invest-

ment in terms of:

Prestige

Utility

Provision for change

Housing of particular

activities so as to

encourage user motiv-

ation.

Security

new factor affect, in any way, the shape of a.room, the. size of a window, or any otheraspect of the physical form of the building?"It is tempting, for instance, to add to thesection on human needs further appetites,instincts, interests and ideals. But no humaninstinct, as far as I know, ever affected,say the shape of a window; such proliferationsmerely confuse the issue.rather than clarify-ing it.

The chart will encourage us to do severalthings. It suggests, for instance, that theEnvironmental Design Process is only one wayout of the many which are possible, of treat-ing in sequence the various factors which mustbe considered in the design of a building.But provided that one covers all the factorseventually, and considers the interactionsbetween them, the order in which one takesthem is immaterial. It seems quite legitimate,for instance, to start with the buildingfabric system, moving later to the human andenvironmental systems; this has been theapproach of much of so-called systems build'.Lg.

Systems Approach

This concern for interactions between amultiplicity of factOrs has come to be knownas a system approach, which tends to be con-fusing,because over the past ten years or so,the word "systems" has acquired quite differ-ent connotations for designers in differentfields. In the United States it is associatedlargely with urban systems; problems of landuse, locational analysis, transportation andso on are generalised in terms of mathematicalmodels, so that individual cases can besubject to analysis by computer. We arefamiliar with this usage in the UK but westill use the word more often in the contextof systems building. Another popular usageis concerned with information systems;generalised structures against which informa-tion can be classified - often for computerstorage and retrieval - whilst there is agrowing, if less specific interest, in theapplication of systems thinking to psycholog-ical and/or social issues.

Anyone who uses the word "systems",therefore, is liable to be misunderstood.Certainly it is a va,y flexible word; for:which my Oxford dictionary suggests threemajor uses. In the first place, it refersto a complex whole Consisting of inter-connected things or parts, such as aplanetary system; secondly it may be appliedto a body of organised knowledge, such as theHegelian, or some other system in philosophy,and thirdly, it may indicate a scheme ofclassification such as the UDC system, Cl/SfB,a system of notation and so on. So, clearlythe data structures use is legitimate - itmatches the third definition, but one wonders

to some extent. about the urban systems andsystems building approaches. It is a matteroii what one means by wholes, parts and inter-connections. Alexander discusses this usagein a very sensitive essay (1968) describingalso the concept of "generating systems"kits of parts, with the rules for using thoseparts, such as language, building systems, oreven the genetic code.

A notable attempt to clarify, once andfor all, the general concept of systems, isdescribed in General Systems Theory (GST)by von Bertalanffy, who claims tohaveinvented it, c. 193 5 - 37.

"Whilst in the past, science tried toexplain observable phenomena by reducingthem to an interplay of elementary unitsinvestigable independently of each other,conceptions appear .in contemporary sciencethat arc concerned with what is somewhatvaguely termed "wholeness", i.e. problemsof organisation phenomena not resolvableinto local events, dynamic interactionsmanifest in the difference of behaviourof parts when isolated or in a higherconfiguration, etc., in short, "systems"of various orders not understandable byinvestigation of their respective partsin isolation. " (von Bertalanffy 1955)

At this level of definition, GST may seemvague, inconsequential and tentative compared,say with cybernetics, which has a hard coreof technological achievement to its credit.Both are concerned with the drawing ofanalogies between living organisms andmachines - in both directions - but whereascybernetics - according to Weiner (1947), isconcerned specifically with the science ofcontrol and communication, 'GST takes a muchbroader view.

Von Bertalanffy claims that the feedbacksystems of cybernetics are meray a.specialcase, however important, within the overallrange of self-regulating systems which GSTstudies. Von Bertalanffy himself was concernedwith the mechanisms by which a given embryowill develop into a particular kind oforganism, with ways in which the organismgrows to a particular size, maintains itselfas a whole within a constantly changingenvironment, seeks out particularly goalsin a purposeful way and so on. This involvesa study of the ways in which informationnecessary for the organism's development ispassed into it genetically and used to controlthat development.

Distinctions are drawn in general systemstheory, between closed systems and opensystems. The former might consist, say, ofsealed vessels containing certain chemical

processes. In time, such processes will

reach a state of maximum entropy, a state ofequilibrium in which no further reactions cantake place. No energy is needed to maintainthis state, nor will energy be released by it.

An open system, by contrast, will be opento its environment. Material will pass into,through and out of it and energy will beexchanged. But whilst this flow of materialand/or energy will vary, according to the stateof the environment (an animal may find itselfwithout food for several days) the system asa whole will maintain itself in a state ofne;2.r-equilibrium. CST has its own version offeed back, known as homeostasis. This conceptwas first described by Cannon (1939) who wasconcerned with the ways in which livingorganisms maintain themselves with reasonableconstancy even though they interchange materialand energy with the environment - they are"open" to it, whilst their bodily structuresare inherently unstable, subject to constantgrowth, damage and repair. Homeostasisapplies particularly to those mechanisms bywhich material and energy within the organismare maintained within rather fine limitsaffecting, say internal temperature, osmoticpressure, salt and other chemical concentra-tions in the blood, posture and so on. None ofthese remains entirely constant in the livingorganism which is why Cannon used the wordhomeostasis instead of equilibrium.

But we are still lacking in a rigorousdefinition of system; Angyal (1941) takes ussome way towards this in considering thedifferences between a system and a relationship.A relationship, according to Angyal, needsonly two members, between which relations canbe established in terms of position, size,colour, shape or other observable factors.Compound relationships may also be formed inwhich A is related to B, B to C and so on.But they still do not form a system unless,overriding all these relationships there is a°whole" of some kind, within which the variouselements are distributed and to which each part-icipates by virtue of its position in the whole.For Angyal, a system is a distribution ofmembers within a dimensional domain. The membersare not significantly connected except withreference to the whole.

Fig. 1

A

B

Z

0

Values of X

The crucial differencesbetween a relationshipand a system are indic-ated in Fig.l. in whichthe linear relationshipZ, between A and B, tellsus nothing about theirposition in the system,whereas co-ordinatesabout X and Y enable usto locate them preciselywithin the whole.

It is clear then, that most uses of systemsare concerned with wholes and with the ways inwhich a whole is greater than the sum of itsparts. Such thinking was called "holistic"by J C Smuts (1961), biologist and one timepremier of South Africa, who used this termbecause he believed that in living organismsat least, it stemmed from some kind of life-force. We may prefer "wholistic" as havingfewer connotations of piety, but whatever wechoose to call it, holism has its difficulties.Others, long before Smuts, had been concernedwith wholes, Aristotle and Hegel, each hadtried to establish a philosophy in which thewhole of human knowledge would be interrelated in one vast system. Popper (1957)and others have criticised these aims on thegrounds such wholes can never be the subjectof scientific enquiry. He questions thepossibility of considering even a limitedconcept like "society" in holistic terms. Forif each part is related to every other, andsome parts will be related to things outsidethat particular society, then before verylong one will be concerned with the whole ofhuman knowledge, which as one tries toencompass any part of it, is constantly chang-ing in other directions. Clearly this is aserious hazard when systems thinking isapplied in design; it is liable to trigger afurther information explosion.

One further difficulty with systems isthat they tend to be 11. rarchical. Weiss(1969) comments on the reasons for this. The

brain, for instance, contains a vast number.

of cells, estimated at some 1015, many of

them die during the course of a lifetime, yetthe nervous system continues to functionsystemically. That suggests an overridingpattern of organisation which, to survivechange and decay must be hierarchical. The

whole is more than the sum of its partsbecause of this organisation - if the patternis disrupted, then the system ceases to work

effectively.

This hierarchical view of systems - inwhich each component has its rightful placeand must keep to that place - permeates allsystems .thinking. It is noticeable forinstance, with'increasing political concernfor problems of conservation, pollution and soon, that the ecologists who have the. public

ear, want very much to confine man within theecological niche they have determined for him.Nor is this sinister aspect of systems think-ing particularly new. Oponent5 of the Nazis

in Germany used to speak of Der. System, apolitical structure in which everyone knewhis place, and kept to that place if he wantedto stay out of trouble.

Reasons for Taking a Systemic View

If the concept of system is fraught withsuch dangers, why should we want to pursue it?The answer, for environmental design, is thatmost of design failures arise from our refusalto take a systemic view. Such failures donot worry the designer - he has an easier timeof it when'lle takes a fragmented view of histask - but they do worry the user, who may'suffer abominably when parts of the environ-ment which the designer considered separately,,begin. to interact when the system is broughtinto use.

A simple example which Musgrove (1966),and I (1971) have discussed, concerns thelaboratory experiments which were used to setup daylighting standards in British Schools(Weston 1962). Children were asked to readalgebra texts, under laboratory conditionz,whereit was easy to set up a configuration in whichsubject and light sourcewere arranged in specific physical relation-ships. Emission from the light source couldbe adjusted within very fine limits and thelevel of illumination at the working plane,or even on the book, could be measured veryprecisely. The subjects' performance, interms of reading speed and accuracy could bemeasured at different levels of illumination,and furthermore, objective measurement couldbesupported by verbal statements. As a resultof all this- and other experimentS toestablish standards to sky luminance - a day-light factor was devised which ensured thateven in the worst case, each pupil could see2% of the sky from his desk.

Yet to provide the daylight factor thusestablished, the whole of one wall in eachclassroom has to be glazed substantially to aheight of ten feet. And because one environ-mental factor - daylighting - was consideredin isolation, other prcblems arise. Heatloss, solar heat gain, glare, distraction,noise penetration and so on are all affectedby window size, and this has lead to seriouscriticisms, by the users, of post-war Britishschools (Manning 1967).

Analogous problems seem to arise whereverthe classical method of physics - the isola-tion and manipulation of a single variable -is applied to the investigation of man'srelationship with his environment. Suchexperiments essentially are non-systemic.

Other problems arise whenever, say,decisions on a building's structure are madein isolation - without reference to theenvironmental control properties which differ-ent building materials may or may not possess.This accounts for the inherent deficiencies,interms, of environmental quality of most light-

and-dry building systems.

Even greater problems may arise whensingle aspects of the urban system are isolatedand treated analytically. This is particularlytrue where transportation networks are designedwithout reference to the nocial and psychologicalproblems which traffic noise, and other formsof environmental pollution will cause (Pahl1968).

If we are to avoid this kind or problem,then we shall have to take a systemic viewof design. The difficulty, as we have justseen, is that many studies which have the wordsystems in their title - such as urban systemsand systems building, are essentially non-systemic. One truly systemic approachmight be to think in cybernetic terms, observ-ing in use the things we have designed, monitor-ing where they are going wrong and using theinformation thus obtained as feedback into anew design process. The RIBA Plan of Work(1965) envisages feedback of this kind (Markuscalls it: feed-forward) as the final stage of thedesign process. It is fairly common also todescribe the whole design process in cyberneticterms, so that every decision is monitored, itseffects observed and fed forward to form partof the information on which further decisionsare based. Matchett uses such a feedbackprocess in his course on Fundamental DesignMethod (1969) whilst Beer (1966) has outlineda cybernetic process for the design of afactory.

The intention is admirable, as far as itgoes, but such processes, essentially, areconcerned with the design of closed systems inthe form of finite objects. CST suggests thatan open system approach might be even morerewarding. One could then design for changesin use or, better still, design objects whichmonitor what the user is trying to do, andmodify themselves accordingly. One envisages,say, a building consisting of open spaces,lightly enclosed. People arrive and start todo things; the building observes them, decideswhat they are trying to do and adjusts itselfto fit their needs in terms of spatialenclosure, environmental conditions, equipmentand so on. Much of this is feasible alreadyfrom a technological point of view, and pos-sibilities of this kind have prompted a wide-ranging interest in the School of Architectureat Portsmouth in systems thinking. We havelooked at computersystems, control systems,cybernetics, eco-systems, general systemstheory, information systems, language systems,psychological systems, social systems,systems analysis, systems building, systemsengineering and urban systems, trying in eachcase to assess their relevance for environmen-tal design education. These are all explainedin the glossary, and some of them have provedalready to be immensely valuable (Russell 1970).

The difficulty is that they tend togroup themselves into "hard" applications and"soft" applications, which on the face of itshave very little in common. The former includecomputer systems, control systems, systemsanalysis, systems enzLneering and urban systems-all of which are thoroughly relevant to ourcourses in architectural technology. Theytend to be concerned as one might expect, withthe quantifiable aspect;. -. design,

But some of our studies also tend to the"soft" end of the spectrum; this is true ofecology, perhaps the oldest systemic disci-pline of all, which used to be exclusively amatter of verbal. description. Even now therelationships with which'ecology is concernedtend to be so complex that mathematical modelssimply cannot be built for them.

It is not surprising therefore, thatwhilst the "hardliners" tend to dismiss suchdescriptive approaches as non - scientific, and

essentiall,; trivial the "softliners" reply quite

rightly that, much "hardline" thinking as wehave seen is essentially non-systemic. Yetboth factions are concerned with describingreality in terms of analogies: one uses words,the other uses numbers. Echenique (1970)propOses a 3- dimensional system against whichdifferent kinds of model can be classified,and I have suggested elsewhere (Broadbentforthcoming) that all types of model -numerical, verbal, spatial representation-andanalogue - should be treated with equal respect.Each has its uses, and by demonstrating thiswithin a structure such as Echenique's, it maybe possible to effect a reconciliation betweenthe "hardliners" and the "softliners ".Certainly we find the full range is essentialto a comprehensive design education.

Applications

Students in their undergraduate yearsat Portsmouth are introduced to a good manysystems concepts, the fundamentals of informa-tion systems, energy transfer and movementsystems, systems building, computing and quan-

titative methods, ecology, systematic designmethods and urban systems. Much of what theyare taught results from our exploration atpost-graduate:and research level and again, agood deal of this originates in a system pointOf view. 1e offer a series of options topost-graduate students, one of which,integrated Building Services, applies certainaspects of systems engineering to the integra-tion of services within the building as a whole.

We refuse to separate out computing, oreven systems analysis, as separate disciplineson the grounds that these present a number of qu-antitative techniques which may, or may not,be useful in design. Our observation

elsewhere suggests that where these are devel-oped outside the context of designing, theytend to "take over" so that there is aprogressive failure to solve real designproblems. One sets up artificial problemsinstead because they are emenable tc computeranalysis, irrespective of whether anyoneactually wants to solve such problems. Never-theless, we have developed - within the contextof designing - a number of programmesconcerned with pattern generation, the evalua-tion of building desigos using a simple build-ing system, the location of activities withina two dimensional grid (in terms of "distance"and "interrelationship" measures) and variouscluster routines. A space-co-ordinate programenables us to apply semantic differentialtechniques a) in the evaluation of buildingsfrom an aesthetic point of view and b) in thegeneration of building form, by using semanticspace as an analogy for physical space. Currentdevelopments are concerned with movement systems,urban systems, economic models, 3- dimensionalplanning models analogue computer simulationof environmental control systems, and so on.(O'Keefe 1970).

A good deal of our work on informationsystems has been facilitated by the installa-tion of a microfilm retrieval system, consist-ing of a 3M processor camera and reader-printer,a card-to-card copies and an Oralid productionprinter. These, with ancillary equipment,enable any document up to 1010mm x 760mm to becopied on to 35uun microfilm, mounted in an80 column punched card and delivered within40 seconds. This can then be printed out:same size, enlarged or reduced, so that wholeareas of teaching and research have changed incharacter. It solves the inherent dilemma inprofessional education of whther to teach,practical detail, which means that the studenthas little understanding of the principles onwhich new developments can be based - or toteach principles, which means that he hasno store of practical details when he goesinto practice. The microfilming system enablesus to store details which the student canretrieve by applying the principles he haslearned, and the critical faculty he has built

up, to their selection.

The most rewarding aspect of thesesystems in the School of Architecture is thatthey begin to show links 'again between variousaspects of environmental design which, forhistorical reasons, had tended to fragment.This is nowhere clearer than in the applica-tion of language systems to the study ofarchitectural symbolism. Language in thissense, is defined as a set of symbols and asystem of rules for using them (but seeGlossary). Rules thus detected in thestudy of language can be applied in otherfields as they have been in anthropology

(Levi-Strauss 1968 ), food and costume(garthes 1967) not to mention architecture(Jencks and Baird 1969, Bente 1970). In onesimple study, the students considered aseries of clmmnittee rooms, observing the formof each chair, and its spatial relationshipwith other chairs, tables and with the roomas a whole! The chairman's chair, forinstance might differ from the others inhaving arms, a higher back, deeper upholstery,and so on. These particular attributes -and the chair's location in relation to otherchairs, signify the status of its user. Onecould also distinguish the chairs which wereto be used by committee members, secretariesand observers. This kind of analysis can beapplied to many aspects of architecture, andclearly it can be used in design. It isobviously relevant in the planning of acourtroom, or a suite of offices, but it issurprisingly effective in the planning ofother building types. The beauty of suchlanguage systems .is that they allow symbolicvalues and other "intangibles" to be treatedby methods which are applicable also to struc-tures, environmental standards and otherquantifiable aspects of design.

It seems, therefore, that a systemsapproach, in its many ramifications, reallycan be used to help the designer take anoverall view of his task. It may help useven to avoid the incipient danger that,because certain factors in design are easilyquantifiable, they are given greater weightingin design than those which are not. In otherwords it gives us a way of structuring the

. intake of information into design in whichall the relevant factors are allowed to playtheir appropriate part in determining thefinal design.

GLOSSARY OF SYSTEMS CONCEPTS

1.0 Computer System: seems to have threedistinct uses.

1.1.Integrated unit of personnel, computerhardware and sortware which are availablefor data processing.

1.2 Interrelated set of hardware consisting,for example, of a central processor withperipheral input, output and storage devices.Ambiguity can be avoided by describing aset of such physical units as a configura-tion.

1.3 Method of analysing a particular class ofproblem using a given set of mathematicalmodels often sold as a package or suite ofprogranmes.

(The word Glossary is interpreted strictly:the entries represent my own gloss on the

various concepts)

2.0 Control. Systems

2.1 Applicati:m of cybernetic principles to the con-trol of machines; described as "Automation" by1) Sgarder who devised a system of inter-linked, self-regulated machines for themanufacture of automobile engneers(FordMotor Company 1.94 6)

2.2 An advanced system might consist of computercontrolled machines, interlinked by ahierarchy of computers collating orders,controlling stock, programming work todifferent: machines in man-computer dialoguewith management. It may be, under thesecircumstances, that the uniformity ofproduct which has been traditional in massproduction loads to over-use of somemachines and under-use of others, so thatfor the efficient deployment of machines,automation requires diversity of productrather than uniformity.

3.0 Cybernetics: see text

4.0 Eco-System

A term describing all the living and non-living components of the environment,together with the interactions betweenthem. Ecology was probably the firstdiscipline to take a systemIc view in itsconcern for relationships between livingorganisms and their environment. It isusual to locate the components within astructure consisting of four trophic levels:

4.1 Raw materials such as mineralS in the soil,water, carbon dioxide and on.

4.2 Producer organisms - such as plants, whichutilise the sun's energy in photosynthesisto combine the raw materials, thus formingcarbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitaminsand so on.

4.3 Consumers - including herbivores, whichutilise the producers as sources. of theirenergy, carnivores, which feed on theherbivores (or other carnivores) andomnivores, which feed on both,

4.4 Reducers - such as bacteria and fungi whichfeed on. dead organic matter, thus convert-ing it back into raw materials.

In a well adjusted eco-system, these will bea homeostatic relationship between thesefour levels and increasing concern. is beingexpressed, politically; at the ways in whichman's activities, especially those connectedwith the growth of large cities, are upsett-ing the whole earth. eco-system.

5.0 General System Theory : see text

6,0 Information Systems: Refers to three quitedifferent concepts

6,1 The structure against which an entire fieldof knowledge may be classified; e.g De wey,UDC, Cl/SfB and so on. Consistent with thethird Word Dictionary definition of sytem,but technically a holotheme.

6.2 Analogous with computer system: the entiresystem of personnel, hardware and softwareavailable for the collection, representation,classification, storage retrieval and trans-mission of information. Nay be manual,mechanical or computer aided; where computersare involved, it is usual to describe anyinput to the system as data and any outputas information.

6.3 Technical term used to describe an intermed-iate level or organisation in the holotheme;consisting of units, assemblies, systems andcombines.

7.0 Language Systems : two major uses

7.1 In the definition of language itself as aset of signs and a system of rules forusing them.

7.2 In a technical sense the word systems referto the way in which one word relates toothers by virtue of shared meanings, deriva-tions, position in a paradigm (table ofdeclension or conjugation), rhyme and so on.Systems, in this sense, are distinguished inlinguistics, which refer to the ways in whichwords afford structural support to each otherwithin a sentence. Two further concepts fromlinguistics may help to show why language ismore than a simple kit of parts with a setof rules for using them.

7.3 A linguistic sign, according to Saussure(c.1905-11) consists of two components asignifier - the word, pattern of speechsounds, marks on paper and so on by whichone tries to communicate an idea, and asignified - the thought or concept which oneis trying to convey. Ogden and Richards(1923) add a third component to these firsttwo; the referent, which is the person,place or thing one is communicating about.

7.4 Our personal selection of signs from theavailable list was called speech by Saus$ure,to distinguish it from language, which is ashared, public thing - a system of valuesagreed by social contract. This social

contract is necessary because the relation-ship between signifier and signified isessentially arbitrary. The letters h-u-tdenote a small building; so do the sounds weutter when we read them. Initially, anyother signifier would have done just as well,but the meaning of but is now agreed so noneof us can change it if we hope to be under-stood. Yet in systems analysis and computinggenerally some 3000 such relationships between

signifi6r and signified have been fractured(Chandor 1970) i.e. new words have beencoined. or old ones given new uses.

7.5 There have been several attempts recentlyto use the methods of structural linguisticsin the analysis of architecture (Jencks andBaird 1969), which suggest that eventually,aesthetic and other "iatngible" aspects ofenvironmental design may be brought withinan analytical structure compatible withthose appropriate for the physiolOgical,social structural and other quantifiableaspects.

8.0 Psychological Systems:

8.1 Gestalt theory that wholeness and organisa-ion are basic features of all mentalprocesses and behaviour, so that anysituation can be understood only when itsconstituent parts have been organised intoa systemic whole.

8.2 Application of cybernetics anigeneral systemtheory to the analysis of psychologicalprocesses, e.g. Gibson's description of theexternal senses as interrelated, perceptualsystems.

9.0 Social Systems: uses in ascending order ofprecision

9.1 Set of social units; individuals, groups,institutions and the conventions by whichthey are interrelated.

9.2 Use of generalised analogies from otherfields, e.g. Comte's and Marx's use ofevolution, Spencer's of the living organisms,and.yoman's of the concept from physicalsciences, to describe patterns of socialorganisations.

9.3 Application of cybernetics and generalsystem theory to the analysis of socialphenomena; e.g. Buckley's Sociology andmodern systems theory.

10.0 Systems Analysis: development of operationsresearch which, instead of distinguishingbetween individual techniques such asdecision Cheory, theory of games, linearprogramming, queuing theory, networkanalysis, and other simulation methodsdeals in mathematical models which may be

used for various purposes.

10.1 Generally a middle to lower managementfunction in which these models are used inthe implementation of policy decisions takenat executive level. The aim, usually is

to analyse the organisation itself, orvarious processes so that the most effec-tive use can be made of available man-computer systems.

10.2 The system analyst will have at hisfingertips a repertoire of methods whichmay be used in accounting, stock control,

plant allocation and so on. Given anyclass of problem - in management, economicor physical planning lie can suggest whichtechniques would be most appropriate.

10.3 A typical systems analysis procedure(Chandor, Graham and Williamson, 1969)might form an effective process forre-design, rather than for de novo design;in the following stages: (1) definition ofthe problem (2) monitoring of the existingsystem in action (3) analysis of data thuscollected with a view to determiningrequirements for the new system (4) designof the new system so as to make the bestuse of available resources (5) documenta-tion of the new system and communicationto those who will be affected by it (6).implementation of the new system and long-term maintenance of it.

11.0 Systems Building: Method of building byanalogy with certain aspects of systemsengineering, in which standardised com-ponents (doors, windows, wall Tanels,structural frame and so on) are designedand prefabricated in the factory in sucha way that they can be delivered to siteand assembled there rapidly. Given amassive programme for a single buildingtype - schools, houses and so on, systemsbuilding allows for extensive pre-planningand bulk ordering of components in advance,with attendant production and cost advan-tages. May also speed up processes bywhich Building Regulation and otherstatutory approvals are obtained, on groundsthat the method of construction is standard-ised and known. May be superceded byautomated systeMs (see control systems) inwhich, uniformity of components isundesirable..

12.0 Systems Engineering: originally synonymouswith engineering design (e.g in Goode andMachol 1957) systems engineering also hasmuch in common with Operational Research(e.g in Churchman, Ackoff and Arnoff 1957).Hall (1962) distinguishes between them bysuggesting that Operational Research isconcerned with the app ication of scientificmethods, process and techniques into themanagement functions of existing organisations, military, commercial, industrial andso on, whereas systems engineering includesthe design of new enterprises, their longrange planning and overall development.Design therefore, is only a part of systemSengineering which will include the defini-tion of a need, the selection of objectives,the synthesising of systems, analysis`nalysis Ofthese systems, selection of the bestalternative and planning for action.

12.1 Systems engineering .takes from GeneralSystems Theory some basic definitions.

"A system is a set of objects withrotationJilin between the objects and

between their attributes." (Hall 1962)

and the idea that such a system willoperate within an environment: "For agiven system, the environment is theset of all objects outside the system:(1) a change in whose attributes willaffect the system and (2) whoseattributes are changed by the system".

12.3 Systems engineering, fundamentally, is

a highly sophisticated development ofdesign for mass production (based onmethods devised initially by Brunel(c.1805) for making rigging blocks atPortsmouth Dockyard, extended to producebuilding components (Crystal. Palace1851), automobile components (Henry Ford1911) and so on, reaching its apOtheosisin the electronics industries (e.g. RCAVictor c. 1935) in which individualcomponents - transformers, resistors,capacitors and so on, are available fromstock and can be plugged into circuits

: laid out according to known principles.As individual components are redesignedand.plugged into the circuit, so the cir-cuit performance as a whole will improve,even though overall, its layout remainsthe same. The circuit will have aninput, such as a radio signal, throughoutit the form of electric currents and anoutput in the form of a current powerfulenough to drive a loudspeaker. The

throughput will be modified or trans-formed as it passes into, through andout of each component; analogies can bedrawn from this into any system intowhich matter (goods, traffic, people),energy (electricity, heat) or informa-tion (spoken, written, punched on tape)can be made to flow, and will be trans-formed in the process. This is clearly-

true of people moving into, through andout of buildings.

13.0 Urban Systems: Abstraction from the totalurban system of those aspects, e.g. land-use, location, economic growth, popula-tion 'growth., transportation and so on,which are susceptible to analysis by the

use of mathematical models.

13.1 A typical location model showing the waysin which industry, housing and servicesare distributed geographically, may be

used to predict the effects of futuredevelopments on the interrelationshipsof these three functions.

13.2 Demand for future highways may bepredicted by plotting the origin anddestination of communications in variousmodes, e.g. telephone messages, flow ofpeople and goods, extrapolating futuretrends, location of new activities and

predicting demands on the transport systemat some specific time in the future.

13.3 Few urban systems models are sophisticatedenough to take into account the psycholog,ical and social implications of land use,location, transportation and so on

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