Chapter 3.0 - Determinants of Meta-Design 3.1 Design Time and Use Time. When a designer is designing, there exists an Imaginer time-line with 2 major time zone, Design Time and Use Time. Design Time The period where the designer provides a suitable Design solution for the end-user. This includes the Concept stage, Schematic stage, Design Development, and Technical Design stages. During this stage, major decisions are made which govern the future utility of the design. Use Time The design period is complete from the designer’s end and executes accordingly based on the user requirement. This depends on the quality, user, and life of the design. It is generally more than design time.
Architects and designers (with or without user involvement) create environments and spaces. In conventional design approaches, they create complete space for the world-as-imagined. At use time, users use the space but their needs, objectives, and situational contexts can only be anticipated at design time. Thus, the design often requires modification to fit the user’s needs. To accommodate unexpected issues at use time, architecture needs to be under-designed at design time while directly experiencing their world. When we compare these two time zones, we see that Design time is way less than the use time. This also depends upon the permanence of the design. The majority architecture project is designed to last for more than decades makes the use time exponentially more than the design time.
3.2 Under-Design Design is an outcome of a rigorous experiment and experience from the past. Thus design is considered as the exclusive domain
of experts where general mass is not actively involved. So Under design in this context does not mean less work and fewer demands for the design team, but it is fundamentally different from creating complete architecture. The primary challenge of under design is in developing not solutions, but environments that allow the “owners of problems” to create the solutions themselves at use time. This can be done by providing a context and a background against which situated cases, coming up later, can be interpreted. Under design is a defining activity for meta-design aimed at creating design spaces for others. In Architecture, the scale of the project defines the difference between design time and user time. Also in architecture design, the user time is always more and lasts for a longer time as the amount of investment is huge and the life of the design is also for several decades depending upon the permanence of the design. From the above, most of the factor can be considered and is mostly taken in to note while designing. Thus if we acknowledge the importance of under-design we can say that design cannot be considered complete before its use, it must be modifiable to some extend at the hands of the user. This will ensure how a co-evolutionary process and co-creative behaviour can be sustained.
3.3 Co-Designer
Figure 17 - Design Time & Use Time | 21
When the design is kept partially incomplete with a framework which simplifies for further design gives rise to a new group of designers. These designers are the user of the designers who design and modify as per their needs. For these new designers to design there is a need for basic learning which is needed for this learning, the user should be included in the initial part of the designing process. This learning will help the user to understand the design solution properly, also making them aware of the core problems which exists. The user can understand problems such as lack of use of the sustainable solution.
Scenario A
Scenario B
Figure 18 - Under-design Designed by the Designer Kept incomplete for user to design
In the above illustration we see two scenario, In both scenario there are 9 squares which are further divided in to more 9 square showing the distribution of design. In scenario-A all the under-design units are focused at one point. Which should not be the goal of under-design. Under-design units should be distributed throughout the design giving user opportunity to customise at many levels Consumer
Designer
Passive consumer Well-Informed Consumer End-user Power user Domain Designer Meta-Designer
Figure 19 - Co-Designer In the above diagram we see that to be a passive consumer to a meta-designer is a binary choice for the user. 22 |
