Designed Inter-action and the four levels of Design

By Brian O Hanlon 04 January 2013

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In the past couple of years as time permitted me, I have stocked up on a little bit of awareness of some firms working in interaction design, services design, management consulting of various shades. The conclusion I have come away with, is that there are folk, experts in their field - who seen the same problems in management consulting - come up time and time again. An architect commented recently, "The O&G, the aerospace, the electronic industries all have been working in 3D for decades. This is old hat". This is exactly why I would draw attention, to the 'interaction design', tradition that is emerging out of the old rust belt industrial centres of America right now. What is happening in the northern portion of the United States, started a while ago with authors from management consulting like (Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1991) or (Weick K. E., 1995), (Margolin & Buchanan, 1996) and has continued into more recent years with publications such as (Dubberly Design Office, 2002), (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), (Boland, Collopy, Lyytinen, & Yoo, 2008), to take a very few examples. (Gray, Brown, & Macanufo, 2010), is a book which could serve as a kind of Rosetta stone, for many who may wish to appreciate a little of what new wave of interaction designers and social networking companies are doing nowadays. A lot of the 'best thinking' in regards to cloud-based network collaboration, has come out of the rubble of the last dot.com catastrophe in north America. Peter Buchanan, moved recently from Carnegie Mellon design school to the Weatherhead school of management at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio, explained what is going on in the rust belt parts of north America.

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One can draw a 500 mile radius around Cleveland and all of the great schools of design and management are in that radius. Buchanan said, the reason for that was simple. All of the industry was there. This is where all of the great industrial management tools came from. The value management, risk management, program or project management sciences. Think of things like the 'Chicago school of Architecture', as another example. Mies van der Rohe left the European Bauhaus in Berlin and trained architects in north America for the remainder of his life (Blaser, 1981). Van der Rohe would have transplanted from Europe to north America, much of the teaching from the European Bauhaus. But the towns and cities in the old industrial regions and cities of the United States are decreasing in population nowadays, because the industry has moved away. Richard Buchanan explains what he understands as the 'fourth level' of design, beginning to emerged today. Buchancan puts strong emphasis on the new Bauhaus teachings and on writings like (Dewey, 1934), (Dewey, 1938). According to a blurb on a on IxDA Interaction 2011 web page,

Richard Buchanan . . . . has worked on the redesign of the Australian Taxation System, the restructuring of products and information for the United States Postal Service, and other consulting activities. At the Weatherhead, he has turned his work toward "collective interactions," focusing on problems of organizational change and a reform of management education around the concept of "managing by design."

I have also been quite interested in what was happening with Bob Glushko and Annalee Saxenian, in the Berkeley iSchool for a while now. It was Howard Rheingold, who first put me onto some essays of Ms. Saxenian, which compared route 128 in Boston, with Silicon valley. (Stein, 2010) about loss of manufacturing in the 1970s, in the United States is an important historical account also. It is no coincidence that both Saxenian and Richard Buchancan at the Weatherhead school of management in Cleveland, Ohio are both people who have contemplated the decline of manufacturing in north America, and have both deemed fit to create brand new ambitious courses in interaction design.

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Mary L. Good, a former secretary for commerce in the president Clinton years in a 2004 Systems Thinking seminar at MIT, moderated by Granger Morgan (Good, 2004), said that much of the policy in north America had been written with large scale manufacturing in mind. Whereas, it is the smaller scale manufacturing which is the hidden treasure. Lucy Kimbell at Oxford, is one of the few on this side of the water, I have come across doing research in the area of design and computing - on the vein that I mentioned above. In her writings I have noticed many of the references such as Herbert A. Simon, Donald A. Schon, Fred Collopy and so on. I noticed that the professors at Case Western were included in a chapter in a significant publication (Boland, Collopy, Lyytinen, & Yoo, 2008). Someone pointed my attention to a quotation from professor Lucy Kimbell at Oxford also. If only there was more data: Creating evidence to prove the value of Design. I liked this one from (Chandor, 2011).

"Do you know I built a bridge once? A bridge. I was an engineer by trade. It went from Dilsbom, Ohio to Moundsville, West Virginia. It spanned 912 feet above the Ohio river. 12,100 people use this thing in a day. And it cut out 35 miles of extra driving, each way between Wheeling and New Martinsville. That's a combined 847,000 miles of driving. A day. Or 25,410,000 miles a month. And 304,920,000 miles a year. Saved. Now I completed that project in 1986. That's 22 years ago. So over the life of that one bridge, that's 6,708,240,000 miles that haven't had to be driven. At lets say, what, fifty miles an hour. So that's what. Ah, 134,164,800 hours. Or, 559,020 days. So that one little bridge has saved the people of those two communities a combined 1,531 years of their lives not wasted, in a car. 1,531 years".

The latest wave in interaction design and cloud platform systems collaboration in design, is partly a reaction to earlier management approaches that have begun to fail. See (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), who a reference that explains to the reader, in particular what was wrong with all of the earlier scientific approaches to management. A very useful TV documentary, to explain early approaches to design and management is (BBC, 7 Jun 2010).

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Project management was uniquely a WWII invention, arising out of schools of management such as Carnegie Mellon, where individuals such as Herbert A. Simon taught (Simon, 1947), (Simon, 1969). The teachings of Larry Miles (Miles, 1961), sparked off the whole value management thing in north America, post WWII, originated out of procurement re-design at General Electric company during WWII. Later on in the cold war years in north America, a lot of program management tools were developed for the arms and space races with the former USSR. See, (Divine, 1993), (Dickson, 2001), (Brzezinski, 2007) It was not only in north America, where things got really practical owing to war time shortages, governments short of money to do things after the war and so on. The history of the post war years in Great Britain is illuminated by a couple of references I will mention. The story of Michael Ventris, A Very English Genius, which was broadcast on BBC television several years ago, is also an excellent history about design in the post WWII years. (Robinson, 2002) is the book upon which the documentary film was based. What the documentary illustrated is that in years following World War II (when Ventris returned to architectural studies following duty as a navigator on board airplanes), everyone at the Architectural Association in London 'was a socialist', and they voted for the Labour party. They wanted to re-build the new Britain. The idea of group working came to the fore, as opposed to design undertaken by a single solitary individual. In the 1950s, after Ventris was done with Minoan civilisation etc, Ventris was commissioned by Colin Boyne, to develop a database system for construction information for the Architects Journal. From the Guardian newspaper Colin Boyne obituary, written by Andrew Saint, October 26th 2006. "The mood in British architecture after 1945 was for rolling up sleeves and getting on with replanning and rehousing the nation. Architects were no longer to be amateurs and aesthetes, hanging about the clubs. With a vast social and technical job to do, they had to grow up, learn and put their shoulders to the wheel, dispensing with individualism and vanity". Another voice from the old days, Ronald Coase, born in 1910, spoke to Stanford economist Russ Roberts by podcast last year(Coase, 2012). Coase was one of those young men, of the post war

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years in Great Britain, deeply involved in re-organizing the economy and looking at how firms operate in real life, and how the economics of the firm operates. We should study how things work in the real world, according to Coase. We do not do this enough he states in 2012, and we engage far too much in what he calls, 'blackboard economics' (Coase, 2012). Coase's family were friends of a leader of in the trade union movement in the post war years, and reckons that some of the influence of socialism was present in the famous (Coase, 1937) paper. American Alvin Toffler (born in 1928), was an American socialist in his early years, and went to work in the black industrial areas of the Midwest of America after graduation in 1949. Following many years working on factory assembly lines, he began to work on his first book in the 1960s, which was (Toffler, 1970). One decade later he published (Toffler, 1980), having witnessed the sharp decline of old industry in north America, Toffler invented a concept he called the Third Wave' to explain how the post-industrial era would look. See also (Stein, 2010), for additional history. Richard Buchanan and others are still trying to respond to this third wave idea of Tofflers a full thirty years later. Toffler is credited with bringing some awareness for things such as 'Just in Time' and new advances in manufacturing from the East into north America. It was Norman Bodek who began to travel to Japan in the 1980s, who really managed to bring back Lean principles from Toyota motor company, where he met the actual managers on the shop floors there. Bodek is responsible for many Japanese to English book translations that he published. (Ohno & Bodek, 1988), as one of the key early publications, which sparked the Lean movement in north America. (Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1991) and (Womack & Jones, 1996) came shortly afterwards. The various strands of project management, program management, risk management, value management and Lean, are all mixed up together. Those ideas bring us into the 1990s. But then we begin to see the 'Forth Level of Design' stuff emerging, which Richard Buchanan and others are focussed on now.

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In Richard Buchanans 2010 Case Western Reserve talk, 'The Convergence of Management and Design', Buchanan made a reference to a lecture by Wiel Arets, a Dutch architect. I heard Arets speaking many years ago in 1998 at Amsterdam. The tradition of architecture and design in the Netherlands is quite interesting when one traces it back. On 24 April 2005, Herman Hertzberger the architect spoke in Dublin, and I scribbled down some notes on his lecture at the time. Herman Hertzberger wants a building to become a city. His opening slide was of his office building design, Central De Beer in Holland. This is not a building, it is a settlement. Herman proclaimed about Central De Beer in his Dublin lecture. Herman said that a revolution in Society facilitated a revolution in architectural design with office buildings in the 1970s in the Netherlands. He designed it to promote the working of people in groups. But this response to the program of designing office space is no longer possible, given the widespread engraining of a managerial mentality in todays society. Herman described in architecture today, the use of the sliced sectional diagram the slices in the buildings section, slicing the occupants of the office building into a many distinct and separate social islands. None of whom are aware of any of the other slices. Nowadays Herman seems to enjoy re-designing schools, more than re-designing office space. Thirty five years after the design and construction of Central de Beer, the architect still wishes to follow where the revolution is happening in society. Herman compared the Victorian notion of school design to sophisticated prisons. The building Herman wants to design becomes like a three dimensional city, with lots of open space where socialisation of many different cultures can occur. Contrasted within the brief for a school building should be spaces for concentration with a space designed around the concept of togetherness and view lines. Not only that, Hermans brief for a school project even extends to the entrance spaces, where the kids parents meet one another as they deliver their children each morning and receive them in the evenings.
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I guess you only have to observe the chaos that surrounds entrance spaces to many schools here in Dublin city, to understand where Herman is coming from. In Ireland, we tend to view environments from the traffic engineers point-of-view, and see school traffic merely as congestion that is a nuisance. There must be a revolution happening in society at the moment, strongly centred around the school as a building type. The issues Herman spoke about, reminded me of the Theatre or Cultural Centre Building projects done in Architectural Schools. Where the project explores at its extreme best, the possibility of social interaction amongst the staff working to produce performance projects varying in form from small experimental productions, to dance, art exhibition, up to larger commercial productions. The brief for a Cultural Centre will often include an accommodation unit for a visiting artist. Here Herman Hertzbergers comments about slices of space and slices of people are equally as valid. Throughout a career in architecture spanning many decades, Herman Hertzberger has always been interested more in the in-between objects, as opposed to the objects themselves. Indeed Herman relates this to being interested in what urbanists are interested in, rather than what architects might be interested in. In his school project, Herman observed how 1,300 people all move around the school at once. So in his resultant design, he maintained stairs in the middle of the building, which were as open as possible. The school whose occupants consisted of many different Ethnic Groups were encouraged to be in more contact with one another. In another slide for a juniors school, you could see two kids were busy removing the wall between the formal space of their classroom and the social space beyond somehow, from the budget of a school building, Herman was able to organise for this very nice sliding wall/door element, which offered the occupants some flexibility in how they used their space. Architecture is about people not making architecture easier for people it is about, what they are. Everywhere you make steps, that is, if you wish a building to become a city in microcosm. Space becomes about connection of people, without any separation.

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Changing the use of the ground, whether it became steps for socialisation, or an outside roof that took the form of a hillock for crowds to sit on, coated in Astro-Turf. Herman was invited to stand in as part of the jury for a competition in France to renovate an area of Social Housing. Herman sifts through some of the eliminated entries and happened to come across one in particular, one which featured a lot of tarmac areas around an existing social housing complex. Although the jury had discarded this entry, Herman instead re-included it in the final 'shake-up',... because he decided the entry made an important statement about the reality of young teenagers, 'who love to appear dynamic', who have all of this energy they need desperately to release, and how our perception that everywhere needs greenery - a surface not exactly suited to skate boarding denies the realities of the human condition for kids of a certain ages, in their living environments. The example he showed of a basketball court on the roof of a bookshop/cafe, was also used to drive home the same point. So I definitely learned something from Herman Hertzberger's lecture in the context of my experience with skate boarders on Dame Street. I was reminded of what Herman said about young people wanting 'to be dynamic', while on the Central Bank public space in Dame Street, Dublin shortly afterwards. A kid on a skateboard was going to plough into me, and swerved around me just at the last moment. Herman observed the younger generation of computer savvy designers nowadays and how they look to the Internet and PhotoShop imaging software as a means of squeezing more efficiency from their works spent designing. A photo can just be downloaded from the Internet, and manipulated to do some funny trick, which produces an interesting architectural form. But Herman is someone, who struggles to find meaning first and then form. Hence his use of physical models through which he tries to understand the existence of what he calls view lines. Irish architect, John Meagher made a strikingly similar comment about the design of churches in a talk around the same time. Meagher who designed a famous Irish church, noted how the priest on the pulpit like to eyeball their listeners at all times. In the architecture of Herman Hertzberger, all of the ideas about the building as a city, and how to raise people - are thereby incubated and encouraged through his process of using physical models. I am one of those older Architects who tries desperately to find meaning first and then form, as opposed to form first and then look for meaning.

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Though the above are rough approximations to Herman Hertzbergers comments on the search for form in Architecture, they are also very similar to the words uttered down through time, by other famous writers. I always like this quote from Sun Tzu in the Art of War. What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease. Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom or credit for courage. He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated. Hence the skilful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

Richard Buchanan, in his 2011 IxDA lecture, mentioned a Delft based Antropologist and the museum director, who returned some native artifacts. It reminded me a lot of a lecture at Engineers Ireland I attended in 2009, I think - by Loughlin Kealy, who was then head of school of Architecture, UCD. I compiled some notes at the time of the lecture in which Mr. Kealy's gave a basic outline on architectural heritage policy, which I will repeat below. Sustainability and architectural heritage are supposed to be different things. But it is worthwhile comparing one with the other. Policy guidelines for architectural heritage started officially with the Venice charter in 1964. Next was the Washington Charter in 1987. Then there was the Burra charter, Australia in 79, 81 and 88. Finally the Nara Document on Authencity, in 1994. There was quite a clear progression through the charters, in terms of expanding the definition of architectural conservation. In the earliest history of architectural conservation, the interest came about, because of war time destruction of historic monuments. Suddenly, after the war, monuments which had existed for centuries were gone. People began to realize how brittle these things we value actually are. So in 1964, the emphasis was on awareness of historic monuments. Later in 1987, the definition was expanded beyond buildings themselves to include the towns.

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In 1988, in Australia, the definition expanded yet again to include an idea of places. Places that may be created using skills and materials that are not resistant to erosion, or influence from the outside, like African mud hut settlements. Finally with the Nara charter, the definition includes things like Japanese temples which are re-built constantly over a period of 1,000 years. The whole system of practices and culture in which the architectural heritage is wrapped needs to survive, or be sustained in some way. Richard Buchanan, speaking in his 2011 IxDA lecture, brought my mind back to (Soros, 2000), in connection with the distinction between 'actions' and movement. As Buchanan pointed out, that a human being is active, but a rock moves - drawing on early Bauhaus thinking (Dewey, 1934), (Dewey, 1938). That is, the notion also of Herman Hertzbergers 2005 lecture, about human beings and how their activities is the starting point for form in his architecture. We have engineers who understand motion and physics of objects. We have interaction designers who understand environment, experience, activity and interaction.

Works cited:
BBC (Director). (7 Jun 2010). Genius of Design, The Compelling Five Part Series on Designs that Shaped Our Lives [Motion Picture]. Blaser, W. (1981). Mies Van Der Rohe: Continuing the Chicago School of Architecture . BaselBoston-Berlin: Birkhauser Verlag AG. Boland Jr, R., & Collopy, F. (2004). Managing as Designing. Stanford: Stanford Business Books. Boland, R., Collopy, F., Lyytinen, J. K., & Yoo, Y. (2008). Managing as Designing: Lessons for Organization Leaders from the Design Practice of Frank O. Gehry. Design Issues, vol. 24, pp. 10-25. Boland, R. J., Collopy, F., Grant, J., & Zhao, L. (2008). Chapter 18: Virtual prototying of financial flows as a form of management control. In P. Brandon, & T. Kocatrk, Virtual futures for design, construction & procurement (pp. 251-258). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Brzezinski, M. (2007). Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC . Chandor, J. (Director). (2011). Margin Call [Motion Picture].

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Coase, R. (1937). The Nature of the Firm. Economica (Blackwell Publishing) , 4(16): 386405. Coase, R. (2012, May 21). Coase on Externalities, the Firm, and the State of Economics. (R. Roberts, Interviewer) Library of Economics and Liberty. Econtalk Podcast. Dewey, J. (1934). Art as Experience. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & Education. New York, NY: Kappa Delta Pi. Dickson, P. (2001). Sputnik: The Shock of the Century . London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. Divine, R. A. (1993). The Sputnik Challenge . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dubberly Design Office. (2002). The Little Grey Book. n/a: Sun MicroSystems, Inc. Margolin, V., & Buchanan, R. (1996). The Idea of Design . Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press. Miles, L. D. (1961). Techniques of Value Analysis and Engineering. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. Ohno, T., & Bodek, N. (1988). Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production . Portland, OR: Productivity Press. Robinson, A. (2002). The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris . London: Thames & Hudson. Simon, H. A. (1947). Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision Making Processes in Administrative Organization . New York: The Macmillan Co. Simon, H. A. (1969). The Sciences of the Artificial . Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Soros, G. (2000). Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism.: The Crisis of Global Capitalism Reconsidered . New York: Public Affairs. Stein, J. (2010). Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies. New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University Press. Toffler, A. (1970). Future Shock. New York: Random House, Inc. Toffler, A. (1980). The Third Wave . New York: Bantam. Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations (Foundations for Organizational Science) . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc . Womack, J. P., & Jones, D. T. (1996). Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. New York: Free Press. Womack, J. P., Jones, D. T., & Roos, D. (1991). The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production. New York: Harper Perennial .

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