architecture

Intelligences

Tutorial: Spatial Ethnography – A Place-Based Approach to Research

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Tutorial: Spatial Ethnography - A Place-Based Approach to Research
Learn frameworks and techniques to understand how people engage with their physical and material environments and illuminate opportunities for innovation. Instructors: GEMMA JOHN, Founder & Director, Human City / University College London) & SOPHIE GOODMAN, Director of Research, SEC Newgate Overview This video has been edited to protect the privacy of participants in the live tutorial. Understanding how people use and engage with their physical surroundings adds depth and dimension to your ethnographic analysis, enabling you to design better products and services. This tutorial introduces you to new tools and frameworks that not only allow you to record how well a space performs from the perspective of the people who use it, but also provide insight into people’s preferences, habits and social contexts, leading to more impactful solutions for a resilient future. We’ll explore new techniques of participant observation by zooming in on patterns of use, pinch points, line of sight and material language,...

Intelligences

From the Space Station to the Sofa: Scales of Isolation at Work

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JO AIKEN University College London/ETHNO-ISS (NASA) ANGELA RAMER HKS Architects Since March 2020, many employees around the world have been forced to work from home due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have experience in working in isolation and confinement. This paper focuses on a comparison of astronauts on the ISS and Earth-bound architects and interior designers restricted to working from home (i.e. their sofas) due to the pandemic. Isolation at work emerges as a complex phenomenon characterized by the measured and perceived distances between physical, social, and temporal spaces. By examining the scale-making activities of NASA and HKS, analogs provide a possible means for studying and predicting the complex dimensions of isolation. The work ecosystem is a useful tool in conceptualizing and operationalizing the employee experience to design the future of work and workspaces. Article citation: 2020 EPIC Proceedings pp 338–355, ISSN 1559-8918, https://www.epicpeople.org/epic  ...

Intelligences

Ten People Thick: Design for Change

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SUE WITTENOOM The Soft Build PechaKucha Presentation—An exploration of scale in the built environment. Looking first at the graphic scale of building documentation – each layer with its own purpose and logic, being absolutely clear to reduce risk. And then considering architecture at human scale – how design thinking becomes a scaffold for organisational change. It explores how to engage with people in a visioning process, how existing environments shape world views, and how those conversations “scale up” from the individual, through the group, to form the aspirations for one new building, a multi-faith setting in Western Sydney that needs to find a new way to integrate Islamic and Christian theologies. Keywords: User research, Organisational change Sue Wittenoom is the founder of The Soft Build, a consultancy focused on design for change. A registered architect with an MBA, her work has evolved over the past 30 years from architecture to project management, program design, change management and strategic consulting....

Intelligences

Architecture Can Heal: Spatial Literacy to Protect COVID-19 Healthcare Workers

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MICHAEL DOLINGER Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital ASHLEY MARSH MASS Design Group In April 2020, a study of The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City was conducted to better understand the challenge of adapting idealized infection control design guides to site-specific conditions during a pandemic. The study aimed to capture quick interventions that are working, offer a new hypothesis and framework to guide future design interventions, and share lessons to assist other medical facilities as they pursue their own necessary spatial adaptations moving forward. Three units repurposed for COVID-19 were studied. Using action cameras and cloud-based videoconferencing, clinicians helped designers remotely peer in real time to active COVID-19 units, create “heatmap” annotations of perceived risk by frontline clinicians, and conduct interviews with decision makers. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged health care systems around the world to provide safe and effective care. Leveraging spatial design, architecture, and design...

Intelligences

Borders and Walls: What is the Agency of Architects in Geopolitical Conflicts?

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ANE GONZALEZ LARA Pratt Institute PechaKucha Presentation Boundaries and borders have generated lots of attention in the political realm of our country over the last years. The proposed Wall between the United States and Mexico has created different perspectives from architects and builders across the country. Following this debate, a question arises: What is the agency of architecture and architects in this issue? This presentation focuses on a Borders Studio taught at the University of New Mexico School of Architecture, a borderland school that draws students from both sides of the border. The studio was created after seeing how polarized and diverse the opinions about the proposed wall were among architects and builders and in order to stimulate the critical thinking abilities of the students. The studio involved a series of projects that tackled different scales. Each student found their own voice on the conflict during the semester and the studio created a platform for them to bring issues like immigration, labor...

Intelligences

Role of the Ephemeral in Recovery and Renewal

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AKI ISHIDA Installed during the Tohoku earthquake relief fundraising event, CONCERT FOR JAPAN, at Japan Society in New York City on April 2011, the Luminous Washi Lanterns was a meditation and celebration of renewal through light and impermanent materials. The paper examines the role of the ephemeral from the ancient to contemporary Japanese culture, collective experience during an ephemeral performance, and translation of traditional Japanese renewal rituals into a piece that engages a diverse range of people outside of Japan. How can designers instigate a process of renewal following a disaster in manners that engage people of all ages and backgrounds in a collective healing experience?...

Intelligences

An Economy of Knowledge: Research, Architectural Practice and Knowledge (in) Translation

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ANDREW MAHER and INGER MEWBURN How does new knowledge ‘flow’ within an organisation? In this paper we report upon a case study in which ethnography is employed to render visible the ‘knowledge transfer’ (strategically redefined as ‘knowledge translation’) occurring between a PhD researcher and the members of the organisation in which he is ‘embedded’. In this case the PhD student is located within an architectural firm and an industry context that is not accustomed to housing researchers in its midst. The path of knowledge flow, or rather its translation, is not found to be smooth. Knowledge ‘flow’ happens only in leaks and trickles through the organisation. We discuss the implications of this case for how ethnographic research in a business context might be communicated to an audience who do not necessarily value scrutiny of this nature....

Intelligences

The Built Environment: Exploration toward a New Paradigm

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DOROTHY DEASY, ERIK LUCKEN, WILLIAM DOWELL, GRETCHEN GSCHEIDLE and LAURA LEENHOUTS For most businesses, group work is the way in which ideas are given voice. In this study, ethnographic research was conducted to explore group work and the environments in which it occurs. The research provides context for architects and designers who are conceiving improvements or reinventing the ways the built environment (e.g., furnishings, décor and architecture) influences the outcome of group activities. The research took place in two phases; phase one sought to develop a set of observable hypotheses and phase two sought to validate the hypotheses through observation. In the first phase “embedded reporters” were recruited from Herman Miller and Gensler staff to serve as observers of their own group work and to report on idea flow, knowledge transfer, size of groups, reasons for working together, stage of process, etc. During the second phase of the study, an ethnographic researcher shadowed a “hub” person skilled in group work for 1 –...

Intelligences

Tell Them I Built This: A Story of Community Transformation through Design, Youth, and Education

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EMILY PILLOTON Good morning. I’m really excited to be here. Last time I was here, I was down the street at the Trustees Theater for all of five hours, while on a cross-country road trip. It’s nice to be back and to have a little bit more time to spend here and to tell the story — and to do so as part of the theme of a conference. What I want to do is just tell the story, and hopefully provide a little bit of context and maybe inspiration under the theme of renewal. I am the founder of this nonprofit organization called Project H. I was thinking this morning about the theme of “renewal,” what that means to me, and what that has to do with my own practice. I came from a background in architecture, and I was thinking about what I do now vs. why I got into architecture in the first place — which at the beginning was really about having grown up with a father who wanted to be an architect, living vicariously through that dream, being a math nerd, but also being really creative. Somehow architecture became this perfect storm...