Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
communication in design
collaboration
Mao-Lin Chiu, Department of Architecture, National Cheng-Kung
University, Tainan 701, Taiwan
Design collaboration requires participation of individuals and
coordination of design information and tasks. Team organization is one
of the major tasks in design collaboration, because it can affect design
communication and performance. This paper provides a basic
understanding of the role of organization in design collaboration and
how it affects design communication and collaboration by empirical
case studies and design experiments. The results of case studies in
architectural practice and design studios and a process model of design
collaboration are presented. The study suggests that a structured
organization can facilitate design communication and consequently
contribute to the success of the design project. Computer supported
collaborative work requires managing design tasks as well as
information flows, and supporting three levels of communication,
including individual, group and project.
c 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Keywords: collaborative design, communication, computer supported
design, organization
ollaborative design is an activity that requires participation of individuals for sharing information and organizing design tasks and
resources. Particularly in a complex and large project, design often
involves multiple persons or groups collaborating in the design process.
The purpose of design collaboration is to share expertise, ideas, resources,
or responsibilities. Design communication is central to design development
in the process. The effectiveness of design communication becomes critical
for designers in sharing design information, in decision-making and coordinating design tasks.
During the last decade, design practice has changed due to globalization
and computerization. The use of computer technology in design practice
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187
has established various distributed design environments1,2. Meanwhile, virtual design studios (VDS) have been constructed by many institutions
across the world exploiting new computing and communication technologies35. Team members can work in a distributed environment synchronously or asynchronously.
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Figure 1 Communication
conditions among multiple
persons
Human communication is a dynamic process in which one person consciously or unconsciously affects the cognition of another through materials
or agencies in symbolic ways. Researchers of organizational behaviour and
management science have established a series of communication theories9
11
. When computer and telecommunication technologies were deployed in
design offices or studios, the use of communication channels increased.
Figure 1 demonstrates the communication conditions among multiple persons in a distributed design environment, including cognition, transmission,
and representation13.
Communication requires both a sender and a receiver. The necessity of
communication is due to the possibility of different cognition of representations by different participants as well as conveying new information.
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16
Chiu, M L, Yamaguchi, S
and Morozumi, M Supporting
collaborative design studios
scenarios and tools, in Gero J,
Chase S and Rosenman M
(eds) Proceedings of CAADRIA
2001, Sydney, Australia (2001)
pp 125134
190
During the last decade, there have been a growing number of collaborative
design projects undertaken jointly by foreign architects and local architects
in Taiwan12. This section summarizes four collaborative design case studies
of how designers work in a distributed environment. Each sub-section has
its own emphasis on process, organization and information.
3.1
The study first selected four cases that required international design collaboration, interviewed the key persons in each project, and collected and
analyzed data transmission, including the files, fax and drawings, in the
early design phases. Table 1 summarizes the participants, the work relationship, major human contacts, and data communication channels of these
four cases: the Fubon Financial Center; the Exhibition Center of Hsintsu Science Park; the Tzung-Tang Hotel/Office Tower; and the Taiwan
Prehistoric Culture Museum.
In all the above cases, the participants were located on two sides of the
Pacific Ocean. For example, in the second case, the Exhibition Center of
Hsin-tsu Science Park, the local architect (Hsih Yi-Jung Architect and
Associates) is located in Hsin-tsu, Taiwan and the design architect (TAC)
is located in San Francisco, USA. The main motive for collaboration is
the know-how transfer, particularly the architectural programming and conceptual design.
Table 1 Summary of four collaborative design cases
Partnership
Data
Communication
3. Tze-Tang Hotel/Office
Tower, Taichung
4. Taiwan Prehistoric
Culture Museum, Taitung
1. Different CAD
systems
(AES/AutoCAD)
2. Exchange of
printouts
Vertically defining 1. Telephone
1. Same CAD
job scope
2. Fax
system (AutoCAD)
3. Face to face
2. Exchanges of
(periodic meetings) printouts
Hsih Yi-Jung
Architect and
Assoc. (Hsintsu)/TAC (San
Francisco, USA)
Chang and Jen
Vertically defining 1. Telephone
Architects and
job scope
2. Fax
Assoc.
3. Face to face
(Taichung)/KPF
(residence on site)
(New York, USA)
Haigo Shen and
Associates, Inc.
(Taipei)/Michael
Grave (NYC,
USA)/SWA
(Boston, USA)
1. Same CAD
systems
(AutoCAD)
2. Exchange of
drawing files by
diskettes
Both firms jointly 1. Telephone
1. Same CAD
design in a parallel 2. Fax
systems
process
3. E-mail
(AutoCAD)
4. Face to face
2. Same layers
(periodic meetings) settings
5. Video3. Exchange of
conferencing
drawing files
through Internet
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192
3.2
The organization
Cases
Team Organization
1. Fubon Financial
Center, 19931995,
Taipei
2. Exhibition Center of
Hsin-Tsu Science Park,
19931996, Hsin-tsu
4. Taiwan, Prehistoric
Culture Museum, 1994
1997
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3.3
Architectural design practice is a project-oriented operation. There are several dependency relationships among group members, including data,
task/process, and temporal dependencies14. The data dependencies are created to specify the basic information such as spatial dimension or materials.
Task or process dependencies determine the sequence of information
occurrence. It was found in the studied cases that organizations are gener-
194
ally formed based on task dependency, and task dependency creates data
dependency. It was also found that communication typically occurred at
the same time among individuals, groups, or projects because tasks are
often overlapped in practice.
There are multiple individual workspaces, which are physically and/or
functionally separated from a group workspace. Group and individual
spaces are constructed to hold the creations and modifications of common
images and domain design expressions, respectively. It is important to
know how generic design information in group space or global workspace
is presented and shared by individuals.
In the Fubon Financial Center, designers used faxes to transmit design
information for discussing or confirming design alternatives. The design
process is cyclic as many researchers reported15. New design information
is added along the design process for refining or redirecting design, and
consequently reducing the search space until the final solution. A cyclic
process of design communication is evidenced by particular themes. Figure
3 demonstrates that orthographic drawings and working drawings with
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notations were used for discussing the details of facade during the construction documentation (CD) stage. Each transmission was indexed, and a serial number was marked. For example, CD-ASK-50 means the design
architect inquired confirmation of detail of facade in the 50th transmission.
In this manner, receivers can keep track of the themes and status of discussion. Furthermore, project managers sent progress reports and memoranda were sent to key persons.
A questionnaire was given to the key persons in the studied cases regarding
their experiences in design communication, including: (1) purposes for
communication; (2) time spent on communication; (3) persons involved in
communication; (4) design communication frequency; (5) design representation in communication; and (6) computer supported systems. The feedback from 20 persons was collected and analyzed. The findings are as follows:
(1) Purposes for communication: as estimated by these local architectural
firms, 78% of communication was related to solving design problems,
while 21% of communication was related to defining the design problems. Sixty four percent of persons considered that ineffective feedback was caused by unclear design information or messages, that
required further explanation or retransmission.
(2) Time spent on communication: on average, 40% of the project time
was spent on communication, while 50% of time was spent on drafting
and design, and 10% of the project time was spent on other tasks. The
effectiveness of design communication becomes critical for designers
to share design information for decision-making and coordinating
design tasks.
(3) Individual versus group communication: communication occurred
among both individuals and groups. The number of people typically
involved in communication is varied from two to four, and each person
may represent a design group or office. However, the communication
was usually narrowed down to the minimum number of people. When
the organization is more hierarchical, less people are involved in communication.
(4) Design communication frequency: as estimated, the frequency of communication varied in response to the type and scale of projects. Internal
communication was more frequent than external communication
because of the convenience of location or schedule. Within the same
group, the frequency of internal communication was about once per
13 days. Within different groups, the external communication was
normally at least once a week.
(5) Design representation in communication: it was found that the major
design representations in asynchronous communication included out-
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4.1
The CDS brings up the issues of where, when, and how design can take
place, while the conventional design studio is more concerned about what
is design, and who is doing design. Four graduate-level design studios,
namely CDS95, CDS96, CDS97 and CDS2000, were studied as shown
in Table 3. These design experiments were undertaken from 1995 to 2000
in several locations and thus create different distributed organizations.
There is a shift from conventional communication and drawing tools to
computer media. All groups in CDS communicated either asynchronously
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Studio Name
Location
Data
Communication
1. Different CAD
systems(AutoCAD/
ArchiCAD)
2. Exchange of
printouts
1. Different CAD
systems(AutoCAD/
Microstation)
2. Exchange of
files
1. Same CAD
system (AutoCAD)
2. Exchange of
printouts
1. Different CAD
systems
(AutoCAD/FormZ/
MiniCAD)
2. Exchange of
files
1. Telephone
2. Fax
3. E-mail
4. Desktop
conferencing
1. E-mail
2. Desktop
conferencing
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4.2
The organization
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Studio
Organization Mode
Task-oriented mode
Team Structure
Site Assignment
Task-oriented mode
200
In CDS96, six teams were organized from two institutions based on task
requirements and job coordination, and each site was assigned to two teams
to study different approaches at the same site. The purpose of CDS96 was
to analyze the interaction among team members. Apparently, the operations
in CDS96 were more complex than CDS95.
In CDS97, key design issues were first identified, and seven teams were
organized based on common interests to address these key issues in the
community project. Color codes were used to represent these issues, such
as red (energy resources), orange (building technology), yellow (social
activities), green (ecological issues), violet (computer and communication
technology), cyan (transportation), and blue (water resources). These issues
were also considered as seven design themes or domains. Each team should
take the lead of one central theme but encourage all other participants to
be involved. Each team then became the expert in one aspect of collaborative design. The team efforts were helpful by negotiation or consultation
to integrate all themes. The theme-oriented mode proved to be more effective than the task-oriented mode in helping each team for sharing information and decision-making.
In the design process, site or task arrangement was used as a design strategy to study communication in collaborative design. Since if the site is
subdivided into smaller lots, design communication becomes more critical
and more complicated. As shown in Figure 4, if only three teams (A, B,
C) participate, the scheme III will have more variation than the scheme I
and II, but the designers will spend more efforts to solve interface problems
in order to balance the difference or maintain a consistent space structure.
However, in architectural practice, the site selection is closed to the scheme
I or II for balancing the requirements for communication and difficulty
among several design groups.
Learning from the above experience, change of team organization is more
flexible and critical than site arrangement for studying design collaboration.
201
4.3
202
17
Yamaguchi,
S
and
Toizumi, K Computer Supported Face-to-face Meeting
Environment for Architectural
Design Collaboration Proceedings of Advances in Computerbase and Web-base Collaborative Systems, InterSymp-99,
Baden-Baden, Germany (2000)
pp 3947
203
204
groups, the external communication was about at least once per day.
The frequency in studios was higher than in practice due to the large
use of telecommunication and computer supported tools.
(5) Design representation in communication: it was found that the major
design representations in asynchronous communication included texts,
sketches, CAD drawing, and computer-rendered images. In synchronous communication, persons preferred the use of the visual presentation plus e-mails or oral explanation. From the behavioral point of
view, while visual communication is the foundation of design collaboration, language barriers in oral communication often imposed a stress
effect on teams as well as technical barriers.
(6) Computer supported systems: most participants prefer the system
should be simple and easy to use, and need message posting or pinup to situate them or co-members in the process.
This section provides a better understanding of the interactions between
organizations and design communication and the implications for future
design practice. There are some similarities and differences of communication patterns between architectural practice and design studios. The
above findings contribute to the basis for the following discussion.
Issues raised
5.1
18
205
5.2
Structured organization
20
206
On the other hand, unstructured collaboration is often found in design studios that do not share goals and requires minimally an open exchange
of ideas and issues among participants20. Whether design studios require
structured organization is still under debate because the intention for design
collaboration is often different from the practice. In design studio, current
design collaboration is organized based on four factors: (1) design orientation; (2) design expertise; (3) design culture; and (4) availability of communication and computer supported systems. Design collaboration is often
applied for searching better results collaboratively through design exploration, but it is difficult to evaluate how it reaches its goals. Nevertheless,
the main advantage of structured organization in studios is to detect communication problems and facilitate the process. The practice provides similar and comparable experience for the studio.
5.3
The case studies and experiments clearly demonstrate the impact of using
new technologies on the collaborative process in design offices as well as
studios. The shift from conventional or manual tools to digital technologies
is a natural trend, while the conventional tools or manual works still can
complement the digital tools. It is found in case studies that interactions
between conventional and digital media are a complex mixture in the
design process. If design communications occurring in the process force
the design development that generates design information, then media
interactions amplify the designers opportunities to reach the goals. The
uses of computer supported systems will enhance design communication.
However, the quality of design is not driven by the technology. Design
communication contributes mostly to the effectiveness of decision-making,
including consultation, negotiation, evaluation, and confirmation.
The above analysis from the preliminary observation provides the impetus
for seeking what are needed in CSCWs. The study starts to examine what
kinds of function that conventional tools are lacking, and what kind of
interface in CSCW can offer for enhancing the interaction in collaborative design.
207
5.4
21
208
Conclusion
Figure 9 A framework of
CSCW
209
The research indicates that collaboration in architectural design can proceed effectively through structured collaboration for sharing design information. Analysis of the processes of design collaboration can serve as the
foundation for support tools. Identification of how organization may interact with design communication enhances our basic understanding of design
collaboration. New computer supported systems or groupware that have
the capacity to support managing information flows by visualization are
required, a computer supported collaborative system can be developed with
the functions of automatically tracking the design tasks and their dependency, and building knowledge into the system to enhance the ability of
communication and coordination.
Due to the emerging role of technologies in the design process, the design
orientation and programme can be changed. Design collaboration requires
consideration of changing design strategies, organization, environment, or
culture in response to the future needs in a distributed environment. The
management skills of dynamic design organization are as important as the
uses of computer supported groupware in such an environment.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the assistance from persons of each studied
project, the colleagues who have collaborated in Collaborative Design Studios over the last 5 years, and students who have participated projects.
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