Design teams are increasingly becoming project-based and hence temporary.
This transition can be seen everywhere, from large organizations to internet-based virtual teams. This is facilitated by advanded technological tools and organizational restructuring. The proposed PhD research aims to identify the influence of the technological tools and organizational structure on the social behavior and group dynamics in temporary design teams.

This Wednesday's seminar will consist of six short talks regarding what's hot and what's not in the field of Design Computing, as seen at the midyear conferences.

XIANGYU WANG:
Joint International Conference on Computing and Decision Making in Civil and Building Engineering The 3rd International Conference Computer Graphics, Imaging and Visualization

MARC AUREL SCHNABEL:
CAADRIA 2006: Rhythm and Harmony in the Bit-Sphere

MIKE ROSENMAN:
Design Computing & Cognition

ANDY DONG:
Design Computing & Cognition
International Ergonomics Assocation (Symposium on Methodological principles for analysing and assessing collaborative design)
Coling/ACL2006 (via Jianxiong Wang)

KIRSTY BEILHARZ:
Will talk about her research expositions in Japan and USA.

PETRA GEMEINBOECK:
To be advised.

The Innovative Design and Manufacturing Research Centre (IdMRC) is one of fourteen centres of excellence for manufacturing research in the UK. Bath’s IdMRC is the only one of these Centres to focus on the design and manufacturing interface. The Centre employs over 40 fulltime researchers working on a variety of projects in the areas of manufacturing processes and systems, design technologies and design information and knowledge. The first part of the seminar will provide an introduction to the University of Bath and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The second part of the seminar will introduce the research Centre and present a range of current research projects within the three areas of manufacturing processes and systems, design technologies and design information and knowledge.

The Aesthetic Effect investigates the correlation between perceived aesthetic beauty and a pleasurable user experience. Do we tend to have more patience with interfaces that we feel are visually appealing? This presentation reviews initial results from an online survey conducted to comparatively test eleven common visualization techniques in the categories of analytical beauty, efficiency and perceived aesthetic.

Reinforcement learning agents require a learning stimulus in the form of a reward signal in order for learning to occur. Typically, this reward signal makes specific assumptions about the agent's external environment, such as the presence of certain tasks which should be learned or the presence of a teacher to provide reward feedback. For many complex, dynamic environments, design time knowledge of the tasks to be learned, or the presence of a teacher, cannot be assumed. In order to extend reinforcement learning to such environments, this paper presents a model of motivation as an intrinsic reward signal based on the concept of events, which relaxes these assumptions. The model uses context-free grammars as an adaptable representation of environments about which there is limited design time knowledge, and events to represent potential learning tasks as changes in the agent's environment. Within this framework, we evaluate a computational model of interest as a motivation process. This evaluation is performed in two reinforcement learning settings, flat reinforcement learning and hierarchical reinforcement learning, in terms of learning efficiency, behavioural variety and behavioural complexity. We show that motivation based on general, task-independent concepts are able to motivate learning of multiple, task-oriented behaviours in environments where neither design time knowledge of the tasks to be learned nor a teacher
is available.

It is often difficult to predict which optimization algorithm would provide the best results for a given problem. Also, designers frequesntly reformulate the model in the process of finding a best or optimal solution. Both these tasks rerquire experiential knowledge which is not formally captured in any domain, and is developed through interactions with the problem. This seminar will look at a preliminary system architecture which has been developed for an agent based (single and multi) environment for partially automating and providing support for the problems of algorithm selection and model reformulation in optimization based on capturing this interactive experiential knowledge and formalizing it.The architecture is a design domain independent one, i.e. it is built purely on mathematical domain knowledge, enabling it to be used for any design problem which may be stated in a mathematically standard form. Situatedness and constructive memory are applied as approaches for developing the reasoning and learning (memory) system for agents. A preliminary implementation will be a single agent environment. A multi-agent environment will look at many situated agents in collaborative settings, enabling hybrid selection of design prototypes and algorithms at runtime, depending on the specific design situation.

Design is a field that encompasses many disciplines and professions (e.g. engineering, arts and architecture, digital media, fashion design and others). But how are knowledge and identity specialized in the design field (and within the different disciplines)? When learning a professional trade, besides learning specific procedures to perform, one has to learn the “rules”, “processes” and “language” of the field. The understanding of such processes is essential – it is through these that one actually establishes a sense of what is a legitimate practice in a given field. This research draws on Bernstein’s theory to explore how those who are new to the design field learn about this specialized knowledge, within an informal environment. The aims of the project are to investigate how new designers recognize and characterize design practices, within four sub-disciplines of design: engineering, architecture, digital media and fashion design; and to define and implement ways of supporting new designers’ inquiry, through an ICT mediated learning environment.

Archi Bond Graphs (ABGs) have been developed as an energy-based unified representation for building design that can be used for simulation.
Qualitative Archi Bond Graphs (QABGs) draw on qualitative physics and use discrete symbols to represent and simulate dynamic properties of different building constructs. ABGs and QABGs can be applied in both space-people system and building energy system. This seminar presents QABGs application for simulating interaction between people behaviour and building energy.

The seminar gives insights to a unique coupling of an architectural urban design studio with an in-depth digital media course in order to explore new ways of architectural expression, form finding and communication. It presents the variables, goals and outcomes of this design studio as well as its integration of digital parametric design that allowed the participants to create innovative urban design language, based on parametric descriptions. The seminar portrays the educational approach; the way parametric computer design tools have been introduced, as well as the process and outcomes of the studio. It discusses implications on design education as well as understanding and communicating of complex design tasks that are responsive to a variety of parameters.

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate whether spatialization can enhance segregation of two concurrent audio streams. My presentation will describe the experiment recently conducted and demonstrate preliminary analysis of results.

With recent developments in communication and information technology there has been increasing research into the role and the impact of computer media in collaborative design. This paper presents a case study that compares two designers collaborating in three different types of virtual environments with face to face (FTF) collaboration. The aim of the study is to identify similarities and differences between remote locations in order to have a better understanding of the impact of different virtual environments on design collaboration. Our results show that the architects had different designing behaviour depending on the type of external representation: they developed more design concepts, and had more design iterations through analysis-synthesis-evaluation while designing FTF and in a remote sketching environment; while the same architects focused on one design concept and making the design when designing in 3D virtual worlds.

This seminar will introduce the implementation of the appraisal system for design document and some results from real design document will also be shown.

The geometric structuring of project descriptions enable and constrain building intentions, affording systematic approaches to design and construction. Digital modeling supports descriptive frameworks founded on more powerful, more general geometries, providing new opportunities for innovation in building strategies. This lecture explores the description of systematic building intentions as geometric logics, and the impact these structures have on project form and building process. Of key interest is the means by which descriptive systems interact, and the translation of project intent across domains through geometric transformations. An inquiry into representation and the structuring of building intentions will be illustrated through examples from research and practice. Emerging opportunities for practice, research and education suggested by this inquiry will be presented.

Dennis R. Shelden is a founder and Chief Technology Officer of Gehry Technologies, a building industry technology company formed in 2002 by the research and development team of Frank Gehry Partners. He joined Gehry Partners in 1997 and became director of the firm’s computation efforts in 2000, where he was responsible for the management and strategic direction of the firm's technology efforts. Prior to joining Gehry Partners, he performed structural engineering, energy systems and technology development work at firms including Ove Arup & Partners, Consultants’ Computation Bureau and Cyra Systems. Dr. Shelden lectures and conducts research in building industry process advancement and in design computation and cognition, and has been a visiting lecturer at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and MIT. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Art and Design, a Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and a Ph. D. in Design and Computation from MIT.

Note: This is a different presentation to one at 6pm on the same day.

The aim of the research is to develop an agent that is able to discover design variables in order to extend its space of possible designs. Design activity is said to be routine if it is the search for a solution within well-defined space of possible designs. This space of possible designs can be extended during design activity, giving access to design solutions not
previously conceivable. When this occurs, the design activity is said to be creative.

There is a gap between our understanding of creative design and our understanding of how it is carried out. It is hypothesised that this gap can be addressed by looking closely at the way in which an agent interacts
with its world. Existing research looks at analogy, where the agent’s experiences in the world give it a basis for applying variables to the design problem to extend the space of possible designs. This research takes a different approach to the same problem by utilising the agent’s ability to determine its future experience and its control over actions; agents that move from actions to reflection upon the sensations caused. It looks at agents that conceive of experiments in order to discover behaviour variables that can be used in design activity.

Sheryl Soo: Scratching Datasets
In the artform of turntablism, “scratching” involves cueing a music track to a specific section via manually rotating a vinyl record by hand. It is a search process – navigating the music via scratching, in an attempt to find matching pieces and correlations in the music that can be mixed together to form a creative composition. This research opportunity explores the use of a Disc Jockey scratching interaction metaphor in Information Visualisation. The presentation will outline the research carried out in the semester and will demonstrate the prototype developed to investigate this notion.

Leon Spencer: The Distributed Clockwork Muse (and What I Did To Her When I Found Her):
Creative Societies as Tools for Creators
An agent-based grid networking platform, Agency, was created in order to distribute the Digital Clockwork Muse, by Rob Saunders. In the seminar, the architecture of Agency is discussed, and the experimental data from running the system is presented, with an eye towards further research into using artificial creative societies to support creators.

Soundspace installation utilises motion-sensing technology to generate sound in response to gesturing by the participant. The mapping, or procedure that translates gestural input to audio output, is the generative mechanism that characterises the interactive experience. Analysis of gestural responses to different mapping techniques builds understanding about interaction in novel sound environments. This seminar presents work towards developing an adaptive mapping system in which distributed sound particles build collective responses to gestural patterns through local adaptation.

Mitchell Page: TeamAwear – User-Centred Design and Evaluation of a Wearable Display for Team Sports
This work explores the user-centred development and evaluation of a wearable display system for team sports, termed TeamAwear. Wearable displays are clothing embedded devices that communicate information about a wearer to the surrounding public. Designed specifically for basketball, the system aims to actively enhance the awareness and understanding of a team sport for its stakeholders, including players, referees, coaches and the spectators, without negatively disturbing its game-play.

Kazjon Grace: An exploration of learning and perception in analogy
This research investigates the role of past experiences in computational analogy-making. A model of situated analogy is developed and its place in situated agency and application to the design agent domain are described. A learning module is integrated into an existing analogical problem-solving system. The modified system is compared to the original analogical problem-solving tool to quantitatively determine its capabilities, and then qualitatively evaluated with respect to the properties of a situated analogical system.

Melinda Hughes: Orienteering through Museums: Using learning theories and game
characteristics to support collaborative learning
This reseach focuses on the development of a technological infrastructure that supports educational games and activities that require mobility, collaboration and interaction with artifacts. Orienteering through Museums is an educational game that evaluates the infrastructure and is played in multiple museum environments.

The purpose of the research is to investigate the potential of augmented environments to develop forms of alternative geographies that can describe the complexity of cultural strata embedded in a territory.

Mundoes, a word used by Aboriginal people to define the Ancestors’ footprints, is the both the title and the aim of the research proposal about memories of lost geographies, whose attempt is to reveal traces of cultural permanences submerged in the layers of physical space. Mundoes aims to retrace fragments of Indigenous memories stratified into the urban fabric through the application of locative sensing technologies. The project investigates the ambiguity and indeterminacy of the liminal space between virtual, where memories and cultural traces are displaced, and physical spaces, where the process of discovery and revelation is attained through exploration. Landscape, therefore, becomes a medium through which alternative systems of orientation are conveyed and where navigation is performed in a non-linear way through zones of connections whose boundaries are constantly reconfigured.

The project follows the undercurrent of critical theories that from the Dadaists, to the Situationists Movements, to Land artists’ experiments, to the latest theorizations on nomadic design and ubiquitous computing enquire the notion of  “place” in the mutant nature of contemporary space as a territory in becoming. The project aims to create an immersive, interactive, narrative environment where orientation or dis-orientation is achieved by users’ wanderings so that new visions, perceptions and awareness could be aroused.

The results from this research will allow a reappraisal of the role of individuals to experience lived spaces creatively and to redefine the use of public spaces as learning environments where the self is engaged in a process of erratic discovery through cultural boundaries and historical sedimentations.

The working patterns of architects changed progressively towards more abstraction. Augmented Reality (AR) technology will allow to reintegrate craft and design enhanced with the advantages of simulated representation. Borders between information, architecture and design dissolve. Nevertheless, flexible and interfaces for the handling of immersive cooperative design work are missing. This presentation spans across the theoretical implications, the software development and evaluation of an augmented reality aided architectural design tool.

The aim of my thesis was gaining a better understanding of the collaborative processes of actors from different disciplines, during product design processes in industry. We focused on the process of creating shared understanding, which is a part of collaborative design. During empirical research, we investigated what factors influence the creation of shared understanding between actors in collaborative design projects. Additionally, we examined the collaborative mechanisms that occurred in these projects. (Collaborative mechanisms describe what influence the barriers and enablers have on the collaborative design process.) We choose case studies as research strategy. In order to execute case studies, we used a technique called learning histories. The learning history method is based on a form of ethnographic story telling called jointly told tale. Jointly told tales make it possible to incorporate experiences of the actors with the (objective) viewpoint of the researcher. My thesis consists of two case studies (Case 1 and Case 2). Case 1 was executed in an automotive company and was set up as a retrospective case study. The aim of Case 1 was gaining a first insight in the factors that influence the creation of shared understanding in a collaborative design project. Furthermore, we wanted to know what the collaborative mechanisms were that existed in the case. Case 2 elaborates on Case 1. Case 2 was about a design project of tunnel technical installations for the Dutch high-speed train trajectory. Case 2 was set up as a real time case study. The purpose of Case 2 was gaining a deeper insight in the factors that influence the creation of shared understanding and the collaborative mechanisms that occurred in the case. Finally, we compared the results of Case 1 and Case 2. One result of my thesis is knowledge about the factors that influence the creation of shared understanding between actors from different disciplines. Additionally, it provides a rich description of different types of collaborative mechanisms that could be distinguished in both cases.

My Special Studies Program (June-December 2005) provided an opportunity to learn more about cutting-edge software and research developments in analysis, synthesis, real time interaction and gestural control of sound and sonification. This was facilitated by a month-long training program at IRCAM (Institute for music/acoustic research and coordination) in Paris and residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts. This seminar will discuss research ideas developed during this time and liaisons with individuals and groups with similar research and educational concerns: at IRCAM Paris, ZKM (Centre for Art and Media Technology) in Karlsruhe (Germany), IEM (Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics) in Graz (Austria), Tokyo University A.I. Lab. These concepts are implemented in some new creative sound works using generative design and gesture-controlled interaction. Time permitting, we will squeeze in some travel snaps, too.

This research presents a study of the comparison of tangible user interfaces and graphical user interfaces on designers’ spatial cognition. We conducted and analysed four collaborative design and seven individual design experiments using the protocol analysis method. We focus on characterising the impact these user interfaces have on spatial cognition, which can be a basis for guidelines on tabletop design system configuration.

My research is about what makes me tick. What makes me curious? Why am I interested in things? What drives me to explore new ideas? In this presentation, I'll discuss some of my earlier work developing computational models of curiosity in design and present some research areas that I'm keen to explore now and in the future. I hope you'll find it interesting.

Design optimization supports routine designing, where all the requirements are known at the outset of the design task. In conceptual designing, all requirements are not explicitly defined at the beginning of the process.
Some requirements and information about the design are discovered through the process of designing and the design experience itself. Human designers typically use experience based knowledge to guide future designing. Stated in optimization terms, goals, variables and constraints can change, giving rise to a modified solution space within the same design experience. Local choices are guided by the information collected from the search space; enacting these local choices gives rise to a modified solution space.
This cannot be handled by traditional search models of optimization.
There is a lack of learning the domain and process knowledge that arises through the experience of solving a design problem in most computational optimization environments, because of the hard-coded static nature of the tools.
This research proposes an alternate approach to design optimization where the optimization tool adapts itself to the problem’s behavior derived through the interactions between the tool, the user and the problem and constructs experience based knowledge (the situated paradigm).
The research proposal sets out the objectives, conceptual model and research plan for fulfilling the main aim of formulating a framework for situated design optimization.

The Sentient has been established as a research lab in which sensed environments can be made self aware and self conscious. There is work in progress to establish the sensors and effectors for The Sentient, along with agent models that create sentience. This seminar will present ideas and invite discussion to extend and combine approaches to creating a sentient space.

Multidisciplinary investigation is involved in sonification research such as acoustics, psychoacoustics, ecology, cognition and human computer interaction. There is a large amount of literature in these domains. That provides an understanding about the capacities of human operators to perform tasks and how people perceive and process information, but sonification research and design lacks empirical evidence on which to base design decisions. The purpose of this proposal is to fill the gaps in the empirical literature.

Can spatialization enhance stream segregation? The argument arises. On one side it is reasonable to expect the peripheral spatial separation advances in enhancing the audibility of two streams, as well as reducing confusion between them. On the other hand, some state that the listener would be distracted by the divided attention. This study is designed to examine systematically the effect of spatially separated configuration on the ability of listeners to recognize contents of streams.

In this seminar I will look into different tabletop design systems available around the world. I will describe different tabletop systems and see how they can be used to support collaboration in design. Advantages and disadvantages in the current available systems will be discussed in the light of the development of a tabletop working environment that supports collaboration in design more effectively.

My research aim is to find out how designers appraise the process of their design practice, their product/artefact, and their own or other's affect and capability. According to Orthony's distinction between affect and emotion, the language of appraisal deals with designers' valenced reaction to the design context or situation. The boarder aim of the research is to discover and systematize computationally a means to analyse a large body of design texts to discover the affective contents and processes that underlie, regulagte and influence design cognition.

Meaningful learning will only take place if it is embedded in the social and physical context within which it will be used. The context of activity is an extraordinarily complex network of features and is only context aware if it can extract, translate and apply the context information and adapt its functionality to the current context of use. Mobile educational systems have started to emerge as potential education environments supporting situated learning and context awareness.

Recent developments in virtual environments and the availability of high bandwidth networks have the potential to bring significant changes in the way that Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) professionals collaborate and design. Despite these developments, designers still prefer traditional face to face collaboration. This paper presents a case study that compares two designers collaborating in 3 different types of virtual environments with face to face collaboration. The aim of the study is identify similarities and differences in design process and communication in order to have a better understanding of the impact of virtual environments on design collaboration .

Installation is a type of participatory art that is generated in real time through interaction between the participant and the art system in a spatial, physical context. Soundspace installation utilises motion-sensing technology to generate sound in response to gesturing by the participant. The mapping, or procedure that translates gestural input to audio output, is the generative mechanism that characterises the interactive experience. Analysis of gestural responses to different mapping techniques builds understanding about interaction in novel sound environments. The proposed research models and develops an adaptive mapping system in which distributed sound particles build collective responses to gestural patterns through local adaptation. A computational index of engagement is introduced as a means for comparing variations in adaptation parameters. This assumes that the real time artefact is indicative of the interaction between the participant and adaptive system. Measures that contribute to the index encompass scale and time-varying relationships between gesturing and sound.

Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry involves the generation of great amounts of data and information that must be accessed by numerous parties, in numerous locations, and under varied conditions. As the AEC industry moves towards more digital information, more tools will be sought for accessing such digital information. Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, and Mobile Computing could be valuable means of human-computer interface for information access by enhancing and maximizing human ability involved in performing tasks. This seminar will describe Dr. Wang’s past, current, and planned research work on how these advanced cutting-edge information technology solutions could support design comprehension, design collaboration, and other decision-making activities through all stages of the constructed facility project life cycle.

A PhD proposal describing research that uses situatedness to explore artificial agents with the ability to interpret on the basis of grounded experience. This research uses the idea of constructive memory to consider the way that meaning is attributed to sense data, and the relationship of expectation and interpretation.

Kaz Grace:
This research investigates the use of analogy-making in situated agents. A situated analogy-making system will be designed by incorporating a constructive memory into an existing analogical problem-solving tool. The agent will construct a context- and experience-dependent representation of the internal state of the tool and use it to guide the tool's behaviour. A prototype will be developed and its performance evaluated for both situated behaviour and analogy-making capability.

Melinda Hughes:
A honours proposal, which investigates how learning theories and game characteristics apply to mobile computing in order to support collaborative learning. The proposed research looks at how these concepts can be applied to mobile computing as well as the technological infrastructure that supports the design and implementation of educational games and activities that require mobility, collaboration and interaction with objects in their environments.

Mitchell Page:
This research proposes the development of a wearable display system for application within team sports, specifically basketball. The system, termed TeamAwear, is expected to enhance the game-play experience by providing dynamic ambient visualizations that will help team sports participants understand and interpret game-related data. The research will firstly execute a number of ethnographical and user-centred studies to validate and streamline development. This will result in the construction of a physical wearable display system which meets the requirements of the participants.
Finally, the developed system will be applied and evaluated within a team sports context to determine its success.

Mercedes Paulini:
This research proposes a model that synthesises learning algorithms from cognitive science and existing computer vision tools to produce multiple, alternative image interpretations. The model incorporates a learning module to assign weightings to images based on contextual and pixel information and a filtering/manipulation module responsible for interpreting these weightings to produce visual outputs. A prototype will be developed to examine the influence of contextual information on the formation of alternative image representations.

Andrea Lau
Personal digital documents can be seen as a significant reflection of people’s personality. The aim of this research is to develop a data visualisation which shows the state and evolution of an individual’s digital documents in order to evoke reflection and enhance understanding of their personal electronic collections.

Team expertise and performance is significantly influenced by various factors like trust, conventions, common ground, social network, social ties and power relationships within the team, which evolve over time.In today's changing work culture where teams are increasingly becoming project based and hence temporary this time for the team aspects to develop is significantly reduced. This seminar will give a brief overview of the proposed research that aims to develop, implement and test a model for group dynamics and interaction in temporary design teams.

A representation schema determines the methods used to capture and retrieve design rationale, therefore, selecting a representation schema that is appropriate for a task at hand, is crucial. However, the current developments of representation schema do not take into account of situatedness nature of design process. To extend the current notion of design rationale to accommodate the situatedness in design process, more generic representation needs to be developed