Pinheiro Cavalcante Maciel Jnr, A; (2015) Interaction in architectural review meetings: seeking models of collective concept creation. Doctoral thesis , UCL(University College London).

Abstract

This research examines in detail the concept stage of architectural design, giving emphasis on the strategic behaviour in collaborative concept design activity, exploring how this can inform digital tools and workflows in the architectural digital prototyping process. To attain this, this research has been developed in four complementary stages: a survey investigating some aspects of common knowledge in design practice, an ethnography of design review meetings; experiments measuring specific aspects found in this ethnography; and finally an investigation of the findings as game theoretical model, proposing variations of strategic behaviour within this workflow. To start with, the survey was conducted to identify views on collaborative work. This informed an ethnography, using a series of video-reflection interviews of the documented social situations. This empirical data, including focus interview, eye tracking and qualitative questionnaires were then coded for semantic analyses to identify meaningful patterns of behaviour and a number of selected themes related to this value seeking behaviour, composing an ethnographic monograph. Focusing on one aspect of the ethnography, ‘the adaptive behaviour of designers’, two controlled experiments were conducted to observe the designers response to changes. For this, hardware and software were developed to register the interaction between designers. The data collected, including before and after questionnaires, were explored to give insights into how architects articulate knowledge to realise value in design. A series of game-theoretical models were developed as a unifying framework for these observations. They vary from simpler, strategic games with a conservative equilibrium, to extensive, incomplete and imperfect games. Although here the initial ambition was to test mechanism designs to yield desirable outcomes, the study is limited to modelling observations and reflecting on alternative design workflows. For the study conclusion, we reflect on these interaction models as a mechanism to promote cohesion on knowledge management in the production of building information models, whereby architects would be able to explore, retrieve and transform designs in an unobtrusive collaborative workflow by recycling assets in a non-destructive fashion. The scope of this research hopes to characterise negotiations and problematisation in the architectural design process, examining dynamics of decision making between architects unfolds to identify and create value in the early design process.

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