In the second week of Geodesign Change your world, we're going to start diving into some of the key components central to Geodesign. We ended last weeks lecture with two definitions which I'd like to discuss a bit more. Both of these are essentially correct, but neither is perfect in my opinion. I like that Canfield and Steinitz include creation of proposals for change. To me that's at the heart of what Geodesign used to do. This is what we discussed last week regarding creative change. Canfield and Steinitz also include geographic context, which is the idea of being rooted in place from last week's lecture. Remember location, location, location? But McElvaney's definition includes three other aspects that are also very important. Iterative design method, stakeholder input, and smart decisions. All these fall within our topic for this week, which is the three D's of Geodesign. And by the way, the modeling simulations and digital stuff and their definitions, we'll get to that in the next week. If you've looked ahead at the syllabus, and I kind of hope you have, week five is where we're going to get into more specifics about the Geodesign process. However, it's important for you to understand that, when I say Geodesign, at least in this course, I'm referring to a process. And as, McElvaney says, it's an iterative design method. Iterative means that working through a design process is not a linear or sequential process. And in fact, no design process is. But before I get into some of the fun tidbits about design, I want to quickly review the three D's of Geodesign that we'll cover this week. Design, decision and data. I hope it will be clear by the end of this lecture that these are all closely related and in fact reinforce one another. Each week you're introduced to three case studies that illustrate the Geodesign process and results. These case studies are selected to emphasize the change agents for that week. Last week the change agent was flooding. And the case studies showed several different aspects of flooding. Let's think about last week's case studies to begin to understand design. With the change agent flooding, we've identified a problem or a change to be addressed in each of these places. The flooding is what they have in common, how the problem manifests itself in each place is different. For example in Texas, it's the need to address storm surge along the coastline. And in China, it's a desire to honor natural water systems and replace lost wetlands. So what they all share is a critical problem with very specific constraints. We talked about creative change in week one. And here I really need to emphasize the distinction between different types of creativity. For example, artists are creative in how they approach their work too. But their inquiries are more open ended. The creativity of a design process only works if it's bounded by constraints. Tim Brown and his book Change by Design says, the willing and even enthusiastic acceptance of competing constraints is the foundation of design thinking. So, the first key characteristic of the design process, and actually any design process, is that it's a problem-based process bounded by specific constraints. In regards to those competing constraints, Tim Brown goes further in explaining that to address those constraints, it cannot be a linear process. This is the iterative design method that McElvaney refers to in his definition. Many others who've written about this design process, stress this, too. Vijay Kumar's recent book, 101 Design Innovations, uses a four part grid to illustrate the design process. The four parts are; research, analysis, synthesis, and realization. And these are positioned on two axis that range from understanding to making, and from to abstract to real. Kumar maintains that quote, the design innovation process moves back and forth through modes of activity, oscillating between the poles of real versus abstract, and understanding versus making. Design then, is very clearly not a linear or step by step sequential process. We'll get more into process in week five. So here, the point is to emphasize that the second key characteristic of a Geodesign process, is that it's iterative. Let's look again at the case studies from last week to reveal one more key characteristic of design. Each of the case studies mentioned or listed all the players who are involved in the process. Did you notice how many people and types of people were engaged? I bet many of you participated in sports at some point in your lives. So what's needed to win a game? Every member of the team has to do their job, right? But they also have to work together to succeed. It's no different here. In our case studies we can see the expert input was needed because they're dealing with a complex challenge. But we also know the challenge exists in a place. And the people who live there have a stake in what happens. When you start adding up the expertise needed along with the people who care about the outcome, I hope you can see that it's clear that the Geodesign process is kind of akin to a team, team sport. Every person, every position is important, and they all contribute to the overall game plan, and a successful outcome. So the third key characteristics of design, is that it's not a solo act by one designer. It requires a team. So in summary, I've outlined three key characteristics of design for us to to consider and for particular for Geodesign. It's a problem based process bounded by specific constraints. It's an iterative, non-sequential process, and it requires the input and efforts of many. It's a team sport. Okay, building on that we're going to now get into our second D, which is decision. Referring back to the Canfield and Steins definition. Recall that the goal of Geodesign is to create proposals for change. But who gets to decide that proposals any good? In the Geodesign project it's really one individual, even one entity making decisions, often times it's a whole community that needs to come together to form a consensus about a design proposal. So what are they looking for? How do these decision makers even, know, what they want? And do they have the same perspective? Probably not. So this notion of decision is actually fairly complicated. That's why decision is one of the key components of Geodesign. If we want a community, the decision makers to be satisfied with the design at the end of the process, then we need to understand from the beginning, what their needs are. What will people use as their criteria when making a determination? Whether the design is appropriate or not? This relates to the idea we just discussed that the design needs constraints and boundaries. Well, here we have it. These decision makers are going to help set those constraints for the Geodesign project. Decision makers, they don't have answers, but instead they have many questions. Those are going to help the Geodesign team to truly understand the issues and the project's goals, which will enable the team to work toward solutions that will be satisfying to those decision makers. A design can be very powerful, but only with the right fuel. And that fuel is knowledge about what will create value for the decision makers. This is the smart decisions portions of McElvaney's definition. We have one more D. The third D, and the last of our key components of Geodesign, is data. Because we're not going to get very far without the underpinnings of information about a place. All those questions we just said the decision makers have, well we'll need data in order to help answer those and solve the problem. How many of you like mystery movies or mystery novels? There's an intrigue in the unknown. I'd like you to consider the similarities of design and a good mystery. Both are rooted in curiosity and discovery. In the 1950s there was a hit TV show in the US called Drag Net. Many of you may recognize the phrase that Sergeant the Police Sergeant Joe Friday supposedly said during crime investigations. Just the facts ma'am. Apparently he actually said we are only interested in the facts ma'am. But the point is, he was only interested in relevant data. A good designer is like a detective hunting down important information. The data collection part of the Geodesign process is often called the intelligence gathering phase. This is aptly named because we want to be thoughtful and careful, and in other words, intelligent, in seeking the truth about the data we collect. So think of data as the clues that we need to uncover, to solve the mystery that, at this stage, is still our unknown design. One of the cautions with data though, is to avoid information overload. There's a lot of data out there, and more and more available each day. Be, again, you only want data relevant to the problem and the decision makers needs. And, what to me is actually really exciting about this, is that data can reveal things you just wouldn't see otherwise. A fascinating example is the West Philadelphia landscape project. Their analysis revealed the direct correlation between seemingly random pattern of vacant lots, and location of the historic Mill Creek floodplain and its tributaries. The soils and the geology along the former water course simply could not support the housing. So the blue and purple here that's the, the flood plain and the former creek. And then below that, these are the, the multicolored pieces that you see here in the zoomed-in map, that indicates the various types of vacant properties. So as you can see with this example, making unique discoveries is particularly pronounced when working with spatial data, and being able to directly relate that to a place through mapping. Here's that word spatial again, you recall that from last week. There's a whole science and profession based on geographic and geospatial mapping of data. It's called geographic information systems, or GIS for short. Since we're talking about a land-based design process, it probably makes sense to you that, that mapping this data is a good idea. This quote from Tom Fisher sums it up very well. Rather than see information as discrete bits, accessed linearly, like moving along a necklace of data, GIS layers information spatially, linking it according to its relevance to, to other data on a given layer, and according to its relevance to all other layers in a given place. It allows us to map information, which may become the primary way we organize, access and distribute knowledge in the future. And on the right you see a series of mapped data layers. Let's briefly look at an overview of what we mean by data, and in particular, spatial data. Oftentimes data is grouped into related categories, such as physical and biological, and cultural and economic. So physical and biological, that includes everything from the underlying bedrock, to the predominate weather conditions, and the quality of views to and from that place. Cultural and economic data is similarly wide ranging, from how the land is currently being used, to types of transportation as well as legal codes and policies that could impact a place. Now this is just a representative list and certainly not every project will include every type of data. Each item itself actually has a richness in detail. For example, embedded in the term demographics can include population, age, income, household size, gender, level of education, and so forth. Increasingly, organizations and governments are making more and more data widely available. For example, the city of Philadelphia has an Open Data Initiative. Shown here, is some of the data available on their in their Environment category. I hope you can see the possibilities here with our three D's of Geodesign. What we're talking about is linking meaningful data about a place, through an engaged design process that's rooted in what decision makers need. I hope you agree that this is really exciting stuff. 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