Phd-Building Digital Bridges

Building Digital Bridges Improving digital collaboration through the principles of Hyperlinked Practice By David Henry Harrison A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in ful!lment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture Victoria University of Wellington 2010 Abstract Effective collaboration requires access to timely and relevant information, but this is difficult given the complexity of the architectural design process and the segmentation of the architecture, engineering and construction industry. Effective collaboration is further complicated by the quantity and density of the digital information generated within a project, and the irregular adoption of technology by different team members. Consolidating project information within Building Information Models has improved its management, but the technology’s complexity limits who can contribute to it. This is a problem, because team members are capable of collaborating more effectively when they can record and reflect upon a comprehensive record of the project’s design process. The aim of research was to identify how information technology can assist architectural project teams to collaborate by more inclusively and comprehensively recording and reflecting upon the design process. To address this problem, this research proposes that the industry adopt Hyperlinked Practice, which is the creation of a distributed cloud of interconnected information describing an architectural project’s events, activities and digital artefacts. A set of fundamental principles were identified that would be used to guide the design and deployment of digital collaboration tools capable of facilitating Hyperlinked Practice. To ensure a flexible and inclusive environment, the principles were derived from concepts proven within the World Wide Web. To validate these principles, their collaboration influence, potential, and industry applicability was tested within a software prototype utilised in a university architecture course and two thought experiments. The results from testing the software prototype suggest that the principles are capable of influencing collaboration in a manner that promotes the recording of the design process, and reflection upon it. The thought experiments demonstrated that the principles provided an excellent framework for evaluating a digital collaboration tool’s ability to facilitate Hyperlinked Practice. Based on these results, the research concluded the identified principles of Hyperlinked Practice were capable of facilitating a collaboration environment that would allow the design process to be comprehensively recorded and reflected upon. Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge Michael Donn for his supervision, insight and support throughout my studies at Victoria University. Our weekly conversations about the work I had, or had not, undertaken during the week were always interesting and worthwhile. I would also like to acknowledge Robert Amor and Henry Skates for their valuable and under utilised input during the course of the research. Many thanks go to my family, Ian, Cheryl and Michael, for their encouragement during this long and winding process. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Emma for her steadfast belief, love and support throughout this roller-coaster of a ride. During the closing months of the thesis she took on the dual roles of chief editor and cheerleader, and this timely assistance was invaluable. Undoubtedly without her input and unwavering confidence I would not have been able to complete this body of work. I am now looking forward to the day when she begins her own thesis and I can return the favour. Table of Contents List of illustrations 8 List of Tables 11 1. Introduction 12 1.1. Problem statement 12 1.2. Aim 13 1.3. Research approach 13 1.4. Thesis structure 13 1.5. Summary 15 2. The Importance of Timely & Relevant Information 16 2.1. Collaboration - the lifeblood of an architectural project 16 2.1.1. What is effective architectural collaboration? 17 2.1.2. Barriers to effective architectural collaboration 19 2.2. Timely and relevant information bene!ts collaboration 20 2.2.1. Understanding design requirements and decisions 20 2.2.2. Involving relevant parties in design discussion 21 2.3. Challenges communicating timely and relevant information 22 2.3.1. Architecture projects are unique and complex environments 23 2.3.2. Participants do not understand the justification behind decisions 24 2.3.3. Project teams exist within a segmented industry 25 2.3.4. Time extremes restrict and erode project knowledge 27 2.4. Improving collaboration through Building Stories 28 2.4.1. The journey is as important as the destination 29 2.4.2. The benefit of Building Stories to the collaborative design process 32 2.4.3. Using Building Stories to improve timely access to relevant information 34 2.5. Summary 35 3. The Digitally Fragmented Project Team 37 3.1. Architectural collaboration’s digital migration 37 3.1.1. The elimination of distance and bandwidth restrictions 38 3.1.2. Immediate and frictionless collaboration interactions 40 3.1.3. The digital downside of Internet-based architectural collaboration 45 3.2. The rise of the Building Information Model 49 3.2.1. The digital model as collaboration hub 50 3.2.2. What is a Building Information Model? 52 3.2.3. BIM in Practice 54 3.3. Digital collaboration barriers in a BIM-centric team 59 3.3.1. The collaboration shortcomings of BIM 59 3.3.2. Digital fragmentation and the need for timely and relevant information 63 3.4. Summary 65 4. Improving Collaboration Through Hyperlinked Practice 66 4.1. Putting Building Stories into architectural practice 67 4.1.1. Recording, reflecting, rendering and recalling 68 4.1.2. Constructing Building Stories within project teams 69 4.1.3. Overcoming the barriers to Building Stories 72 4.2. Constructing Building Stories through Hyperlinked Practice 72 4.2.1. Embracing the Web to bridge the digital fragmentation of the project team 72 4.2.2. Adopting Hyperlinked Practice to record Building Stories 74 4.2.3. The need for fundamental principles of Hyperlinked Practice 76 4.3. Summary 77 5. The Principles of Hyperlinked Practice 78 5.1. Learning from those who shaped the World Wide Web 79 5.2. Identifying the principles of Hyperlinked Practice 82 5.3. The in"uence of the principles on the project information cloud 90 5.4. Summary 91 6. Validating the Principles of Hyperlinked Practice 92 6.1. Avoiding the ‘better’ collaboration quandary 92 6.2. Establishing in"uence, applicability and usefulness 93 6.2.1. Influence 93 6.2.2. Applicability 94 6.2.3. Usefulness 94 6.3. A review of alternative approaches 94 6.3.1. Develop and test a software prototype 96 6.3.2. Comparative case studies of digital collaboration 98 6.3.3. Thought experiments 99 6.4. A hybrid software prototype/thought experiment testing strategy 100 6.5. Summary 101 7. Testing the Principles within a Software Prototype 102 7.1. The testing environment for the Reasonate prototype 103 7.1.1. Justification of the test environment 103 7.1.2. Composition of the test audience 106 7.1.3. Course objectives and outline 106 7.1.4. Collaboration within the course 107 7.1.5. The role of Reasonate 108 7.1.6. Ethics approval 108 7.2. Testing the in"uence of each principle 109 7.2.1. Testing the principle of situational awareness 110 7.2.2. Testing the principle of ubiquity 111 7.2.3. Testing the principle of comprehension 112 7.2.4. Testing the principle of context sensitivity 113 7.2.5. Testing the principle of emulative modularity 114 7.2.6. Testing the principle of emotive semantics 115 7.2.7. Testing the principle of decentralisation 116 7.3. The design of the Reasonate prototype 117 7.3.1. The underlying design motives 117 7.3.2. Core functionality 120 7.3.3. The Reasonate use and collaboration influence questionnaire 128 7.4. Constructing the Reasonate prototype 133 7.4.1. A purpose built prototype 133 7.4.2. The influence of agile development 133 7.4.3. The influence of user feedback 135 7.4.4. Independent reimplementation of the prototype 139 7.5. Testing Reasonate 141 7.5.1. Prototype deployment 141 7.5.2. Prototype access 141 7.5.3. Nightly database snapshots 141 7.5.4. Instructions on Reasonate use 142 7.5.5. Timeline of the testing period 143 7.6. Summary 145 8. Reviewing the Performance of the Software Prototype 146 8.1. The successful testing of the Reasonate prototype 147 8.1.1. Reasonate usage statistics 147 8.1.2. Questionnaire submissions 147 8.1.3. The overall influence of Reasonate 148 8.2. The in"uence of the Hyperlinked Practice principles 149 8.2.1. An overview of each principle’s demonstrated influence 149 8.2.2. The effect of situational awareness 151 8.2.3. The effect of ubiquity 154 8.2.4. The effect of comprehension 157 8.2.5. The effect of context sensitivity 159 8.2.6. The effect of emulative modularity 162 8.2.7. The effect of emotive semantics 166 8.2.8. The effect of decentralisation 170 8.3. Discussing the in"uence of Hyperlinked Practice 172 8.3.1. Reviewing the influence of the principles within Reasonate 173 8.3.2. The Reasonate testing process 183 8.4. Summary 185 9. Exploring the Potential of Hyperlinked Practice 186 9.1. Achieving Hyperlinked Practice by applying its principles 186 9.1.1. Ranking how the principles are embodied within a collaboration tool 187 9.1.2. Visualising how the principles are embodied within a collaboration tool 190 9.1.3. Applying the principles within digital collaboration thought experiments 191 9.2. Using micro-blogging to record architectural design conversation 192 9.2.1.

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