Archi Culture Cafe NUMBER THREE

The lecture this week was about professional values and I'd like to share with you the useful notes I took throughout.

• Design theory and Design understanding and the crossing of cultures of architects / designers / users and clients
• The designer must "maintain a commitment to openness and difference" and make an effort towards "understanding a country's culture and practices"
• Professional values are defined by the education and values of the field
• Clients and users assume that their values will be accommodated in the end result. Sometimes these don't match with the designer's values. This may lead to the viewing of a client as "uneducated" in the design language
• A design project could be rated according to its reviews by other designers, as opposed to the level of client satisfaction, both now and in the long term. -> Design inconsistencies or client satisfaction!?
• ALIGNING VALUES: a complex web of human dynamics are fundamental to design decision making
  -> social aspects of design
• MASLOWS HEIRARCHY OF NEEDS is a good thing to consider in relation to this
• The values that you hold as a designer in practice will contribute to the selection process of clients and users when selecting designers to hire - a particular set of values that draw a client to you as a designer
• Use participatory methods of designing and have a sensitivity to the cultural as the soul of design.

The activity in the tutorial this week was to think of a few objects or concepts that could be presented as metaphors for culture. Our group came up with three and here are some notes about each that were recorded during the discussion. The recorded notes are in green and my thoughts follow.

Culture is a CAVE

• Some elements are visible immediately and from the outside.
• The deeper you delve the more information you will receive.
• There are many different aspects - this shows how culture, although it seems like it from the outside, isn't one element or phenomenon but rather a collection of ideas, actions, morals, etc, that collaboratively contribute to culture. To understand a culture, its 'avenues' have to be understood.
• To explore a cave a light is needed. In terms of culture, the light is like the knowledge gained from your explorations into the various aspects of a particular culture.
  
  Whether by immersion or research, delving into a culture would inevitably teach you more about a culture. The thing about the cave is that you have to be brave enough to walk in, taking the risk that something hairy might jump out at you. Not that something hairy will jump out at you from a culture or its aspects, but I think this risk taking is kind of like being willing to understand a way of thinking or living that is different to what you are used to.

Culture is a HUMAN BODY

• Sums of the parts contribute to the running of the whole
• The organs each have their own value, but the body can not function without all of them working and functioning simultaneously
• Some parts may seem more prominent than others but still could not function as individual units
  
  This metaphor is interesting because of the way I understand the aspects of culture to work with each other. Like I mentioned in a previous post, the relationship between architecture and culture is cyclical - one aspect bears a reason for existing because another aspect came into being due to yet another. Then marking this up against the human body metaphor, for example the veins don't have a reason for existing without blood - which translates to one aspect/function of culture not existing without another.

Culture is a TREE

• The roots are like cultures historical beginnings and precedents
• Age rings are layers upon layers of growth and added richness
• The trunk is like the culture as a whole - what everything stands upon
• The branches are the breaking up of the trunk/culture into smaller parts, this is where they are understood
• The tree continues to grow and change - both from internal and external influences
  
  I like this metaphor because it makes reference to the history of a culture. Similar to the human body metaphor, a culture couldn't exist without an origin or a history. Also I like the tree because it refers to evolution and the constant alive-ness of a culture - how it moves and grows with the ages and gathers aspects along the way (layers in its trunk).

In this tutorial we had to hand in a personality survey that we were given in the last session, which focused on our personalities with regard to roles in a team. My results told me that as my primary role I am the Implementer and my secondary role is the Plant. The implementer is someone who mediates and provides direction for research and avenues to take in sticky sitches. The plant is someone who is often off with the fairies and unreliable but who comes up with awesome plans and ideas. I think I vary between both, probably if I'm being truthful I tend to be the unreliable plant more, but I am glad that mostly I can be seen as the Implementer and I will try my hardest to make this the whole case in the future.
The make up of my group consisted of (I think) three Implementers, one Finisher and one Coordinator. Pretty sweet.