Technology the new mother art?

Today's architectural practice is not so much about vision and flair, but trying to do a good job responding to the financial circumstances, says Rowan Moore in The Observer newspaper. Dealing with the same business pressures and demands, where architects cannot survive without computing power, the result is that most architectural projects end up quite similar to each other. But if designing for the modern urban environment is shaped by technology and efficiency, what happens to the old idea of architecture as the mother of all arts?

It's just an idea

Does ideation reflect the ethos of modernity to transform ourselves and the material world, or does it express the postmodern notion of design as a conceptual medium liberated from the need of realisation, where designers are conceptualisers rather than makers? But what is the idea without direction and action?

Acting on ideas

Ideation happens in the early stages of problem solving. It goes beyond just "having ideas" in the head. It is about "getting the ideas out", to communicate them effectively. Acting on ideas creates opportunity to design. Problem solving, then, comes to those who take action rather than hold their head in their hands and give up.

Cultural baggage

'When you get a job, regardless how familiar the subject, resist any temptation to think you know enough about it, and you're ready to design. Purge your mind of as much cultural baggage as possible. Research the subject as if you know nothing about it. Don't look for inspiration in design books. Don't sit at your computer, waiting for lightening to strike'. Bob Gill, Pentagram

Ideographic myth

Peter DuPonceau, the American 19th century scholar, refuted the opinion still popular in the West that Chinese writing is 'an ocular method of communicating ideas, entirely independent of speech, and which, without the intervention of speech, conveys ideas through the sense of vision directly to the mind. Hence it's called ideographic, in contradistinction from the phonographic or alphabetical system of writing'. Instead DuPonceau argues that the Chinese system of writing is not, as has been supposed, ideographic. Its characters do not represent ideas, but words. Ideographic writing is a creature of the imagination, and cannot exist, but for very limited purposes, which do not entitle it to the name of writing. All writing, then, must be a direct representation of the spoken language, and cannot present ideas to the mind abstracted from it. All writing, then, represents language in some of its elements, which are words, syllables, and simple sounds. (DuPonceau 1838)

Idea compulsion

Designing is a compulsion for Philippe Starck. He says he would never have chosen to be a designer: 'It's not normal to produce so many ideas like I do. It is non-stop. There's a relation with autism, I think, mild but there. As I get older the sickness grows'.

Thinking made visible

"The ideal trademark is one that is pushed to its utmost limit in terms of abstraction and ambiguity, yet is still readable. Trademarks are usually metaphors of one kind or another. And are, in a certain sense, thinking made visible." Saul Bass (1920-1996)

Robust ideation

Robust ideation suggests creative thinking informed by research rather than mere opinion. The robust idea, then, presents a well-argued position. Although the robust idea doesn't necessarily win over the sceptics, the robustness encourages an informed discussion rather than an endless discussion of clashing opinions.

Idea formation

Daniel Shechtman, this year's winner of the Nobel prize in chemistry, observed that the arrangement of atoms in a metal alloy can break the rules of crystallography by forming unrepeating patterns, much like irregular medieval Islamic mosaics found in the Alhambra Palace in Spain and the Darb-i Iman Shrine in Iran. At the time of Shechtman's discovery, the configuration found in these "quasicrystals" was thought impossible because regular patterns were considered essential for a crystal solid to form. As a result, scientists had to reconsider how they viewed the nature of matter. The way Islamic mosaics have helped scientists understand what quasicrystals look like at the atomic level highlights the role of intellectual heritage, and might also illuminate the nature of idea formation.

Living your idea

'Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma- which is the result of living with other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.' (Steve Jobs 1955-2011).

Cloud ideation

Video games can now be delivered on demand to a PC, Mac, TV or tablet whereby the players use a web-based service (subscription or pay-per-use) rather than buying the software (shared, platform independent infrastructure). Instead of players hosting and managing the software, all the processing take place on powerful remote servers (cloud computing technology). Access to games is practically instant, and all user inputs are effectively streamed back in real-time. Now, how might cloud computing impact the hardware and software ecosystems of ideation?

Computer dependency

Long hours flying under computer control may have dulled the skills of airline flight crews, according to a U.S. advisory board that recommends more manual flight time for pilots.

"They're becoming very dependent upon using the autopilot, the auto-throttles, the auto flight system, the computers, to actually operate the entire flight," said Kevin Hiatt, a former airline pilot who sat on that board.

"What happens is, you don't actually hand-fly or manipulate the controls, whether it's a control yoke or a sidestick controller," Hiatt said. "Therefore, your computer skills get greatly enhanced, but your flying skills start to get rusty."

The panel recommended that airlines provide guidance for manual flights in their operating manuals to encourage more actual flying by pilots. But experts say the problem may get worse because of the way younger pilots are trained.

"When you bring on a new pilot who has not been through some of the things that some of the older guys have, they've never flown an airplane that had anything but some computer activity on it," retired commercial pilot Jim Tilmon said. "They don't understand what to do necessarily when something goes wrong with their computer."

Is there a lesson here for designers dependent on CAD?

Source: CNN

Ideation and plasticity of the brain

'The ability to personalise our brain in response to environment and individual experience is known as "plasticity". As we make our unique way through life, we develop our own particular perspectives due to the connections between our brain cells that are driven and shaped by our specific experiences. It is these connections which normally enable us to associate people, actions and objects with the sequence of episodes that amount to our life story. Our brain is in constant two-way dialogue with the outside world, shaping and re-shaping our neuronal unique configurations into a unique "mind"'. Susan Greenfield, pharmacologist.

Innovation spaces

'PCs are being replaced at the center of computing not by another type of device—though there’s plenty of excitement about smart phones and tablets—but by new ideas about the role that computing can play in progress. These days, it’s becoming clear that innovation flourishes best not on devices but in the social spaces between them, where people and ideas meet and interact. It is there that computing can have the most powerful impact on economy, society and people’s lives'. Mark Dean, IBM Research.

Idea representation

‘A lot of young artists now have an idea and want to illustrate it, but they do almost everything they can to avoid paint and the sensuality of painting. It’s all so concept-based – and the real killer is computer art. Some of it is all right when you first look at it, but when you look closer it becomes more vacuous. The whole thing for me is the spontaneity that happens in the process of creating something’. (John Hoyland 1934-2011)

Ideas going Gaga

The singer Victoria Beckham's foray into fashion design (own label) and car design (Range Rover) has prompted her footballer husband David to turn designer too (underwear and T-shirts for H&M), two examples that illustrate how design ideas are being launched by celebrities. But lamenting how branding rather than real design thinking is shaping the design industry, product designer Kenneth Grange says that whereas in the past firms like Braun, Pirelli, Olivetti, and Hermann Miller all had powerful design identities now corporations in straight forward heavy duty commerce will bring in someone like Lady Gaga to boost the brand’s image (and the company's share price).

Ideation by Twombly

Cy Twombly was an artist of thinking aloud, of thoughts checked and then resumed, hesitancies and the rush of ideas. He blurred long-held distinctions between drawing and painting depicting refined Classical themes with unidentifiable doodles and splotches. Writing and language served as major conceptual foundations for Twombly's art; the written word, in the form of poems, myths and histories, inspired much of his work. He focused on the process of writing, both by sketching words directly onto the canvas and by creating line- and handwriting-based compositions. Twombly's process illuminates ideation as practised by artists and designers alike.

Dialogical ideation

Ideation through dialogue inspires openness to others' viewpoints and to learning from one another. Ideation through argument, in contrast, might stimulate obsessive thinking holding on to ideas with defensiveness and/or try to push ideas onto others.

Ideas matter

'Individual history matters because ideas matter; people who have the ideas matter; learning the genealogy (if not progressive evolution) of ideas matter; Sure, human life and ideas and their relationships and influences are complex and unguided. But they aren't patternless or boundless.They are only made possible with the stuff in circulation (including the limits of language itself), and if we're sure to align the type of claim we make to the kind of evidence we have, we actually can help bring our ideas and practices into focus for due consideration and learning'. Derek B. Miller, The Policy Lab.

Ideation as science fiction

Design ideation may show communality with science-fiction where speculation and storytelling play out within scientifically established laws of nature. But as design, like science fiction, has entered popular culture, some designs may become associated with low-budget, low-quality stuff, similar to B-movies and pulp science fiction.

Form follows Function?

Increasingly the form of manufactured objects does not follow their function, says artist Michael Craig-Martin. "Think of a mobile phone. You used to have a receiver with a defined earpiece and mouthpiece. Now you just have a box. Today everything looks like everything else. A phone looks like a computer looks like a camera."

Computer Aided Ideation, CAI

Most post-modern architecture, arguably, couldn’t have been designed or built without the computer. But computing goes beyond the purely technical aspects of design. As exemplified by Guggenheim Bilbao, the computer was harnessed to create a "stirring emotional experience". What does this mean for producing inspirational and transformational ideas? Will computers in the future by-pass the human creative process of ideation?

If ideation can be seen as a form of human dialogue, then the challenge for ideation by computer is revealed in the difference between "stateless" and "stateful" conversation, as found in research on artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

In a "stateless" conversation, each question and answer is self-contained, providing its own context and responding only to the immediately previous remark.

In contrast, human conversation is generally in the "stateful" mode, where each remark and reply builds on the last, creating an accumulation of context in which later remarks gain additional shades of meaning (without this context, an eavesdropper would find the conversation difficult to understand).

However, humans don't always converse in the stateful mode, and bot programmers (who write software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet) explicitly try to steer the conversation towards the mathematically simpler stateless forms of dialogue.

Brian Christian*, a researcher in the field, describes how he found the chatbots' deliberate attempts to simplify language reminiscent of human conversation at its most lacklustre. Hardly then the mode of conversation that helped create Guggenheim Bilbao.

Christian, B. 2011. The Most Human Human: A Defence of Humanity In The Age Of The Computer. Viking

Why ideation skills matter

In a globalised design industry there's a shift from the maker and the craftsman to the market strategist and the innovator. Designers, then, will have to work as a team with other professionals. But above all, what designers truly get paid for is their creativity and ability to generate ideas. Ideation skills, then, become crucial in order for the team to produce creative solutions for their clients.

Style is substance

Dyson industries, of vacuum cleaner fame, have some 500 mechanical engineers, industrial and product designers working together under one roof where ideas come thick and fast. Yet while Dyson's staff are openly encouraged to pitch ideas, ideation has to be focused, and ideas kept on track.

As a result Dyson's engineers are said to be more interested in how things work than how they look, and claim they never launched anything that doesn't work. Yet while the company admits it has launched some ugly products, Dyson believes that this quest for perfection over style has been crucial to the success of the company.

True, style isn't everything and substance counts for lot. But Dyson could learn from design-driven companies such as Apple that style itself has become a kind of substance.

Ideation for action

Ideation is essentially a reflective activity. After the Eureka! moment, there's is slowing down,
questioning, humbling oneself, constructing, deconstructing, constructing again, patiently
building knowledge and applying it ... 

Worthless ideas?

'All ideas have degrees of potential. And if your idea is unique and has massive potential, that’s great. But don’t just stand still and think you’re sitting on a goldmine. Since only when you execute on the idea, and realize its potential, do you create value and wealth'.

Dave Lavinsky of Growthink.

Ideation constraints

Design ideation is sometimes being perceived as starting with a "blank page". The reality, however, is that ideation, as part of the design process, is not limitless but constrained by internal and external factors.

Internal factors may include; knowledge base, long term memory, and the designer's sense of audience or client needs. External factors may include; time allocated to the task, brief specification, client expectations, ideation tools for the job (skills and availabilty), and the designer's access to reference material.

X Idea

Method and Central Saint Martins (CSM) have come together to create Method Design Lab, MDL, a new business accelerator, which aims to bring up to 20 innovations to market each year.

MDL operates a step process to take an idea from concept to full commercialisation:

Step 1 - Idea sources: Ideas are identified from sources including the 4,500+ CSM students and the extensive internal and external global network of Method and CSM experts.

Step 2 - Primary selection: Ideas are selected using an online voting system that allows Method and CSM experts to identify which ideas should be explored further. This step draws on over 100 global experts that specialise in design, innovation and user-experience who have a track record in bringing innovation ideas to the market.

Step 3 - Early feasibility: Ideas that make it beyond the online voting stage undergo a rigorous internal vetting process with those who make the cut then being subject to due diligence in which the Method Design Lab team will identify potential routes to market, possible competition, design potential and audience.

Step 4 - Transfer of ownership: Once early feasibility has been conducted and the idea is to progress further an agreement is reached with the IP author.

Step 5 - Development: This involves the development of the idea to prototype stage and is where the combined strength of the joint venture partners will come to light. MDL, CSM and Method staff will bring their discipline expertise to bear and ensure that the output of this phase is as high a caliber as the world-class work done for clients of the independent consultancies.

Step 6 - Commercialisation: Developed idea is presented to potential market partners and additional investors to support large scale commercialisation and development.

Source: http://www.dexigner.com/news/22510

Words, words, words

Design ideation is typically an iterative process, interaction or dialogue between words and images. Ideation also works with artefacts and objects (including sketch models and rough prototypes). Words alone, however, may be perceived as weakness in ideation ("words, words, words") because they can be ambiguous, messy even, or pure abstraction, that is, building blocks without material constraints. Yet, arguably, the ambiguity of words allows more point of entry for creativity and innovation.

Ideation, innovation and manufacturing

Is there a relationship between ideation and manufacturing, and the next innovations? For example, the ideas behind the iPad and iPhone were generated and developed in the USA but the products are made by the engineers and factory workers in Asia. As people in Asia gain more knowledge, skill and experience will they also increasingly produce the next innovations? In other words, will shifts in manufacturing to the East lead to less innovation of physical products in the West? Moreover, if new generations of Western designers ideate without having the experience or means of producing things what are the ideation outcomes? Virtual solutions? Or, all talk and no industry?

Ideation, strategy and tactics

When you have a big idea, communicating the idea will involve ideation tools. And if the idea is the strategy, then ideation tools become the tactics, or operational means, for communicating the idea. But does a great idea (strategy) depend on brilliant ideation tool skills (tactics) for success? Arguably, if the idea is strong enough, you can get by with mediocre ideation tool execution. But why risk letting down a big idea through poor communication? Although it could be said that even the best tools (tactics) can’t compensate for a lousy idea (strategy).

Projecting ideas on the spot

Generating and developing ideas using smartphone (touchscreen) technology can be taken to the communication and presentation stages by using built-in or attached pocket sized projector. As ideation happens in many places, never has it been easier to project ideas to others on-the-spot, anytime, anywhere.