Three layers of good design
A simple framework for organizing the myriad opinions about design, and how technology affects the different kinds of quality.
Welcome back to A Bicycle for Design, the weekly newsletter where I am exploring how technology is changing the archectural, engineering and construction industry. Today's post is part 4 of 5 of the introductory series addressing the question "What is design?".
A few weeks ago, I proposed the following definition of design:
Design is the process of deciding what to make, as a separate activity from making.
Let's consider how this definition provides a framework for evaluation designs. What is good design?
If design is a separate but connected fragment of making things, we can evaluate the goodness of a design on three independent layers:
Design as a fragment of the making process,
Design's contribution to the final, created object, and
The value of the object itself.
To put this another way, we can talk about a good design, a well-designed object, and a good object.
Good, the blandest of adjectives
'Good' is a lazy word - being clear about these different layers allows us to be more specific in our evaluations and more transparent in our values. As we explore each layer, I will suggest some more specific adjectives that we can replace 'good' with to better communicate what we value in a design.
A good design
If design is a fragment of the whole process of making, the first question to ask is: "Did the design do it's part?" Does the design actually decide what should be made? Are these decisions clearly and unambiguosly stated? Can the decisions be executed? Were the decisions made on time so that the builders could get on with the building?
At this level, 'good' becomes ‘complete’, ‘clear’, ‘feasible’ and ‘timely’.
Unsuprisingly, this view of design (and critiques of designs!) are most often heard from contractors. Despite being the division of craft into design and making, both halves need each other to succeed, and the lines of communications between them are the focal point for much of the tension between these teams.
A recent podcat, 6 Tips for Architects, from the Construction Brothers echoes such a view. It is a plea from contractors to architects to remember that their designs need to be built: "Be the master builder of years gone by...take pride in the building processes of the construction industry!"
A well-designed object
If buildings and objects are designed separately from their making, then we can also talk about well-designed things and well-built things. How does the designer, or the design process, contribute to the quality of what we are making?
Most discussions in the design world deal with this layer. The most famous definition of good design is Dieter Rams' list of 10 Principles for Good Design. Some of the adjectives he replaces good with are 'innovative', 'useful', 'aesthetic', 'understandable', 'unobtrusive', 'honest', 'long-lasting', 'thorough'.
A good object
The final layer is the goodness of the object itself. One of Dieter Rams' principles sits in layer: "Good design is environmentally-friendly". A confusing set of drawings that describe a conventional, ugly and hard to use composter or carbon capture device is environmentaly-friendly (or sustainable, to use the more current phrase), despite being terrible both a terrible design and badly-designed!
At this layer, we launch out of the small world of design, architecture and construction and have to face the fact that we are humans living with everyone else on the planet and the universe. "It's good design!" does not excuse us from questions of right and wrong. Good design is not inherently moral, no matter what cloth of professionalism or artistry we wrap it in.
Where does automation fit in?
In addition to providing a framework for talking about 'good' design, each of these three layers has a different relationship to technology, and will be affected differently by the inexporable advances of computing power.
Technological change is directly and easily applied to the first layer, where good means clear, complete and unambiguous. At the core, Building Information Modelling represents a shift from communicating a design as a set of paper drawings to the use of a common database. To take an example from the Contruction Brothers podcast I linked to earlier, in a BIM workflow, the architects can provide a model, and let the trades add dimension lines however they want. The technology we have at our finger tips today is slowly but surely turning this layer of design inside out and upside down.
The second layer, where good means 'understandable', 'useful' and 'long-lasting' benefits from new technology that allows a more thorough exploration of what is possible, and involves more people in the design process. Computer simulation tools, such as floor vibration analysis and energy modelling allow design teams to provide confidence that a particular design is feasible at a very early stage.
Simulation tools can also allow many more stakeholders to participate in the decision-making process. My colleagues have developed Soundlab to allow community members to vicerally understand how new infrastructure will affect them and make an informd contribution to the design process. Tools like Enscape make it easy to transport anyone into a proposed design.
We have come a long way from Felix Candela's Iglesia de la Medallo Milagrosa, where the monks who commissioned the building "reportedly did not realize the design's modern style until after construction has started", despite seeing the drawings!
At this level of design, there are massive changes, but at the end of the day, a well-designed object is the result of careful, considerate decisions. Though the role of the designer and the skills we master will change, the fundamentals are not changing. Someone still needs to take responsibility for a decision.
Finally, does automation and technological change fundamentally change who we are as humans, and excuse us from whatever moral reponsability we might have? I hope that by posing the question so baldly, the answer is obvious. Though some may try to hide behind ideas of the inherent goodness of new technology, we are still humans living together on the planet, and we need to understand how our decisions and actions (design or otherwise) affect our relationships with each other.
If a computer is a bicycle for design, then automation is... a motorcycle? Something that carries out the same functions as a bicycle but faster and with more likelihood of dangerous accidents. As there are more steps in the workstream, then it becomes more difficult to understand the process and see where errors can be introduced and recovered from. At least people understand that both bicycles and motorbikes can crash and cause injury to their users and to others. The requirements to ride a motorbike are more stringent than riding a bicycle as a nod to the increased risk. Does this understanding exist in design, that you must be able to have a margin of safety and resilience that needs to increase as a design is spread more widely?