Conceptual Framework

Figure 8: Conceptual Framework for the TDET adapted from Zeisel Source: Luc Bagnérès

Figure 8 adapts Zeisel’s design spiral to creation of the TDET as a free-choice learning environment (at the intersection of urban design, museum studies, and education studies) in urban public space. Next required is a group of actors to conceive, design and execute its form.

The “initial image formation” instigating the process in the original is seen here as the

“conception of form”. At the end of this spiral lies execution, defined as the point where the

“decision to build” is made (Zeisel, 1984). Image-present-test cycles (in blue) and the acceptable response (in green) are expanded upon below.

2.6.1. Image-Present-Test Cycles

Zeisel’s design development spiral focuses on its three elementary activities: image-making, presentation, and testing. It was based upon research into the dynamics of the design process conducted by a series of environmental behaviourists in the 1970s, who sought to better work with, and align the efforts of, architects (Hillier et al., 1972; Korobkin, 1976; Simon, 1969).

Zeisel concluded that design is comprised of three core activities organized into a spiral.

One way to envision re-cycling and repetition is to think of design as a conversation among three activities: imaging, presenting, and testing. The discussants remain the same, but the intensity and topics of the conversation

change as time passes. The many adaptations, revisions, and conceptual shifts that take place during design are guided by the designer’s vision of the design process leading to action. Something is built. (Zeisel, 1984, p. 16)

Imaging is “the ability to go beyond the information given, seeing something where nothing seems to have been seen before” (Zeisel, 1984, p .6). Imaging first involves the

formation of a mental image, and then the spatial representation, and working out of that image until it is ready to present. Presenting images then involves the use of sketches, plans, the building of models and photography in order to communicate to an audience.²² Once the presentation of an image is complete, designers may take a step back with a critical eye and test it.²³ By making these attributes of design more explicit, “testing helps designers reimage and re-present their designs with greater precision” (Zeisel, 1984, p. 11). Tests bring about the

possibility of conceptual shifts illustrated by the zig-zag line instigating another image-test-present cycle:

Creative leaping [a conceptual shift] is triggered by testing the presentation of a tentative design response against quality criteria within the situation and its context to find out where the response is strong and where it is weak. (1984, p. 11)

Conceptual shifts are creative leaps that bring a designed form closer to an acceptable response.

These three design activities will be highlighted throughout Chapter 4, which explains

development of the TDET in terms of its elements, in order to provide a clearer understanding of the process.

2.6.2. Acceptable Response

How is an acceptable response assessed? Zeisel understands this through Alexander’s concept of form and context. In his 1964 Synthesis of Form, Alexander discusses “the pursuit of urbanism, the ensemble which confronts us is the city and its habits. Here the human background which defines the need for new buildings, and the physical environment provided by the

22 As Zeisel (1984) states: “designers present ideas to make them visible so that they themselves and others can use and develop them”(p. 8).

23 Testing involves the comparison of image presentations “against an array of information like the designer’s and the implicit images, explicit information about constraints or objectives, degrees of internal design consistency, and performance criteria” (Zeisel 1984, p. 9).

available sites, make a context for the form of the city’s growth” (p. 16). He argues that every design process involves a design problem:

Every design problem begins with an effort to achieve fitness between two entities:

the form in question and its context. The form is the solution to the problem; the context defines the problem. (Alexander, 1964, p. 21)

The form of the TDET responded to multiple scales of context (Figure 9), with the site of Creekside Park, including Science World, as its most important scale.

False Creek and Vancouver may also be seen as larger scales of context, from which the building materials and audience are taken. Once a problem in a scale of context is identified, Alexander argues, the effort to achieve fitness is enabled.

The term fitness is the relation of mutual acceptability between form and context. Fitness may be

understood through “several layers of form-context boundaries in concert”

(1964, p. 18) with an ultimate interest in the ensemble.²⁴ As will be discussed, the TDET design process would need to solve multiple problems of fit between form and context in order to reach a final state of fitness.

Finding this state in the context of False Creek required a high level of understanding on the part of its designers. Yet, as Alexander points out, it is difficult to understand the context of any form:

Understanding the field of the context and inventing a form to fit it are really two aspects of the same process. It is because the context is obscure that we cannot give a direct, fully coherent criterion for the fit we are trying to achieve, and it is also its

24 This follows Cullen’s (1961) concept: “… the environment is one whole and … all these devices are part of the art of linking and joining that whole into a significant pattern rather than allowing it to remain a disjointed and petty chaos” (p. 39).

Figure 9: The form of the TDET must be considered holistically within its various layers of context (Alexander, 1964)

Source: Luc Bagnérès

obscurity which makes the task of shaping a well- fitting form at all problematic.

(1964, p. 21-22)

As Alexander explains, the obscurity of Creekside Park made it difficult to define the qualities of a “well-fitting” form and thus to reach an acceptable response (Zeisel, 1984). All actors could not achieve a fully coherent understanding of the context: it was, rather, comprehended to different degrees by different actors. Here, as in general, finding the fitness of a form was possible only through its design. The process of design, understood here through cycles of imaging, presenting and testing, was what made the qualities of fitness apparent.²⁵

2.6.3. Public and private interface

One of the primary design problems of the TDET was the privatization of public space in Creekside Park. As discussed, the TDET arose within a larger project (the Outdoor Science Experience, or OSE) and was therefore embedded within a larger process of design. Science World was seeking to create, in space that had previously been public, a gated science park accessible only to fare-paying visitors. Kohn (2004) describes the role of design in distinguishing public from private space:

The design and regulation of the built environment can either reinforce or challenge existing patterns of inclusion or exclusion. By structuring people’s perceptions, interactions, and dispositions, spatial practices and architectural markers can mitigate or intensify ingrained social dynamics. One of the purposes of public space is to create a shared set of symbols and experiences that create solidarity between people who are separated by private interests. (p. 6)

Exhibits in the KSSP are exclusive to those who can pay a fee²⁶ whereas exhibits of the TDET are open to any member of the public. For this thesis, the distinction between these spaces will be understood through Ford’s (2012) continuum of publicity/privacy. As seen in Figure 10, private and public space can be seen as lying along a continuum rather than as dichotomous. The terms semi-private, semi-public and public will be used here to define the interface gradient

25 Understood in this way, it would have been almost impossible for the designers of the TDET to have found a seamless fit in their first exhibit sketches. Yet, without the conceptual design presentation, good fit could not be grasped by the designers or the stakeholders. It is through design presentation that tests can then unfold and allow for better images to be developed.

26 To access the boundaries of Ken Spencer Science Park the basic fare ranges from $18.57 for a child to $27.62 for an adult (Science World n.d.).

understood by the designers as they negotiated their compromise. KSSP, restricted and

controlled by Science World, was, because fare-paying, semi-private; TDET’s wetland exhibit, open to the public during the day as a viewpoint into the park but closed at night by Science World, was understood as semi-public; and Creekside Park, the site of all other TDET exhibits, was free to all to use and so, public.

Figure 10: Diagram by Ford (2012) on the continuum of publicity and privacy Reprinted with permission by Taylor & Francis Group

To conclude, authors from three quite separate research fields (urban design, museum studies, and education studies) bring valuable ideas to bear on this case study research. The TDET is thus termed here a learning environment within the outdoor public space of Vancouver (Gislason, 2007; Falk, 2005; Ford, 2012) and will be referred to more simply as a “public learning environment”.