Practicing Collaboration in Design
2004; Routledge; Volume: 38; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2691-5529
Autores Tópico(s)Design Education and Practice
ResumoABSTRACT: Occurring more frequently and with greater diversity among participants, collaboration is an activity without substantial theory or process development in design; it happens in an ad hoc manner. Collaboration may involve inter-disciplinacy, multi-disciplinary, inter-institutional or international pacticipation, each of which adds complexity to the process. This essay, based on conversations with designers engaged in collaborative activity and complemented by reflective writings, briefly examines collaborative history in design, explores definitions of the term, reflects on theoretical limitations to mapping collaboration, reveals qualities of collaborative individuals, describes pcoblems in process and explores an interdisciplinary discourse. The essay concludes with identification of variables that characterize collaborative projects. Individuals are increasingly aware of the limitations to their knowledge and skills in a compex technological and increasingly interactive word. Disciplines that structure knowledge and maintain boundaries are seeking inter-disciplinary perspectives in the search for new knowledge and solutions to persistent problems. While inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary are often used interchangeably, the difference is worth noting. Inter-disciplinary refers to activities that that fall between two disciplines. Multi-disciplinary refers to activities in which several disciplines share perspective (Rogers, 1994, 404). To this is added inter-institutional work that joins strengths not found in a single entity and inter-national work with its border crossing cultural complexity. These are some of the factors that stimulate interest in collaboration in contemporary society; they range from inter-personal through inter-disciplinary to multi-disciplinary to inter-institutional to inter-national. The benefits of collaboration accrue only if its possibilities are understood and managed. To this end, some perspectives on collaboration are developed from selected readings and from the interplay and conversation of individuals who engage in the practice of collaboration. The perspectives are reflective and theoretical, but also practical. They include a look at design collaboration historically, an examination of words relating to collaboration that need careful use, a look at the problem of formalizing or theorizing about the practice of collaboration, a discussion of practical issues regarding collaboration from experiential perspectives and finally a tentative identification of variables that identify collaborative work. Collaborative design - its early years Collaboration has an interesting, if largely unwritten, history in design. It is not a new idea at all. Even in design sources discussing the history of large design offices (the Henry Dreyfuss office, for example) conscious collaborative association of various kinds date to the 1930's. Some of these associations are discussed in Group Practice in Design, a mid-twentieth-century book that explores collaborative variations in design practice in the United States and Britain (Middleton, 1967). This is a simpler approach to collaboration than the complexities just mentioned at the beginning of this essay. The book focuses on people under one professional umbrella - doctors, lawyers or designers working together for efficiency and scale to achieve an increase in service to the client and to enhance creativity and quality. Case studies of architecture, interior design, product design, communication design and entertainment (broadcasting) complement the general discussion. Well known architecture firms, Skidmore Owings and Merrill in Chicago and The Architects Collaborative in Boston, for example, as well as the Industrial Design partnership, later called the Design Research Unit in Britain, ground the discussion in a practical way. Group practice was an ideal some aimed toward as expressed in the following statement (Middleton, 1967, 91): . …
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