4.2.3.1. Summary of the Design Charrette Activity
The complete storytelling and conversation analysis (presented in Appendix 3) provided an interpretation of the project participants’ interactions in the Design Charrette activity. Following the initial coding scheme (Table 9), participants’ interactions were identified and analysed according to the proposed constructs of mutual intelligibility established in the synthesis of the literature, which are: objectivation, misunderstandings, breakdowns, and
metaphors. Each of these interactions were interpreted and framed as distinct events, in which
project participants were engaged to achieve mutual intelligibility around objects that were brought and/or emerged into this Design Charrette activity.
The diagram below (Figure 28) works as a Cognitive Map, showing how each of these events were mapped according to the proposed key constructs of mutual intelligibility. The numbers show the sequence of events, and the colour scheme is used to relate the events to the design topics addressed, as part of the overall object of the Design Charrette activity (i.e. Team’s Design Object).
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152 This cognitive map highlights three main events, namely 2, 15 and 25, which indicate how a misunderstanding emerged between AL1’s and A4’s divergent interpretations about the
Building Entrance, and how they resolved the situation.
In the event n. 2, AL1 kick-started the design charrette activity by presenting the Brief, as a document, showing and referencing the current “Foot Plan” as a design representation of the current state of the building project activity. She also commented on the selected Design
Topics, which were summarised in four keywords: Existing Campus, Punched Window, Curtain Wall + Glazing and Materials (Figure 26). At the time, no one questioned the selection
and the nature of those objectivations and how they were embodied into the artefacts (e.g. design representation and design concepts). Therefore, it can be argued that mutual intelligibility around the current state of the design task was initially assumed based on the result of this interaction. More specifically, AL1 and AL2 seem to have assumed that everyone had a shared understanding of what the design representations and images meant for the group. Such assumption was also made about the meaning of the words used to describe the selected
Design Topics. Hence, as the Brief presented to the group was conceived by AL1 and AL2,
after their involvement in the previous design charrette activity, it is possible to argue that their
appreciative systems gave origin to certain assumptions on how and what the other participants
should interpret about the current state of the project situation.
However, later on, during the exploration mode, there was a moment (i.e. Event 15, see Appendix 3, p. 246) when A4 indicated that she had a different interpretation about those initial design representations (e.g. Foot Plan + Perspective). This was then revealed to be a conflict of understanding between her interpretation and AL1’s interpretation of the building entrance. This sequence of events showed that the initial assumption, that everybody was interpreting the representations similarly, was proved wrong. In this case, the misunderstanding may have been caused by A4’s lack of understanding of the representation or her inattention to some aspects of the representation. However, after this revelation, A4 and AL1 continued working on their individual conceptions of the Emergent Design Topic: Building Entrance. Later on in the task, during the presentation mode, this misunderstanding was exposed again, but in more depth and involving the whole group (Event 25, see Appendix 3, p. 259). This interaction supported the breakdown of the individuals’ assumptions about the building entrance. At this event, the participants engaged in a set of questioning and explanatory interactions to
153 collectively understand the reasons behind these diverse interpretations, and the nature of the assumptions embedded in their individual perspectives.
Similarly, referring to how participants interacted in the two previous design charrettes, AL2 suggested that interactions between different disciplines usually involved such a breakdown of individuals’ assumptions (AL2’s answer to the researcher’s questions at the end of the activity):
“We actually had a contractor and the mechanical subcontractor… so we had the actual people who is gonna build it… and then someone would say ‘well this what I would like’ and then somebody else would say ‘well, have you thought about this?’ So there was a lot of different takes between all the people that is designing and building it... and all the systems and exteriors… and the owner, who is gonna pay for it.”
In another moment (Event 18), during the exploration mode of activity, AL1, A4 and GD started a playful conversation about the idea of a “pyramid”, which was suggested by the client as a reference to the pyramids in the existing buildings in the campus. In this interaction, they expressed how, in their view, it would not fit to the current concept of the proposed building envelope design. Through this breakdown, GD suggested the idea of putting a pyramid as a sculpture in the courtyard. However, up until that moment, the idea of a pyramid was still a loose concept in the project and the discussion of individuals’ views of the purpose of the pyramid had not been explored. Thus, GD tried to achieve mutual intelligibility about this Emergent Design Topic (i.e. the Pyramid) by questioning and then discussing her conception of a Sculptural Element with AL1. The conversation was developed and led to the collective evaluation of GD’s conception of how a Sculpture as the proposed objectification of the Emergent Design Topic Pyramid could be implemented. Interestingly, in this case, in addition to the use of graphical representations, GD also uses gestures to describe her conception and to support mutual intelligibility (Figure 57 and Figure 58, in Appendix 3).
The use of a metaphors to bridge an understanding and achieve mutual intelligibility on design topics was noticed a few times during the Design Charrette Activity (Events 2, 12 and 14, in Appendix 3). The most significative ‘metaphor’ event took place at the end of the briefing (Event 2), when AL1 tried to explain her perspective about how they should approach the main objective of the session: to design the exterior of the MOB. In her concluding argument, she used the combination of two metaphors within a comparison: the cousin vs. the twin building. This would make it clear that the new MOB should fit into the context of campus, but at the same time it should not look exactly the same as the existing buildings. By using these
154 metaphors, AL1 expected to summarise the whole argument presented earlier as the Brief for the Design Charrette activity.
4.2.3.2. Key issues regarding the organisation of Design Charrette Activity
The individuals invited by AL1 and AL2 to participate in this Design Charrette activity were not involved in the conception of the structure of the activity. The Architect Leaders established the way in which the activity should be conducted, and controlled the session in a way that supported this plan. This seemed to have influenced the behaviour of the other participants who, on some occasions, relied on AL1 and AL2’s impressions (i.e. interpretations) of the situation. Interestingly, most of the breakdowns interactions seem to emerge in relation to these previously defined aspects of the design proposal. Consequently, design decisions made in the previous Design Charrettes (1 and 2) were not under revision and became a ‘known fact’ in the project, even if they became incompatible and in contradiction with new propositions.
Another issue identified in this case was that, by the end of the Design Charrette activity, the participants didn’t take the opportunity to discuss within the context of the group the potential performance of the alternatives presented. Basically, each participant presented their own idea, as an alternative for the building envelope (or even just the façade scheme) to the group, and explained the rationale behind that idea. However, there was little discussion across the whole set of the ideas presented. One could say that the interactions during the presentation of these ideas were superficial, in a sense that there was little reflection on the overall performance of each idea, for example checking for interdependency with other systems and the performance of the expected situation, or even doing a comparison between them. It could be said that this would be crucial, considering that these interactions would improve the support regarding decisions being made and allowing the Architect Leaders to keep moving and evolving the project.
One possible reason for the lack of collective reflection on the interdependency and combination of design proposals may be due to the fact that participants who were invited to contribute to this activity by the Architect leaders would not necessarily be engaged in future stages of the project. Consequently, it seems that they were not concerned with potential interdependencies and consequences of their proposition in relation to the other disciplines in the project. In other words, it was not part of their brief to consider how their proposed actions would affect the actions (proposals) of other participants (i.e. engineers and contractor) in the task.
155 In addition, the observed behaviour at the end of the task suggested that one of the Architect Leaders (AL2) would become responsible for “synthesising” a proposal, based on his (maybe supported by AL1, but this was not clear) interpretation of the ideas presented. As was mentioned in the comments post session, a similar procedure was adopted after the first and second Design Charrette Activity. Such synthesis become subject to AL2’s own appreciative system, which might “filter” aspects of the collective reflection engaged in the activity.
4.2.3.3. Key Findings and Proposition: The Dynamics of Mutual
Intelligibility
This study showed that misunderstandings can be considered a natural emergent feature of early project collaboration. In this case, the emergence of diverse understandings in a project activity is not what hampers collaboration, but rather it becomes problematic when they are not perceived, revealed and resolved, which can lead to a situation where project participants hold wrong assumptions and expectations among their interactions.
Misunderstandings seem to happen when participants hold wrong assumptions emerging from their perceptual interactions with the other players. These misunderstandings eventually become exposed through dialogue and also from their interactions with the artefacts in the situation. Diverse understandings in a project activity emerge and are manifested through the artefacts that participants create and choose to embody their objectivations (i.e. interpretations) in the task.
In most of these occasions, participants seem to objectivate the situation based on assumptions about a topic or the way that others historically interpreted that topic in the situation. When these diverse understandings are revealed and exposed in time, it can lead to opportunities to explore and expand different ways to perceive the situation, as well as ways to conceive different design alternatives, benefiting the collection of participants in the task.
In order to resolve these conflicts of understanding and try to reach mutual intelligibility, the project participants, who perceived the conflicts as contradictions, engage in interactions to review and reposition their interpretation. The case study showed that this involved breakdown interactions, with explanatory and causal reasoning linked to questioning behaviours among them. Since individuals’ interpretive interactions leading to diverse understandings are affected by the way they frame the situation, according to their appreciative systems, to expose different perceptions in the project activity requires participants to engage in collective explanatory interactions (e.g. asking and describing). Such collective reflective practice can help them
156 break down assumptions (that might be proven to be wrong), especially about other participants’ work contributions.
Moreover, the study showed that the dynamics of mutual intelligibility involved in the resolution of misunderstandings in early project activity require the breaking down of assumptions, and need to bridge understandings across different individuals, with different appreciative systems. One way of doing this is through the use of metaphors. In this case, project participants use metaphors as explanatory interactions, constructing new “explanatory artefacts” that help them bridge different frames of understanding (i.e. appreciative systems), and collectively establish predictions about future states, in order to collaborate in the project activity.
In this exploratory case study, individuals’ interactions seem to have involved dynamic
iterations of (1) objectivations (2) misunderstandings (3) breakdown (4) metaphors to build
mutual intelligibility among the participants (Figure 29). In such iteration, project participants use verbal, written and graphical artefacts to explore, break down and expand their collective understanding about the object of activity (e.g. the Building Project), supporting collaboration in the task.
Figure 29: Dynamics of Mutual Intelligibility at Early Project interactions
Therefore, early project collaboration seems to require that participants perceive and embrace the dialectical nature of mutual intelligibility, and to work upon misunderstandings emerging from different perceptions founded on individual appreciative systems. The study showed that
157 misunderstandings become manifested through diverse artefacts of interaction (i.e. verbal argument, graphical representations, organisational processes), and the dialectical nature of interactions to reach mutual intelligibility in the early project collaboration can potentially review, reposition and re-construct their collective interpretations, and the overall activity. In this case, the proposed model of dynamics of mutual intelligibility (Figure 29) could be used as a framework to investigate how early project collaboration is constructed in a broader sense. In this case, this framework could be used to identify how project teams map and reflect on their interactions at the early project stage. By focusing on mapping the dynamic set of objects of activity, it would be possible to expose diverse interpretations over these objects, and identify how collaboration is socially constructed, especially at the early stages of a construction project activity. Such inquiry is presented in the following section, as the In-depth Case Study.
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In-depth Case Study
As part of the explanatory stage of this research, and following the answers obtained in the exploratory case study, the In-depth Case Study was designed to address the main research question:
Q5: How is Early Project Collaboration constructed?
This study started from the assumption that Early Project Collaboration can be interpreted as a socially constructed and dialectical activity. Thus, the inquiry concentrated on identifying how the key constructs of collaboration (Table 9), named in this thesis as auxiliary objects in the project activity (section 2.4.4 and Figure 17, p. 112), were socially constructed by the stakeholders’ interactions, in terms of further objectivations, as situational objects, at different instances of the project activity. This inquiry also considered the embodiment of these objects into mediating artefacts, events, assembles and approaches in the activity.