HUNTING DESIGN MEMES
IN
THE ARCHITECTURAL STUDIO
Student
projects as a source of memetic analysis
Roel Daru, Eindhoven University of
Technology, The Netherlands
r.daru@iae.nl
Abstract
The current practice in design programming is to generate
forms based on preconceptions of what architectural design is supposed to be.
But to offer adequate morphogenetic programs for architectural design
processes, we should identify the diversity of types of cultural replicators
(memes) applied by a variety of architectural designers. In order to explore
the variety of replicators actually used, around hundred 4th year architectural
students were asked to analyse two or three of their own past design
assignments. The students were invited to look for the occurrence of evolutionary
design processes. They were requested to try and find some traces of memetic
‘transmission’, ‘variation’ and ‘selection’ in their own design assignments.
Some of them have described their design processes in very broad terms, others
on the contrary have made their analyses in a much more detailed way.
Although the students were also
encouraged to identify non evolutionary processes in their own design work, no
one came up with more than a few exceptions in some particular phases where for
instance no variant was considered and developed.
Introduction
How does an architectural design come into being? Does it
evolve? Is it possible to apply Darwinistic evolutionary principles from
biology to a cultural phenomena like architectural design? To shed more light
on these follow-up questions an
exploratory study is carried out. About architectural designing, many theories
and propositions were made in the past. There are impressive lists of
literature about design theory, design methods, empirical design studies and so
on. The literature might be devided in many different ways, but often one of
the types considered will be evolutionary. Here I will explore this line of
approach usually taken by people working in the fields of generic art and
architecture.
According to Philip Steadman’s book about ‘The Evolution of
Design’ (1979) the historical roots of evolutionary explanations extends back
beyond the 19th century. In the 19th century a theory of cultural evolutionism
was established, based on the analogy with biology before and after Darwin
(1859/1985). Here I want to proceed on this theory of cultural evolutionism,
but now based on the recent findings of molecular biology as an analogy. This
theory is already elaborated by Derek Gatherer (1999) for the technical design
world, where useful inventions have the upper hand. In this paper, I want to
extent Gatherer’s explanations to the world of architectural design, where
(besides usefulness) expressive innovations are at stake. To back up his theory
Derek Gatherer has discussed the work of inventors like Edison. The work here
presented is a step further on the way to empirical testing, because I asked
the (upcoming) designers themselves, instead of consulting literature about
their work (or work of practising architects). Most students were curious about
their own design activities and eager to analyse their own design projects.
Fellow teachers asked me about what they had overheared from conversations
between students.
In this paper I will argue about the theory used, the method
to approach the theory, the results of the applied method, conclusions as a
reply to the questions postulated and some remarks about the utilisation of the
results.
Theory
To answer the question about the origins and mechanisms of
architectural designing, we will explore here the possibilities of application
of Darwin’s theory of (natural) evolution. But than as it is restated first by
Dawkins (1983) in a generalised way (to include every evolving system) and
second as it is applied by Gatherer to explain the evolution of (mostly
technical) design(ing). In all those cases three features should be involved to
call a system evolving in the Darwinistic sense. A true evolving system should
have:
•
retention
or heredity,
in the sense that offspring inherit characteristics from their parents or more
general heredity information could be replicated or transmitted somehow,
•
variation
or differences
as errors creeping in in the replicator to avoid offspring with identical
features, making it impossible to choose among them and preventing the system
to evolve,
•
selection
or preferences
by an environment in which some varieties are better in surviving than others
thanks to their non-identical features, propagating their frequency in the
population involved.
If some of these features or criteria are missing, no real
evolving system will ever come out of it. But with all the three features in
place, evolution is unavoidable. In order to testify that the design process is
an evolving system in the Darwinian sense, we should identify all the three
features present in all the processes of architectural design. In addition to
this, to be a true Darwinian process of evolution, variations should be
produced at random. As Derek Gatherer has remarked, in design the consequence
of this theoretical position is that our ideas are not produced at will (as a
conscious effort) but are generated in our brain in an arbitrary way.
Brainstorming is based on this assumption: in a free flowing
session ideas should be produced from the subconsciousness in an associative
way in reaction of what someone else has suggested before, but without exerting
any criticism at all (variation at random).
These criticism should be applied afterwards and will than result in the
choice of valuable ideas (first selection of the ‘environment’ within the
brain). Brainstorming is a formalized way of what our brains are doing all the
time: extracting ideas (memes) from our communal meme pool in a haphazard
manner, associating them in an uncontroled way amongst one another, making
quick mutations and recombinations in a arbitrary fashion and then exerting
selective pressures for the first time (in the brain) and perhaps in a half
conscious way only.
If it is possible however to introduce deliberately variation or differences in these mental
processes, we will have a Lamarkian process of instruction at work instead of a
process of selection. With genetic engineering we have knowingly introduced
this instruction approach in biology. In designing, it might be practiced from
the beginnings of all design activities by human beings: this is the prevailing and counteracting hypothesis of the Darwinian
position. Just as the sense of design in nature happens to be an illusion
produced by selection, deliberate instruction in producing novel memes (ideas)
seems to be an illusion triggered by
selection.
As mentioned above, the actual theory of cultural
evolutionism is already elaborated by Derek Gatherer for the technical design
world. Gatherer’s theory is based on ‘Universal
Darwinism’ as concocted by Dawkins (1983). He asked himself if there could
be an other kind of Darwinian replicator on earth, ‘even now staring us in the face?’ Something like a gene, but
operating within a cultural instead of a natural environment. There the ‘meme’
(Dawkins, 1976) came in as an analogy of the gene. In genes heritability,
variability and selections occurs and as such satisfy the criteria needed to
identify them as replicators of a real Darwinistic evolving system. If memes
could satisfy the same conditions, a second type of replicator will be
discovered, functioning according to the same Darwinian rules of evolution.
But what is a meme? A lot of authors about memetics have
tried to formulate all-embracing definitions, but as Susan Blackmore (1999) has
commented after an extensive search none were sufficient enough to include all
the cases where the concept of a meme could be applied reasonably well. To take
her point of view: we should for the time being ‘keep things as simple as possible’. We should provisionally ‘use the term ‘meme’ indiscriminately to refer to memetic information in any of
its many forms; including ideas, the brain structures that instantiate those
ideas, the behaviours these brain structures produce, and their versions in
books, recipes, maps and written music. As long as that information can be
copied by a process we may broadly call ‘imitation’, than it counts as a meme.’
Derek Gatherer (1999) writing in the context of the design
of motor cars has compared a design meme with a ‘mental blueprint’: ...
‘abstract notions of form’ ... ‘first created in the minds of the
designers, and then used as templates from which the physical form of the motor
car was constructed. The mental concept was thus expressed in physical terms’.
Mental blueprints are what design researchers call declarative knowledge as
opposed to procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge in the design fields is
about things (like buildings, spaces, lighting), their attributes (like form,
function, attractiveness) and the relations between them (like branched,
semilattice, network). Procedural knowledge on the other hand is about actions
and plans of actions (like how to analyse, sketch or design). It could relegate
among others to strategies and tactics of designing (knowledge about how to do
or create things). Both types of knowledge are used by designers and memes
could consequently be declarative as well as procedural, tracing the memetic
conceptualisation back to the broad
outline given by Susan Blackmore. In the results I will present some
distinctions made by me and the students to differentiate between certain types
of design memes.
Method
If the theory is right, we should find in every
(architectural) design process both: design memes and processes of retention,
variation and selection exerted on those memes. The detection might be
performed first in coarse and exploratory studies and (if the results are
positive) afterwards in more finetuned and affirmative investigations.
In a first run-up study the detection might be performed
indirectly like Gatherer has done by literature searching for appropriate
traces of the mentioned heredity, variation and selection in the design
processes described. A disadvantage of this approach is that you are dependent
on what others have noticed occasionally for often quite other reasons and
objectives.
A more direct and fast approach is to ask to reconstruct
their own design processes from long term memory with the aid of their
own remaining sketches, annotations, drawings, cardboard and computer models,
etc.This still exploratory approach is choosen here, because the possibility
existed to do it with a lot of students and a variety of design projects from
several years of design studio work, and because the effort needed was modest
and the results instructive in a preliminary phase to decide the next steps of
investigation.
In other studies we have used a logbook based system of
investigation. This is a more affirmative and time consuming manner in which
the designers are asked to fill in a logbook with their remarks immediately
after the end of their design sessions. This might be done in a free format
like in in-depth interviews, or for an easy transcription with standard
questions, to be filled in. The questions might be put forward directly about
what he or she has done and thought of about design things and related other
ideas and the role played by retention, variation and selection in those design
activities. Posed indirectly the questionaire
might ask about what he or she has done, how it was done and why.
One of the most detailed but also most
time consuming approaches is by protocol studies where the designer
is observed and videotaped in the act of designing and talking aloud about what
he or she is simultaneously sketching, perceptually discovering in the sketch,
thinking and deciding upon. The results can be analysed in minute details in
order to detect, determine and affirm the presence or absence of the looked
after memes and processes of retention, variation and selection at work. With
the low cost digital video editing posibilities now available, it is much
easier nowadays to perform this type of analysis.
The reconstruction method used was carried out with around
hundred 4th years architectural design students. They got handouts and copies
from publications explaining the theory of Darwinian (and Universal Darwinian)
evolutions and the possible role of memes for the cultural world (which
includes the technical and architectural design worlds as well). I asked the
students to reconstruct (two or) three of their finished design projects,
leaving the selection to themselfs, but asking to motivate their choices. The
reconstruction should be done from their long term memory, assisted by the
remnants of their design projects selected. The results should be reported in
an essay about ‘memetics in architectural design’. Failures in detecting memes
or processes of retention, variation and selection in their design work were
even more interesting and would be equally well excepted and graded if argued
in the same manner as those positively reporting on the same topics.
To facilitate their
work, I suggested to fill in a ‘project-process-matrix’ (figure 1)
with (a) in the rows the three projects, (b) in the columns the three processes
of retention, variation and selection and (c) in the cells the memes
encountered eventually.
|
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HEREDITY |
VARIATION |
SELECTION |
|
Project 1 |
• Situation, program, concepual ideas and rules related. • Good and bad examples from publications and excursions
and mistakes from failed projects. |
• By mutation and (re)combination of heredity elements. • Incremental modifications of preselected concept. • Rules application. |
• By
comparisons between options or work
of others. • By
judgements of teachers, design critics, fellow students and own esthetic and
other preferences. |
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Project 2 |
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Project 3 |
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Figure 1: suggested Project-Proces
Reconstruction Matrix
I encouraged them to hand in their provisional results in
order to get answers about upcoming questions and to secure some confirmation
or assurance for their approach. I made (and distributed) a summary about the
most frequently asked questions and upcoming themes and topics.
Results
The students did not have encountered much trouble in
completing the cells of the ‘project-process-matrix’ with appropriate memes.
Both verbal and visual memes were quoted, indicated or reported. Most memes,
whether visual or oral ones were named or described in titels and sentences.
Some students refered to visual memes with names in the cells of the matrix and
documented them with drawings and computer renderings in separate
additions. Others made depictions
straight in the matrix cells in either thumbnail design sketches or
equivalently scaled down drawings or 3D perspectives of computer generated
models (figure 2).
Often, the terms used were clarified in subsection texts. To
reflect the phases of a ‘project-design-process’, some students appended an
extra left column with the number and phases involved (figure 3).
|
DESIGN PHASES |
HEREDITY |
VARIATION |
SELECTION |
|
01 Initiative 02 Feasibility 03 Projectdefinition 04 Brief/principles 05 Grids 06 Sketch Design 07 Analysis SD 08 Façade design 09 Preliminary Design 10 Analysis construct. 11 Options construct. 10 Stability calculation 11 Materials 12 Details 13 Final Design |
• Visual, verbal and text memes
about buildings, spaces and details. • All sorts of inspiration
patterns and diagrams and associations about objects like works of art,
landscapes, anatomical illustrations. • From libraries, lectures,
literature. • Comments from other students,
tutors or lecturers. |
• Spatial, architectural and/or
constructive options. • Variants about the building
site within landscapes, city areas and/or river banks. • 3D-models of human bodies and
buildings. • Ideas recombined from memory
and/or thinked up from own fantasy. |
• With given or own criteria. • About beauty, confort,
applicability, costs, effectiveness, efficiëncy, feasibility. • Adaptability to the site,
function, organisation. • Event and meaningfulness,
identity and orientation and perceptual liveliness. |
Figure 3: summarized example of some students output
(without specific contents of the design projects)
An illustrated version of this type of matrix is shown in
figure 4. The project illustrated was a design by the student Martin Koster as
part of a training job (architectural office of Marlies Rohmer, Amsterdam,
1999). The given meme was about ‘wild
housing’ (‘unregulated architecture’) for an exibition to be held in 2001
in Almere. The first inspiration meme were about a shed, which was transformed
(a) by a growth principle of mutations and combinations and (b) by ideas about
(1) chaos, (2) a common zone, (3) variants between separation walls, (4) a
field of patio housing and (5) terrace housing in blocks of four. The second
(and last) inspiration meme was about a boiler house.
Inspiration source: shed Given meme: Het Wilde Wonen (unregulated architecture) Design meme: expansion patterns Transformation-meme: groeien Inspiration meme : boilerhouse
MEME
SELECTION
variation
HEREDITY
MEME
SELECTION
VARIATION
HEREDITY
MEME
SELECTION
VARIATION
HEREDITY
Figure 4 :
Martin Koster for Architectenbureau Marlies
Rohmer
MEME
VARIATION
HEREDITY
SELECTION
MEME
VARIATION
HEREDITY
MEME
SELECTION
VARIATION
HEREDITY
SELECTION
SELECTION
VARIATION
HEREDITY
MEME
As an other alternative some students converted their phases
in a flowchart of heredity, variation and selection (figure 5).
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INVERSED CONE DIVISION |
SPIRAL |
SPIRAL-ROOF |
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3 Divisions |
2 Divisions |
Undivided |
Propeller Rings Helix |
Heli-coidal roof |
Termi-nated under win-dow |
Flat roof |
FI- NAL RE- SULT |
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The arrows in the matrix indicates where
some retention, variation or selection originates (in most cases the former
sketch design). Sketches with an (a), (b) or (c) denotes an selection made between them (either (a) continues or
(b) or (c); this is indicated by the arrows beneath the lowest X-crosses).
Figure 5: flowchart of heredity,
variation and selection phases, from student Wouter de Wit
In the retention or heredity cells ancestor
memes were identified by every student without any difficulty (figures
1-4). The refered memes happen to be
divided in situation, program, concept and rules regarding memes:
• Situation
memes were referred to in the sense of past starting conditions to be
taken into account as the heritage of the project involved or questions about
the building site of the given project.
• Program
related memes or issues were about prefered performance requirements or
the application of already testified performance effects.
• Conceptual
memes or ideas are about partial or whole architectural solutions.
Wholistic conceptual solutions refering to typologies like functional ones
(schools, shops, offices) or structural examplars (towerblocks, rows,
courtbuildings) or precedences as formative ideas, spatial organisational
concepts and partis of architectural buildings.
• Rules
related memes are discernable in sayings like ‘function follows form’
or ‘less is a bore’ or other heuristic search and decision rules mentioned by
the students as inheritable principles to steer their design activities.
If famous architects are mentioned they
might refer to one or a mixture of situation, program, concept and/or rules related memes as used or associated to
those architecs and worthy to be copied. Visions
of teachers, design critics or the students themselves might also be composed
from a combination of situation, program, concept and/or rules to be applied for deciding what to use
and what to avoid in copying for their own project design processes. Good as
well as bad examples from past and
present times were important. Some students especially noted mistakes from a failed project in order to dodge imitation and
replication deliberately.
Some information
came firsthand from reality as it was observed on excursions, trips or outings and eventually documented with
photographs, sketches and pictures or maps and leaflets and so on. But most
useful suggestions came from teachers or fellow students with tips to look in
some books or textbooks, to some
specific manuals or volumes, periodicals or magazines, journals or newspapers.
In the variation or differences cells
students had different experiences and opinions. They reported either a lot of
variety, no variety at all or something in between. The subject matter of
variety were shapes of buildings, part of buildings or details. Some
differences were reported about rooms, the configuration of spaces, the
composition of façades or building masses. Variety was also mentioned about
building materials, construction systems, the building site or surroundings and
so on. In most cases the students did not remembered how and when exactly they
got the idea to vary something.
Much variety was obtained by modifying or by mutation and combination from the
retention or heredity memes already acquired about the situation, program,
concept and/or rules.In the end this is
leading to some unity in all
that variety (unity in variety).
But perhaps most students focused very fast to one basic
design and reported their incremental
modifications afterwards made to adapt their design to all incoming or
already obtained considerations. As a result variety was obtained out of unity
(variety in unity).
Some students however observed the absence of variety in one
of their particular projects. For instance because the decisions were
transfered to some piece of music and then the melody was translated in
geometric compositions and measures by deductive rules of transcription. But in
this case indepth questioning reveiled necessary decisions remained to be taken
outside the automatically applied rules
of musical/geometrical compositions and measures: decisions producing variety
for comparison and choice.
Last but not least some noticed variation and differences
obtained in specially organised teamwork design courses or by way of their
participation to an architectural competition. Remarkable is, that no student
until now reported about errors, luck,
chance, coincidences or incidental occurrences as sources of variation.
In the Selection or preferences cells the
students had some difficulty to identify their selection phases, because
decisions about preferences were made continuously and it even started before
memes were allowed by them to enter as
ancestor memes. Some decided to mark the formal period of the in between design
studio presentation as their most important selection phase. Most selections
were made by checking once again the retention memes about the situation,
program, concept and/or rules, but now checked and compared to the actual
ruling conditions as it is infered from all the incoming information up to
then. Selections were made by comparisons between alternatives amongst one
another, compared to the program and site or compared to the work of other
students or existing buildings. Important were also the judgements from
teachers, visiting design critics or fellow students as wel as their own
esthetic preferences and considerations. The beauty of the solution was
mentioned as wel as performance criteria like about light and shadow effects,
transparancy, resistance against vandalism, continuity of the flowing of
spaces, building physics, construction, transport, assembly, styling,
governmental codes and regulations, the budget, judgments of authorities like
teachers and so on.
In general the exercision of retention, variation and
selection is conditional for the success of memes. But then, is for instance a
performance criterium not succesful in designing because it does not change as
a consequence of the design process? The performance criterium is often
imitated as well from one design
process to another with some retention of the gist of what is required, but
perhaps undergoing some adjustments and thus with variation creeping in and then
decided upon what to select. In other words, we should differentiate the memes
involved in the design process if we want to see sharper what is going on in
memetic terms.
The following differentiation (figure 6) appeared to be
useful and is based on the simpel sequence of input, transformation and output.
Figure 6: types of design memes
Input memes are those predestined to be transformed in output memes. Transformation memes are those
undergoing some manipulation like the recombination with other memes. Output
memes are the modified or adapted memes of the design solution. To transform an
input in an output however contextual requirements, governmental regulations
and so on should be known and taken into account without trying to chance those
type of environmental information: another type and group of intervening design
memes. To transform input to output designers are needed and consultants,
computers and other resources, showing another group of design related
(vehicles of) memes.
Dependent of the circumstances other words might be needed,
so input, throughput and output memes should be called different if necessary
within the objectives or context one is attending (figure 7):
•
the
input
memes might occasionally be
called ‘given’ memes, ‘problem’ meme, ‘inspiration’ meme, ‘old’ or ‘existing’
meme, ‘ancestor’, ‘elder’, ‘progenitor’, ‘forebear’ or ‘forefather’ meme.
•
the
transformation
memes might be differentiate in for instance in ‘design’ meme,
‘variety’ meme, ‘throughput’ or ‘change’ meme.
•
the
output
memes might be distinguished in new meme, solution memes, transformed
memes, descendant or offspring memes.
•
the
contextual
memes might be tell apart in selection meme, influencing or
environmental meme, steering meme and control meme.
•
the
resource
or help memes might be separated in editing and instrumental memes and production memes as call memes to be
processed somewhere else (like the execution of a rendering program).
Input memes that get transformed and exported as output
might be named lucky or success memes,
those that failed to be exported are failure or flop memes.
figure 7: vocabulary of design memes
The approach taken in this exploratory study is very gross.
The projects taken for consideration were from months to a few years ago and
should be reconstructed from long term memory with the aid of what is left of
filed away documentation.
Transmission, variation and selection in designing however
takes place at least on four levels (figure 8):
•
micro
level, where
the design activity is concealed in the individual brain. Such an activity
consist of memetic inheritance, at random generation of variety and subsequent
selection. It takes place mentally in milliseconds. It is on this mental level
that protocol research is aimed at.
•
meso
level, where
we can see someone doing things like spending time in the library consulting
journals, books and so on (transmission), like doing some sketching (variation)
or talking with someone involved in the decision making process like the
teacher, critic or the client involved (selection). All those activities takes
up multiples of quarter hours to hours.
•
macro
level, where
the activities are planned on weekly and montly intervals. There we become
aware of another rhythm of transmission (problem statement and documentation at
the beginning of the project), variation (designing and coaching on a weekly
basis) and selection (again on a weekly basis, halfway the project after some
weeks time and at the end after two or more months).
•
super
macro level,
where the personal development from successive design projects where identified
and elaborated. Where for instance in earlier work form as such was a goal,
while in later design projects form appeared only as a means to obtain other
goals.
This study was intended to deal with the macro level, but
the students often tried very succesfully to analyse their design project work
on the other levels as well, because they feeled that those levels were most
significant for designing.
1. oldest inner
cerebral cortex, centre of emotions and subconsciousness, artistic and reflex
behaviour, pragmatics; 2. middle cortext, centre of the senses and
preconsciousness, technical and sensomotoric behaviour, syntagmatics; 3. newest
outer cortex, centre of logical reasoning and consciousness, scientific and
inferential behaviour, paradigmatics.
Figure 8: four levels of design studies
Conclusions
As put forward in the introduction, the central question we
wanted to answer was about the possibility of application of Darwinistic
evolutionary theory from biology to architectural design. The answers of the
students makes it highly probable to answer the question positively. The
students were unanimous about the occurrence of memes in their design
activities. They could name and depict memes appropriate in their processes of
heredity, variation and selection. They could even imagine, detect and
acknowledge the functioning of brainstorming effects in the arbitrary
production of novel ideas or memes, but were still confused with the
consequences of their own findings. The appearing autonomy of the
(architectural) designer is then at stake with all the accompanying ingenious
creativity and originality that brought along.
Philosophical remarks were also made about the applicability
of the theory. Like history, linguistics or bicycle riding, no one expected to
design (or decide, write or ride) better by understanding how those processes
take place. But despite those limitations, they appreciated the exercise to
understand better there own design behavior and development over the years.
Nevertheless knowledge about the mechanisms behind those processes are
essential if we want to simulate them for fun or training like in computer
games and simulators or to explore the (self-defined) available design spaces
in morphogenetic design programs.
What remain to be done is at least to look with closer
attention to the evolution of usual architectural design projects. Obviously,
the theory needs some adjustments because designing turned out to be a not
outspoken population based activity. Students do not design by breeding whole
populations of designs and subsequently do not select among them in order to
allow the survivals to breed again and again until some optimised or
compromised solution will emergence in the end. This corresponds to the so called
breadth first strategy, which is hardly applied in architectural design. There,
the so called depth first strategy is nearly always used, exploring and
developing only one (or a few) alternatives at a time until eventually
something important forces the designer to abandon the looked for solution and
start anew. But if we take a look from the meme’s eye view like most of the
students did, we have already experienced something quite different. From this
a lot of questions are left behind to be investigated.
A last but not least issue is about artistic design.
Although memetics claims to explain all culture, the memetics of engineering is
according to Gatherer ‘certainly more
approachable than the memetics of art.’ Architecture is something in
between and might serves as a bridge between the two. The results up to now are
encouraging, but detailed analysis of the artistic elements in the design work
of the architectural students (and of artists and architects in practice)
remain to be done.
References
Blackmore, Susan: The
Meme Machine, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999
Darwin, Charles: The
Origin of Species, Penguin, London 1985 (reprint of 1st edition, 1859).
Dawkins, Richard: The
Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1976.
Dawkins, Richard: Universal Darwinism, in Bendall, D.S.
(ed.), Evolution from Molecules to Men,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983.
Gatherer Derek: The Memetics of Design, in Bentley, P.J.
(ed.), Evolutionary Design by Computers,
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