06 2017 Form Follows Feeling The Acquisition of Design Expertise and the function of Aesthesis in the Design Process Terrence M. Curry Form Follows Feeling The Acquisition of Design Expertise and the Function of Aesthesis in the Design Process Terrence M. Curry Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Department of Urbanism TOC abe.tudelft.nl Design: Sirene Ontwerpers, Rotterdam ISBN 978-94-92516-63-3 ISSN 2212-3202 © 2017 Terrence M. Curry TOC Form Follows Feeling The Acquisition of Design Expertise and the Function of Aesthesis in the Design Process Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Delft, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. ir. K.C.A.M. Luyben, voorzitter van het College voor Promoties, in het openbaar te verdedigen op 3 juli 2017 om 15:00 uur door Terrence Michael CURRY M. Div., Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, United States of America Th. M., Xavier University of Louisiana, United States of America geboren te Brooklyn, United States of America TOC This dissertation has been approved by the promoter: Prof.ir. H. C. Bekkering Composition of the Doctoral Committee Rector Magnificus chairman Prof.ir. H. C. Bekkering Delft University of Technology Independent members Prof.dr. P. G. Badke-Schaub Deft University of Technology Prof.dr. R. Cavallo Deft University of Technology Prof.dr.ir. V.J. Meyer Deft University of Technology Prof.dr.ir. C.H. Dorst Eindhoven University of Technology Prof.dr.ing. C. Gänshirt Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University This research was supported by the UNE Province of the Society of Jesus, USA and a research grant from Tsinghua University, School of Architecture, P.R. China. TOC The artist must suffer sleepless nights, purify himself without ceasing, voluntarily abandon fertile places, full of insecurity. Maritain TOC TOC Acknowledgements First, I want to express my gratitude to the Technical University of Delft, the School of Architecture and the Built Environment, and the Department of Urbanism, for the invitation to pursue my doctorate and for the generous hospitality they extended to me over these past 6 years. None of this research would have been possible without the help and support of my friend, colleague and promoter Henco Bekkering and his partner Ria Wiegman, Ralf Weber who first introduced me to empirical aesthetics, and Roger Haight who helped me transform my first musings into a cohersive argument. I am indebted to my brother Jesuits who supported and encouraged me throughout this five year journey in the USA, the Netherlands and in China. I am grateful for my colleagues at Delft University of Technology, Tsinghua University, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and at the University of Detroit Mercy, as well as my own design teachers at the Pratt Institute. I thank my students who have taught me and given me more than they can ever imagine. Finally I am indebted to my family, my mother, my brothers and my sisters, especially my grandfather Theodore Grupinski who taught me how and to love making stuff. AMGD TOC 8 Form Follows Feeling TOC Contents Preface 13 Samenvatting 19 Summary 21 Propositions 23 1 Introduction 25 1.1 Some Clarifications 26 1.2 Methodology 28 1.3 Claims 30 1.4 Argument 30 1.5 Structure of the argument 33 2 What is designing? 35 2.1 The Designer’s Context 36 2.2 Describing Designing 40 2.3 Designing as an Object of Study 42 2.4 Designing in the Most Basic Sense 45 2.5 The Proper End of Designing 47 2.6 Proximate End of Designing 49 2.7 Some Attempts as Defining Designing 53 2.8 Summary 57 3 Design Cognition 59 3.1 A Short History 64 3.2 The Desire to Scientise (Rationalize) Designing 66 3.3 Problem solving: Information-Processing Theory 70 3.4 Tacit Knowledge 80 3.5 Embodied Cognition 89 3.6 Summary 96 9 Contents TOC 4 The Design Process 99 4.1 Designing as Process 99 4.2 Design as Black Box 105 4.3 Systems Theory 109 4.4 Designer as Transformative Agent 114 4.5 Designing as Heuristic 115 4.6 Designing as Methodology 119 5 Problem 123 5.1 Who Defines the Problem? 123 5.2 Defining the Problem 125 5.3 Design Problems Have a Structure 128 5.4 Lawson's Comprehensive Model 130 5.5 Not all Design Problems are Solvable 132 6 Solution 133 6.1 Who Determines the Quality of a Solution? 134 6.2 Making Representations 138 6.3 Metal Representations 139 6.4 Representations in Architectural Design 143 6.5 Extended Cognition 146 6.6 Criteria and Constraints 148 6.7 Technical Competency 149 6.8 Coherence 151 7 Aesthetic 159 7.1 Approaches to Aesthetics 164 7.2 Plato 165 7.3 Aristotle 167 7.4 Vitruvius 169 7.5 Hume, Locke, Kant 169 7.6 Connoisseurship 173 7.7 Alexander Baumgarten 176 7.8 Empathy 177 7.9 Evolutionary Aesthetics 179 7.10 Neuroaesthetics 184 10 Form Follows Feeling TOC 8 Methodologies 189 8.1 There is no All-encompassing Model of Designing 191 8.2 Teaching Devices 191 8.3 Classification Schemes 192 8.4 Ways of Thinking about Designing 193 8.5 Divergence, Transformation, Convergence 195 8.6 Pre-structuring the Design Problem 196 8.7 Design Abduction 199 8.8 Reflective Conversation with the Situation 200 8.9 The Design Problem and the Problem of Designing 207 8.10 Designing as Making a Functional Approximation of a Thing to be Built 209 9 Expertise 211 9.1 Who can be a designer? 213 9.2 Expertise Theory 219 9.3 The Acquisition of Expert Performance 226 9.4 Cognitive Load Theory: Cognitive Scaffolding 231 9.5 A Designer's Brain 233 9.6 Dreyfus Model 234 10 Aesthetic Resonance 239 10.1 The Theoretical Foundation for Aesthetic Resonance 239 10.1.1 The Body Knowing 239 10.1.2 Resonance 241 10.2 Inhabiting the Design World Feelingly 242 10.3 A Design Scenario 244 10.4 Feeling as a Functional Cognitive Bias in the Design Process 246 10.5 Summary 248 11 Conclusion 249 Works Cited 251 Curriculum Vitae 267 11 Contents TOC 12 Form Follows Feeling TOC Preface This thesis is fundamentally about the cognitive processes involved in learning to become a designer. To give this thesis context it is probably best to start is by explaining the title: Form Follows Feeling. The title did not occur to me until well after the first draft was completed. Up until then the title was: The acquisition of design expertise and the function of aesthesis in the design process. Admittedly, not a particularly catchy title. The title is an obvious reference to Louis Sullivan’s famous, often isquoted,m out of context and sometimes misattributed quote, “Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law.” (Sullivan, 1869, p. 408). The quote comes from an article written by Sullivan entitled “The tall building artistically considered." In this article Sullivan makes a passionate and eloquent plea for the legitimization of a new building type – the tall building – on its own terms. He argues against the use of the "classical column" as the true prototype, against “the beauty of prime numbers," against the "logical statement," against organic justification found in the "vegetable kingdom" (p. 406). Sullivan, referring to how in nature “the essence of things is taking shape in the matter of things,” makes his point again: It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law… And thus the design of the tall office building takes its place with all other architecturaltypes made when architecture, as has happened once in many years, was a living art.” (p. 408) His was not an argument against decoration, as can easily be seen by looking at any of his buildings. Nor was he arguing for a from of technical rationalism, though he does argue for a kind of inevitability “if we follow our natural instincts without the thought of books, rules, precedents, or any educational impedimenta…” His argument, not unlike Kahn’s conversation with a brick (Kahn & Twombly, 2003), is founded on the belief that the truth of a thing is found by recognizing the essence of a thing, feeling into it, letting it be what it wants to be. 13 Preface TOC Unfortunately, Sullivan’s passionate plea to embrace a new building type “for the transaction of business,” and made possible by “the intervention and perfection of the high-speed elevator…, development of steel manufactures has shown the way to safe, rigid, economical constructions…, and so on, by action and reaction, interaction and inter-reaction” (p. 403), has been perverted as a justification for a kind of technical rationalism and functional determinism. Sullivan is not arguing for technical rationalism or functional determinism, but rather he is arguing for a kind of passionate essentialism. The technical rationalism and functional determinism that the phrase form follows function has come to embody has been embraced by architecture design students1 across the world as if it is a self-evident truth.