Searching for Quality...

Carlo Rotella's opinion article in the Boston Globe yesterday struck a chord with me in a number of ways. First, it started on an anti-technology direction, “Why I don’t allow laptops in my classroom,” but then switched to a more favorable and interesting view. He then argues for the need to distill the current large quantity of media/social media into quality.

The example he uses is the viral hit “Thru-YOU,” by Kutiman, a compilation of tunes assembled from YouTube samples. The video, and in particular the tune called “The Mother of All Funk Chords”, shows that large quantities of uneven quality material can be distilled to produce a new level of quality. It is a good demonstration of how the great streams of online information, in this case YouTube videos, can be used to produce unexpected musical quality.



Rotella’s quote sums it up:

“But Kutiman offers a reminder that quantity is not the enemy of quality, and that to live well online one must learn to transmute quantity into quality.”

It obviously works for Funk Chords. Can it work for architecture as well as we sift large quantities of research, articles, blogs and tweets in a search for quality evidence for our design process?

Research Opportunities Are Everywhere

I recently read an article by Thomas Fisher, Dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, that was part of the material attached to the Boston Society of Architects publication regarding their Research Grant program. The article, Research in the design studio, from page 6 of the 2009 Research Grants program review and report, reminds us that research opportunities are everywhere in our daily work. Sometimes we just don’t recognize them and then don’t use disciplined methods to record that information. Too often we don’t look for and use available information, better known as someone else’s research. Thomas Fisher’s message is clear and applicable to all of us and in all that we do. We shouldn’t be intimidated by the term “research” and think that it is done by someone else in a “lab” somewhere else. Remember our life and our work is our lab. I believe his message is all about how we approach our questions, our inquiry, our curiosity and our search. That search will allow us to take on the big challenges that face our profession and our planet.

In case the link above does not display, page 6 is pasted below.

Research in the design studio
Thomas Fisher, AIA

Research occurs in design studios and offices all the time: historical research, precedent studies, and programming analyses, form explanations, functional evaluations and so on. But we often don’t think of this as “research” and so we rarely frame our work using research protocols, such as hypothesis statements, testing methods, evaluation criteria or generalizable conclusions. Nor do we document and share the results of this research with colleagues very often. If we are to transform architecture into a more evidence-based, value-added discipline and profession, we desperately need to see design as a form of research and to capture and peer-review the knowledge we produce as a result.

At the same time, peer-reviewed research rarely gets folded into the work of design studios or architectural offices, which often means that we end up repeating or rediscovering what we already know, without much attention to the discovery or development of new knowledge. This happens, in part, because we don’t have a good sense of what constitutes “new” knowledge in our field. The need for greater access to and inclusion of research in our work has never been greater, even though our field has given it relatively little attention or funding.

In universities, design studios have many of the same features as “labs,” requiring the same levels of computing equipment and shop support. However, conceptually, most architecture schools treat them more like fine art studios, in which originality and individuality gets rewarded rather than the common knowledge generated there.

We can no longer afford this fine arts model, not because it is too expensive, but because the world needs architects and designers to grapple with the big problems we face on this planet – such as climate change, habitat fragmentation, dysfunctional cities, inadequate shelter for billions of people, etc. We need to find ways to identify the most pressing problems, identify the best solutions and peer-review them for broad dissemination. The world needs design studios, be they in universities or offices, to act more like research labs, and we will have no choice but to respond to that need.

Snap Judgements

The current issue of Harvard Magazine has a very interesting article by social psychologist Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School called The Psyche on Automatic. In the article, Cuddy probes the topic of snap judgments, the spontaneous decisions we make and that others make about us. Based on her research she has found that there are two critical variables, warmth and competence, and that they account for about 80% of our overall evaluation of people.

As I reflect on the article and my personal experience, I think this research is also profoundly useful and relevant to professional life. Its impact is wide ranging, from capturing work and client partnering, to team collaboration and daily interactions. While I understand the warmth and competence aspect, I think we all should think more about what we value, what we know and how we actually interact. It may not be conscious but there are warmth/competence tradeoffs. In short, Cuddy says that warmth is perceived first, and accounts for more in someone's overall evaluation than competence. On the other hand she notes a conflicting view where an individual's self perception values competence over warmth. In our design and technical architecture and engineering focused world, the bias to competence is understandable. Do you rate competence more than warmth?

Beyond this basic theme she covers many other useful concepts, including the neurological and physical impact of body position in our interactions, awareness of cultural and gender bias, stereotyping and other nonverbal signals. All of these factors contribute to our automatic responses. The last two paragraphs in the article provide good advice; focus on connecting. This quote makes her point clear.

       "That said, you don't have to prove that you're the most
        dominant, most competent person there. In fact it's rarely
        a good idea to strive to show everyone that you're the
        smartest guy in the room: that person tends to be less
        creative, and less cognitively open to other ideas and
        people."

Further she notes that competence oriented presentations and meetings, with their focus on words, content and precise delivery, can feel or sound scripted. Her advice instead? "Come into a room, be trusting, connect with your audience wherever they are, and then move them with you."

Start With Why

A few weeks ago at an Educational Practice Leader workshop in Baltimore, we were focusing our discussion and speculation on the future of education and learning. One of the workshop events was a review and discussion of topics facilitated through videos from a number of well known futurists and inspired leaders. The most powerful and transformational video was a talk by author, teacher and leadership consultant, Simon Sinek. The TEDx Talk covered the essence of his book, 'Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Action,' and while not specifically focused on our topic of the future trends in teaching and learning or the design of educational facilities, the talk reminds you to ask why you think about the impact of digital technology, globalization and the preparation of the next generation for the many global challenges. It forces you to think, overall, about why you do what you do. As Sinek says in the talk, people in business or, in our case, architectural and engineering design practice, generally know what their firm does, sometimes know how their firm goes about doing it, but very few can answer the most profound question of why they are doing it.

The why question is not about profit, sales or prestige, it's about the essential purpose and passion. Through examples from the Wright Brothers to Apple Computers and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he shows that inspired leaders always start with why. The talk makes key points about leaders: you can learn to lead, leaders inspire and passion must be linked to purpose. His message "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it" is repeatedly stated, and he highlights King's passion. King didn't say "I have a plan," he said "I have a dream." Closing the video, Sinek sums it all up:

"There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority, but those who lead, inspire us. Whether they're individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it's those who start with why that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them."

Own Your Time

Similar to my recent post, Life in Small Bites, a recent Fast Company blog by Graham Button, 7 Trends to Watch in an Age of Info Overload, looks at why the more information we have the less informed we feel. While he offers seven truths to keep things in perspective, two involved terms new to me - 'information sickness' or over exposure, and 'continuous partial attention' for multi-tasking. But what I find more important, particularly as it relates to our architectural and engineering professions, is the link between the daily information pressure and decisions we make about how to spend our time. Graham states that the real wealth is in owning our own time and being able to use it for creative social change. A quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt reinforces this time pressure vs. creativity link:

"Innovation is something that comes when you're not under the gun. So it's important that, even if you don't have balance in your life, you have some time for reflection… The creative parts of one's mind are not on a schedule."

Life in Small Bites

In a recent story in the Boston Globe titled Break it Down for Me, Beth Teitell discusses how our society wants to consume everything - food, news, information, relationship advice - in short, condensed forms. It is a very interesting read about the state of today's society and how we respond to the overload of information by what she calls bite-sizing.

As researchers have noted, this chunking down of things is an attempt to impose some order upon chaos. However one can see beyond the predigested chunks of single service food options to something even more concerning, single service mind options. If you save time with bite-sizing, the question then is what will result from the time saved - more mindfulness or just more automatic actions?

I believe this phenomenon has profound impacts and puts at risk the thoughtful and mindful processes of an architectural and engineering practice. There will be many implications well beyond snack packs. What do you think it means to professionals, firms and our industry? How does it impact marketing, presentation and client communications? How will you use the freed up time?

Environmental Research and Evidence Based Design

I recently came across some material from the research team at the University of Montreal Faculty of Environmental Design headed by Professor Jacqueline Vischer PhD. The research group, the New Work Environments Research Group (GRET), has been active for more than ten years, focusing on a better built environment for people at work. Their research topics cover building performance measurement studies, occupant surveys related to functional comfort, and design considerations of the workplace of the future. In addition the research group maintains a website with links to publications as well as access to their Documentation Center of more than 800 articles.

One article on the website, Bridging the Gap Between Research and Design by Jacqueline Vischer and John Zeisel, explores the evolution of Evidence Based Design. They focus a good deal of attention on the way traditional pre-design programming and post occupancy evaluation affect the creation and use of research in the design process. These traditional opportunities, while not well or consistently implemented in current practice, are contrasted with Evidence Based Design processes to "bridge the gap" between research and practice.

There are many useful concepts in the article to aid in the understanding and development of a research based culture and design process. This quote regarding the value of research puts it well and I urge you to read the full article.

"Basing design decisions on research evidence lends a scientific case to professional design, eventually having a positive effect on clients' opinions of their designers (and on clients' willingness to pay for professional design services) in much the same way as other professions such as medicine and law are respected in our culture. As this proof - or evidence - accumulates, it must be stored and maintained for easy access and retrieval in the context of project applications, much as legal decisions and opinions are stored for legal practice and as medical practitioners in clinical practice now have EBM data electronically available."