Presented at the Design Research Conference in Umea 2014. Download full paper at http://fredvanamstel.com/publications/contradictions-in-the-design-space The design space is a concept often used to encompass all possible designs for a given brief, impossible to be determined, but passive of manipulation by creative designers. The concept as such cannot prevent deterministic accounts of design activity. With the aim of overcoming determinism, this concept is reconsidered beyond the cognitive realm, as part of the social production of space. This renewed perspective is applied to study a medical imaging center project in The Netherlands. The boundaries found in this design space were not self-imposed constraints, but imperative economic, political, and cultural conditions that contradicted each other. To reveal the materiality of the design space, the project has been brought to a teaching experiment, where students analyzed the project drawings and proposed changes using a custom parametric modeling tool. Students faced similar contradictions, despite working under different conditions, supporting the claim that the design space has intrinsic contradictions even if not cognized.

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Contradictions in the design space
Frederick van Amstel, PhD Researcher
Construction Management & Engineering Dept.

2. Antithesis: the design space as an abstract space with all
possible design alternatives in a certain context
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3. Thesis: the design space as socially constructed, dealing
with contradictions in society while having its own
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?

4. Problems, solutions, etc, all stem from contradictions
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Images are
misleading.
Images
should have
captions.
Rene Magritte

5. What is this?
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6. This not concrete, but in this presentation it is concrete in
the sense that it is not abstract (out of context)
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7. Research context: Medical imaging center
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Identifying contradictions in activities

9. Contradiction found: from an optimized procedure to a
knowledge co-creation activity
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Medical imaging center
Southeast Hospital
Northwest Hospital

10. Observing collaborative/participatory design
6Second workshop for a new Medical Imaging Center.

11. Design reveals how contradictions in space (in activity)
becomes contradictions of space
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Productivity
X
Organizational boundaries
Layout fragmentation
X
Path homogeneization

12. Walking paths parametric design tool
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Used to reconstruct spatial designs in relation to nurses and patient activities

13. Visualizing the design space
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Superposed
reconstructed
alternatives.
The fuzzy
areas
represent
controversial
parts of the
design.

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Hypothesis: If contradictions are intrinsic to the design
space, reconstructing this space in another context would
reproduce the same contradictions.

15. Comparing the observed practice with a teaching experiment
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All practitioner’s designs Students without initial constraints
≈

16. Comparing the observed practice with a teaching experiment
15
All practitioner’s designs Students with paths constraints
≈

17. The parametric design tool was already biased to fragment
the layout and homogenize the paths
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18. Contradiction in research activity: from a knowledge co-
creation activity to an optimized procedure
10
Jacob Beal

19. Findings
▪The design space reproduces the contradictions in activity
▪Contradictions are simultaneously cause and effect of design
▪If contradictions won’t go away, what can we do?
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20. -Enjoy life.
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My Research Interests
▪ Participatory Design
▪ Activity Theory
▪ Cultural Studies
▪ Frederick van Amstel f.vanamstel@utwente.nl
▪ Twitter @fredvanamstel
▪ http://fredvanamstel.com