If we were to go back, then, and ask ourselves,
what is it in the old office that we need to retain?
That's exactly right.
Can I interject a point here?
Yeah.
This has raised the issue of our collaboration and connection.
And I want to go back to something
that I was trying to draw, and I just
didn't say this very clearly.
And I think that [INAUDIBLE].
If you go back to my three-step diagram, A, B, C, OK,
what I was saying is that intersection of the three steps
right in the center-- if you can look-- let me put push--
[INAUDIBLE]
I have my own copy of it right here.
OK, right-- [INAUDIBLE] intercept, that's
the issue of collaboration and connection
that I was talking about.
These people never met.
They went through the entire design charrette
without ever being in the same room together.
You know why this is much better than sitting around a table?
I could never see Susan's drawing this way
if we sat around a table.
We had to do then-- have a whiteboard thing.
So I mean, but this is really convenient.
That, and it focuses--
you can go across and you can make a really fast scanning.
That's why it's so effective about it.
Is that it was fascinating to me as how focused all of that is,
is that you just drive right in on the subject.
And you tend to talk about the subject a great deal more than
if you and I were in a room with each other.
Absolutely.
This architectural design event lasted three days
with three architects located in separate offices.
Connected by video and audio, they
worked on solving a conceptual design problem.
The demonstration was organized to explore
the possibilities of using electronic technologies
to support design.
Bob Stulz.
As we started this project, the question that we had was
can client and designers work together in a media space
successfully the way we've learned
to expect the clients and designers work together
in traditional settings?
Steve Harrison.
The media has an effect upon the way people perceive
and communicate with each other.
Could people who don't know each other work together
in that setting?
We wanted the architects who worked on this project
to be able to deal with the probable needs of the client.
We also wanted them to be diverse--
to come from different places, to offer different things
to the project.
And we ended up with architects who really looked and sounded
differently, who had different professional experience.
And we had very different points of view
about what architecture is, and that turned out
to really see the clients need statement quite differently.
John Duvivier, a principal in a Silicon Valley
architectural firm.
A lot of architecture is stagecraft,
because what you're doing is you're, in a pictorial way,
describing some metaphor that you've created, that you think
is a solution to this problem.
And it might be multiple metaphors.
I mean, you have many instances where you think
several things are correct.
And for me, I have found that the success
is when I can describe a really good metaphor for whatever
this conceptual statement is.
Susan Havilland, a senior designer,
for a major San Francisco firm.
Design is a very small part of architecture.
I think the design is problem-solving-- and
problem-solving without constraints
is not problem-solving.
I mean, it essentially means there's no problem.
So there are always constraints, and there
are constraints of all sorts.
And I don't think architecture is self-expression, or even
art.
I think it's something else.
Laurus Larup, a professor of architecture.
I see my role ultimately, I think,
as being a political role.
I'm interested in making architecture
that's beautiful, yes--
no question about that.
But I'm also interested in a non-oppressive environment.
I want the environment to tell its own story--
about itself, its own construction, its own interior.
I want it to fulfill its own dream, so to say.
The clients were John Seely Brown, vice president
of Advanced Research at Xerox PARC,
and his secretary, Karlen Dichato.
The limitations of their present working environment
provided the architectural problem.
With the project participants enrolled, and the problem
identified, the researchers began
to focus on building trust between the designers--
introducing them to the video medium,
and establishing designer-client relations.
Traveling to their workplaces, the researchers
recorded three rounds of interviews
with the designers and the client.
We've wanted to introduce the designers to the staff,
to the technology.
And also to introduce the work styles of the designers
to each other.
So we had some prior experience with using videotape
to connect people who are temporally separated together.
What we did was, we had a little crew
and we went around and videotaped
the three designers, and the client, in their place of work.
We showed the things they were interested in,
and some of their biases.
And we then edited those videotapes down
and showed them to the designers and client again--
we did this three times--
so that they all had a chance to see and comment on each other.
The comments were circulated-- that's what
made up the later rounds.
Familiarization through video was a new experience
for the participants.
In most cases, they had not seen themselves on television,
and reacted with surprise to their recorded image.
I don't say, uh, nearly as much as I thought I did.
Who is this guy?
During the interview rounds, the designers
watched and responded.
They revealed their personal architectural biases.
And if you look at--
I mean, I would have a series of bones to pick with her on this.
Just that-- first, that architecture
is problem-solving.
That it's not art-- it's [? only ?] art form.
And that it's basically about managing
the client by providing them alternatives that all are good.
That, to me, is--
I mean, I understand that.
But that to me is not architecture,
it's more like very sophisticated building.
It has nothing to do with architecture.
Because I think that, for me, architecture really is--
adds something new about it, that is something that cannot--
there is no alternative, necessarily.
A lot of architecture-- myself, included--
feel a little nervous about this kind of a political statement.
Partly because a lot of times your ideas--
when they're actually realized physically--
turn out to have effects that are
completely different from what you thought.
And there were things that are there in the environment,
there are things that are part of the traditional ways
of putting cities together that have functions and effects that
are extremely important, that you've overlooked.
This round one version of Lars, I watched it four times.
And it's amazing how every time I watched it,
I learned a little more.
I mean, he said quite a lot.
And I sort of came up with three categories for the three of us.
And it's interesting to me, because he sort of
talked, in my opinion, about the role of architecture.
And I talked about designing architecture.
And Susan talked more about the act
of producing the architecture.
What's nice about this, that we--
all the players know who they are.
And in some way, this is a much more open game
than it usually is.
Because there's something of a rather private nature
that's been revealed through this process.
So that you can't pull wool over people's eyes in the same way
that you might in another situation, which I think
is terribly interesting.
It might alter the game radically.
The thing that's fascinating to me about these round one tapes,
and that is that instead of being bothered
by the occasional person walking down the hall,
and the sort of noise of the radio,
and the lights going on and off, and whatever else
may be occurring, is that you take your whole consciousness,
almost, and focus it into this one little event.
And all of a sudden, you do things and see things
and you just react in a way that you would never
react in a normal working environment.
It's a real interesting thing, and I
think it's something that you need
to be conscious of as we proceed with this.
Because it's going to be a different kind of experience.
And maybe we shouldn't be, but maybe you didn't want us to be,
but it's too late.
At the same time, the research staff
proceeded with the internal organization
of the design event, which would be
set in a media space, an electronically
supported workplace.
We originally conceived this project
to be just a design charrette.
But we said, we can't just bring these people in and plop them
down in front of all this gear--
cameras, monitors, video disks, computers,
videotape machinery-- and expect them
to have them use the system.
So we said, we're going to recruit three people to assist
the three designers, and they'll play
the role of being chauffeurs.
The chauffeurs were not just to provide a human interface
to this gear and keep the project rolling,
but they're also, themselves, designers of interfaces
and underlying technologies.
So they would understand the real use the technology was
being put to.
The researchers collected images from the designers,
including descriptions of the architect's past work,
slides, magazine stills, and clips from movies.
The researchers added selections from broadcast television.
This imagery was transferred to video disk,
and used for reference later in the design process.
A second video disk gave details of the client's requirements.
It included excerpts from the three interviews
with the client, as well as footage of his research domain,
statements from the personnel who report to him,
and shots of his present office area.
In addition, the material was summarized
onto a brief videotape that was shown
at the start of the charrette.
You know the image that just flashed through my mind?
Is that this is some set of ruins somewhere,
and that the [? icons ?] have been [INAUDIBLE],,
and these ruins are all of the components that were originally
there, that now, if they [INAUDIBLE],,
here's what the rest of your the [INAUDIBLE]----
Exactly, right.
That's very-- I love that, that's a neat, neat notion.
Because in a way, what we're trying
to do is that we try to repair it, and partly by--
repairing it means partially to remove
some of these walls that are obviously there,
and of no use anymore.
The designer's drawings, and several of the video disk
images were reproduced as hard copies.
The copies were distributed to the architects, who
were then able to mark on them.
There were three records kept of this charrette.
An event log was compiled by the research staff in the master
control area.
A second record consisted of event reports
submitted by the chauffeurs at their computer workstations.
Each entry identified who is marking the event,
and when and where the event was occurring.
The third record was on videotape,
recording the entire design charrette.
Recordings were made of the images that
were seen by the participants.
A supplemental recording, that combined all the images,
was produced in the master control area.
By the end of the first day, the designers
were comfortable in the media space.
You know, what I really enjoyed was
that I felt that the media space we were operating in
was very multidimensional, because it
contained all the tapes that we have exchanged,
as well as this one.
So that, for example, the notion of metaphor
that John stressed in his work became a central part
of this discussion.
The kinds of limitations inherent in these media
can be used to an advantage.
For example, in this case of us having
to concentrate so hard on working with one another
in this particular situation, perhaps we
pay more attention to one another
than we would if we were all in a room together.
Oh, I think so, too.
I think there's no question in my mind--
I think it's absolute truth.
So that in certain situations, we're more effective.
You know, there are some things about the technology
that are kind of frustrating.
And there's this incredible desire
I have to draw on this piece of paper.
I mean, I'd love to be able to mark over the top of that.
And I'm sure he'd love to be able to mark over
the top of things that other people have drawn.
Hey, what are you looking for?
Here we go.
I'm going to draw the box.
And try to correct my cow, please.
And it's a really terrible cow.
[INAUDIBLE] doesn't show through very well.
But what it occurs to me, that if
you have this component of elements here--
Look, there's the hand and the image of the hand--
Is that this element is personalized.
Going back to that, exactly, yes.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
I read you perfect.
You know, one of the things I love, Lars?
Is that in our frustration to not
be able to point at each other's drawings,
we figured out our own way to--
Oh, isn't that nice?
Because in a way, it does it quite well, I think.
Because it's not so hard to manipulate
the camera, particularly the ones that are right next to us.
On the second day in the media space,
the designers continued with the architectural problem.
Their concept was a workplace without the walls
found in traditional and open plan offices.
To accommodate changes in the working pattern,
people would arrange mobile electronic modules
for private and group work.