Design Ordering Systems	Sources of Form

Apprenticeship Learning in Interdisciplinary and Multi-cultural Environments / the Tejido Group from Panama to Palestine.

Excerpts from an Article published by Frederickson in: The International Journal of Design Education; Vol.6, Issue 3; 2013.

Introduction: for the past thirty-five years the Tejido Group has developed into an interdisciplinary and collaborative applied research program in which faculty, students and professionals in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Planning and Business Management collaborate in apprenticeship-style learning environments. Tejido is also an international and multi-cultural experience focused on a wide range of project types including: sustainable community development, urban and small town revitalization, urban waterfront design, coastal planning, campus master planning, and sustainable tourism development projects in the United States, Latin America and the Middle-East. Tejido has attempted to remain nimble in its ability to adjust and adapt to change within the profession, the projects and the student profile. This in turn, asks that we continually review our process, product, participant selection and training, and at times even suggests that we redefine our purpose. Our founding principles initially arose through affinity with the Bauhausian theory and the early writings of J. Dewey and later D. Schön, and have now migrated into study regarding design education and cognitive apprenticeship learning. The following introduces the purpose, process and products of the Tejido Group through review of recent projects in Panama and in Palestine, including discussion of the often innovative and at times unpredictable educational and professional outcomes. Project selection: Tejido selects projects in which it wishes to participate based on several criteria: 1) project uniqueness and pedagogic value in developing our students into exceptional practicing professionals; 2) client need; 3) the project’s potential impact on society and the environment. Although Tejido has and continues to develop projects through the construction document phase, we primarily focus on the generation of conceptual alternatives for our clients. We concentrate our efforts on developing innovative concepts through the application of research initiative.

Unlike associations with traditional design and planning offices, Tejido offers clients an opportunity to afford in-depth applied research, and the subsequent generation of alternative concepts prior to design development and construction documents. In "real-world" situations, the conceptual design process is often foreshortened when financial resources are strictly limited. As we are essentially a non-profit organization dedicated to the education of our students and the needs of our clients, we can afford to focus our efforts on pre-design research and schematic exploration with our clients in developing complex, yet tailored master planning solutions. We see our relationship with practicing professionals as one of project creation and not of direct competition. We render conceptual design and planning services that otherwise could not be afforded. Tejido assists clients in developing their ideas to the point where they are ready to seek the services of professionals in the design development and construction document phases. The master planning documents we develop become excellent tools for our clients in the solicitation of international, federal, state and private funding. Many past clients have been awarded substantial development grants, and these funds were then used to hire professional firms to execute the design and planning concepts outlined in our conceptual master planning documents. We collaborate with host country counterparts in our international projects in both project selection and in the programmatic development process. We also work in interdisciplinary and international teams when abroad as a means of ensuring project relevance as well as guaranteeing that all participants, including government agencies and NGO's, are committed collaborators. This of course, requires that all participants effectively communicate desired pedagogical and design outcomes for the studio. General sequencing and scheduling strategies are then discussed and developed, and alternative project programs and sites are examined. The host country participants most often take the lead in these tasks as they best understand what projects are most relevant to the needs of their communities. They are also better prepared to articulate central economic, environmental and social issues surrounding the projects.

Participant selection: the globalization of our curriculum is a principal directive within Tejido and includes the development of our students into exceptional practitioners fully capable of working within a range of international fora. As we often work in politically and economically complex multicultural scenarios, selection of potentially effective participants is essential. The call for student and faculty volunteers is in itself a useful pre-selection mechanism. When we ask for volunteers to work in the refugee camps of Palestine, only a select group of individuals usually steps forward. Our selection interviews reveal that most often these individuals are predisposed toward international work and that they are interested in developing a professional set of skills that enable them to function in distressed urban areas around the world. They are usually adventurous at heart, and want to develop a professional and personal relevancy in their ability to address global developmental issues. They usually understand that the globalization of the design and planning professions is requiring of them a new, flexible and comprehensive repertoire of design and planning responses to an array of complex urban development issues.

Pre-immersion Process: we have employed cultural immersion strategies from a number of international organizations including Peace Corps, UNESCO and the U.S. Department of State/ USAID. Prior to travel we immerse potential candidates in a series of orientation seminars that introduce them to key economic, political, environmental and cultural issues of the host country. Language and cultural training along with guest speakers and the viewing of relevant documentaries are quite effective in introducing participants to the realities of the task set before them. We also develop in-country immersion experiences for student volunteers prior to engaging in design activities. For instance, the Palestine project allowed our students several days residence in old city Jerusalem prior to traveling on to our housing and project site near Ramallah. This visit assisted our students in familiarizing themselves with the diverse cultural, political, linguistic and historical aspects of the region, thereby reducing the inevitable "culture shock" felt by most individuals in similar situations. The first early morning call to prayer from the Al-Aqsa mosque adjacent to our hostel created quite a revelation in our students, and the realization that, "we're not in Kansas anymore" became vividly apparent. The streets, the architecture, the food, the music, the languages, the odors, the behaviors slowly began to integrate our daily realities. Our design and planning processes have been hybridized and developed through study of ideation and concept generation and development strategies developed within a number of exceptional design firms.
 

Pre-design Process: although Tejido advance teams visit project sites prior to project initiation, effective liaison with host country faculty, students and professionals is also essential during the pre-design phases of any project. Months prior to our arrival, host collaborators assist in project selection as well as preparation of demographic, cultural, environmental, economic, and site-specific information for us to digest during pre-immersion activities at home. We review this data prior to travel and attempt to distill design and planning precepts/design implications, and sometimes even fledgling site development concepts that can be tested later on site and in early charrette sessions with host country participants. These exercises often help us better understand central issues, site potentials, and also help us identify what we don't know and what we need to further investigate. We believe that designers gain insight and inspiration from a variety of sources. An essential part of our design and planning process occurs during pre-design research. We involve our hosts during this phase, and information garnered from a variety of sources is reviewed and incorporated into the design intentions of our teams of landscape architects, MBA's, planners, and architects. Critical socio-cultural, socio-economic, environmental, functional, and identity-related issues are examined in depth through hybrid qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Our designers then distill relevant design and planning implications from the analysis of the data collected. These bits and pieces of design ideas (precepts), are eventually incorporated into comprehensive design and planning concepts as a form of post-factum hypothesis generation. As part of our pre-design research, our teams and hosts collect information regarding clients and site through extensive case study analysis, video-tape protocol studies, and structured interviews and questionnaires. We also undertake exhaustive site inventories, as well as user-group analysis of the site and surrounding context. During contextual analysis we spend a great deal of time on and around the site as non-participant and participant observers. Some methods we employ approximate those of ethnographers and are qualitative in nature. While others are quite factual and employ low inference descriptor variables, we begin with a large scale contextual analysis – looking for key factors surrounding the site that may influence our design decisions within the site. This may involve detailed analysis of aerial photographs and G.I.S. data. We also photograph the entire site and surrounding urban and natural contexts – looking for existing positive design features unique to the site as well as problem areas in need of attention. These photographic inventories can become quite interesting in areas that rarely see Americans. In Birzeit, one of our students was photographing children playing in a vacant dirt lot and was instantly surrounded by a large group of very curious children. One bold child said something in Arabic to our student and then grabbed her camera and ran into an adjacent derelict structure. The student, being the intrepid traveler that she is, immediately followed the child right into a living room to find him busily taking photos of his entire family. She was eventually invited in and shared a very pleasant afternoon with the family. That afternoon, this student began to learn the language and diminish the boundaries. On another occasion during a site inventory visit outside of Ramallah, three of our students were walking past a fire station. One of the fireman polishing an ancient fire engine yelled something and then walked toward our group. Without a common language the first few minutes were quite awkward yet the encounter resulted in an afternoon well spent singing songs and sharing a meal in the station. In this instance, the common language was i-tune generated. We try and develop a very opportunistic environment regarding design and the generation of design "ideas". Even during data collection and site analysis activities we encourage idea formation. We are continually looking for anything that will give us meaningful lines on paper or monitor. As a summary task of the "pre-design" phase, all participant data collection teams make detailed presentations of their findings to all other Tejido and host design team members. In this manner information is disseminated to all participants and collective design synthesis can begin. These presentations include extensive review of all design precepts generated during the collection and analysis phases. As mentioned, our process encourages design activity throughout data collection and analysis. One general guideline we use is that analysis of fact is incomplete without discussion of the design implications generated by the existence of said fact. These implications are discussed, developed, and faithfully recorded for future synthesis activities. Our international projects most often manifest themselves as intense three or four week charrettes. In this foreshortened scenario, we are most interested in formative not summative feedback. We understand the importance of host and client participation, and that formative feedback and thorough research designs are essential to distinctive design products.

Concept Generation: this phase asks that each individual participant attempts to synthesize issues uncovered during inventory and analysis into cohesive planning and design concepts. The individual concepts are reviewed in exhaustive design synthesis sessions. Focus is maintained on idea-building activities where reviewers are charged with the task of making each concept “better”. Hosts and clients are fully involved during these “formation” sessions. The relative merits of various design ideas are then evaluated according to a variety of design and planning ordering systems that we have embraced over the years. We ask ourselves the following questions:

• Is the design economically viable? Does it create jobs and income sources for the community?

• Is the design environmentally sensitive? Does it connect or enhance existing ecosystems? Does it create new habitat? Does it reduce our carbon footprint?

• Does the design create opportunities for meaningful social exchange and learning? Does it embrace the heritage of a site?

• Does the design circulate effectively? Is it safe? Is it easily maintained?

• Has the design identified and created an aesthetic sensibility appropriate to the history and culture of the region and its vision of the future?

These ordering systems are a form of checklist embedded in our design process, and we believe that an idea’s relevance and usefulness increases according to the number of different ordering systems that it engages. For instance, an idea that concerns itself with only aesthetic issues is not as useful as an idea that fully engages not only spatial and image-related issues, but also explores economic, environmental and social issues as well. A park with flowers is fine, but a park with flowers that meanders its way through a community increasing adjacent land values, creating economic infill incentives within existing infrastructure, mitigating erosion, promoting urban water harvesting, and encouraging meaningful social interaction is a richer, more layered and therefore more relevant concept and eventual urban component. The "best" ideas are recorded, and in subsequent group and individual charrettes, they are synthesized into 2 or 3 optimum solutions. At this point, client review is once again paramount, and alternative concepts are presented in three dimensional detail, including story boarding and digital modeling. Once again, we are interested in formative not summative feedback, and we have found that client feedback is more lucid and fluent when presented with a series of easily understandable images and models rather than two dimensional plan and section drawings.

Concept Development: during this phase, team members are asked to divide themselves into concept development teams according to their personal philosophical alignments regarding the alternative concepts at hand. Each of the alternatives will then receive additional attention. Prototypical focus areas located within the planning concept are identified and developed in greater detail. Ideas from these focus areas may have application to other areas contained within the concept. Ideation has been known to stall at times, and as design inevitably demands recursion, we may jump back into individual or group charrette activities. At other times, we might revisit data collection and analysis phases to better inform our process through the collection of new information or the analysis of old data through new eyes. Internal / external reviews are exhaustive and involved during this period. It is critical that participants have mastered small group dynamics by this stage in the process. Respect and positive idea building are the tools of choice during exhaustive and potentially contentious design tasks.

Working Environment: we have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to explore and at times, develop new collaborative environments and methods of design. We have found that above all else, the process should remain fun; it seems that we often forget what initially drew us to the design professions. This usually means equitable opportunity to participate and share ideas in a respectful and energetic learning environment. Collaborative design can be a miserable experience, or it can be delightful. We believe that enthusiasm for the material, the process, and the people involved in design enables us to effectively build learning environments where ideas flow freely, unimpeded by excessively harsh criticism, and where the advantages of collaboration are consistently apparent. In this context enthusiasm can become motivational, and could be described as an enabling process where participants listen, question, reflect, empathize, and advise in sincere, non-manipulative manners. The task is to look for strengths and possibilities rather than core-defects and inevitabilities. Given the complex nature of the global political, socio-economic and environmental contexts within which we often work, internal and external cultural and political schisms are at times all too apparent. Yet conversely, we often find that cultural and professional commonalities also emerge and become increasingly apparent to all participants involved. We also find that these experiences begin to catalyze better understanding of the potential influences and confines inherent in our design and planning professions regarding their ability to effect meaningful change in urban and small town fabrics. We seek to develop learning environments where mutual interests become increasingly apparent; where participants begin to realize that they are in the process of acquiring an array of global professional skills capable of effecting consequential change; and if we are fortunate enough, an environment where a shared sentiment begins to emerge that we are a part of something significant and enduring.

Implementation Strategies: our approach to phasing avoids purely chronological approaches, and focuses our energy on developing situational matrices for our clients. This type of phasing is based upon occurrences in the economy, demographics, political environments, or environmental contexts of the project, i.e. interest rates, new housing starts, environmental regulations, etc.  We develop discreet development packages for our clients, and we call these modules of development. Given the appropriate political and economic environment, any one (or more) of these modules can be implemented independently from the others.

Product: the following is a brief discussion of products resulting from our processes. We will also attempt to point out and discuss defining moments in the development of our design ideas as well as in the maturation of our students into global practitioners and citizens of the world. In both Palestine and in Panama we were pleased with the relevance and usefulness of both our design and pedagogic products. Several of our students are now living and working in both locations following these projects. This spring semester, Panamanian faculty and students are visiting our University to participate with us on local projects in Arizona. This reciprocation is difficult for the Palestinian students as visa issues have prevented their travel to date, but we will certainly keep trying to make this work. In Panama our client was the Governor of Panama, Mayin Correa, and she received our revitalization master plan with enthusiasm. The design has gone through a preliminary cost estimating process and will be presented to the President of Panama - Ricardo Martinelli for approval this coming December. The Palestine project was very well received by the Mayor of Birzeit - Yusef Nasser, RIWAQ and UNRWA. As funding is a critical issue for the Palestinians, we created a "modules of development" phasing strategy for them that allows the project to be employed through a number of discrete developmental packages that can be initiated individually given the appropriate political and economic environment.

Team Birzeit

Team Panama