ANALYZING THE GENERATIVE EFFECTS OF SKETCHES WITH DESIGN THEORY: SKETCHING TO FOSTER KNOWLEDGE REORDERING

Sketching constitutes an essential work tool for designers. On the first hand, sketches allow to externalize ideas, being then very economic cognitively. If they help to process information very quickly, sketches are also an integral part of the thinking process, without which the designer would not be able to access originality and novelty: in particular, the fact that some sketches bring new insights to the designer seems to play an important role for the emergence of ideas. Our research project aims to clarify how architects use sketches to reach generative effects by analyzing their design strategies and the way their drawings can support these strategies. We especially focus on the role of knowledge in comparison to concepts. Three sequences of sketches were analyzed thanks to the C-K design theory: two sequences of thinking sketches and one sequence of talking sketches. We show that most drawings refer to both knowledge and concepts. Moreover, our study reveals that architects carry out through sketching an important work of knowledge structuration. Indeed, generative effects often result from the introduction of new knowledge reordering the initial knowledge basis.

[1]  Masaki Suwa,et al.  SEEING INTO SKETCHES: REGROUPING PARTS ENCOURAGES NEW INTERPRETATIONS , 2001 .

[2]  Armand Hatchuel,et al.  C-K design theory: an advanced formulation , 2008 .

[3]  Paul Rodgers,et al.  Visible ideas:Information patterns of conceptual sketch activity , 1998 .

[4]  B. Tversky,et al.  What Does Drawing Reveal about Thinking? , 1999 .

[5]  Armand Hatchuel,et al.  Teaching at Bauhaus: improving design capacities of creative people? From modular to generic creativity in design-driven innovation , 2013 .

[6]  Remko van der Lugt,et al.  How sketching can affect the idea generation process in design group meetings , 2005 .

[7]  J. Guilford,et al.  The nature of human intelligence. , 1968 .

[8]  Eugene S. Ferguson,et al.  Engineering and the Mind's Eye , 1994 .

[9]  Remko van der Lugt,et al.  Developing a graphic tool for creative problem solving in design groups , 2000 .

[10]  Donald A. Sch.  The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action , 1983 .

[11]  E. Paul Torrance,et al.  Guiding creative talent , 1962 .

[12]  Paul Rodgers,et al.  Using concept sketches to track design progress , 2000 .

[13]  Masaki Suwa,et al.  What do architects and students perceive in their design sketches? A protocol analysis , 1997 .

[14]  Remko van der Lugt,et al.  Brainsketching and How it Differs from Brainstorming , 2002 .

[15]  Paul U. Lee,et al.  How Space Structures Language , 1998, Spatial Cognition.

[16]  Steven M. Smith,et al.  Metrics for measuring ideation effectiveness , 2003 .

[17]  Donald A. and Wigging Glenn Schon,et al.  Kinds of Seeing and Their Functions in Designing , 1988 .