Politics and research

 Politics and research

In the past few weeks I spent a couple of days attending meetings (online, of course) with a political agenda. I do not mean this dismissively. On the contrary, I'm happy to see politics meet research, in search of solutions to real problems in society. The problem is a gap between the different levels of thinking. Political thinking is often at a high level of accumulation that connects problems we encounter in daily life but, being focused solutions, these levels may underplay conflicts between the various problems, as well as subjugate them to principles. Abstract reasoning is one thing, the validity of principles another. Even great thinkers often fail to understand that they are talking about how people should behave in their view rather than the actual behaviours and their complex motivation. 

Similarly, from a research perspective political thinking tends to be abstract and geared towards quick fixes. This makes identification of the actual problems to be researched rather difficult and, from a political perspective, irritatingly slow and distracting. I know that there are many researchers who promise direct cures for social issues but more often successful research manages to elucidate what is hidden behind these issues and facilitate improvement only there. Of course, the effects can be far-reaching but it takes more than the research results to reach the political or societal goals. In other words, I feel quite capable of explaining the problems street pavements may cause to pedestrians and what a well designed pavement should do than of guaranteeing efficient and safe pedestrian circulation. The latter depends on many more factors and the pedestrians' choices. 

The con of computerization

The con of computerization

Like a con artist, a scientific area I know rather intimately is known by many names: computer-aided architectural design, design computing, computational design, digital architecture, digitization or digitalization … And like a con artist it keeps promising the same things to different people without delivering much in the end. I've come to consider this a primary characteristic of the area: rather than delivering, it shifts its attention to new clients. CAD was aimed at designers and engineers but it failed to become more than admittedly adaptable but nevertheless expensive drawing. BIM was sold to a wider market of largely unknowing yet enthusiastic and powerful stakeholders. BIM has yet to deliver but now we have digitalization and proptech, which appeal to artistic designers and property managers respectively. Fundamentally the area has been promising more or less the same in different guises.
Much of this is inherent in computerization: it's full of short-lived technologies, early market share acquisition, gadgeetering and wannahaves with little practical value beyond fashion and exhibition. My life is full of obsolete technologies -things that work perfectly well but have been superseded in what they do- and, even though I often discard as much as I can, they keep accumulating. Any individual, any area involved in computerization falls victim to the transience of computing technologies.
Unfortunately many areas make it even worse by their lack of historical memory. It is impressive how often I get a feeling of déjà-vu reading research proposals or reports: it is not only that new generations want to do the same stuff as there predecessors, they also appear ignorant of earlier attempts and especially failures. And if one points this out, the usual reaction is one of solipsistic dismissal: yes, others may have tried it already but we have better technologies and better brains, so we'll do it anyway. Unfortunately, new attempts generally fail in more or less the same way as previous attempts. Ironically many talk of machine learning but human learning appears to be ignored.
In conclusion, the whole thing feels like a con: promises without return, merely selling the idea to the naïve, the ignorant, the deluded. And the worst thing is that everybody seems to behave like a con artist.

Confused by abundance

Confused by abundance

It's getting a bit too much and at the same time too little with scientific literature. Once upon a time, we used to have just a small number of scientific journals in my area, a couple of conferences every year and a few books that established approaches. Nowadays there's an inflation of journals, conferences and even books that amount to little. Going through the latest batch of journal papers is often depressing: tiny steps taken with sound methods. Even worse are the wider effects of computerization: having all publications digitally available and websites on one's research is not enough. One also needs to have blogs, vlogs, YouTube channels, tweets, facebook and LinkedIn activity, followers and likes. Educational technologists keep reminding us how important all those things are for our careers and students (not to mention their own).
Are they really? Should I invest so much time in temporary, forgettable stuff? Should I repeat in one outlet what I've done in the others, merely in order to increase exposure? Am I a researcher or a PR person? Even if I could justify the time, I'm not convinced by the hyperactivity in this kind of dissemination and advertising. We are just wasting valuable resources by pretending that what we have to say deserves so much space. Even worse is that it becomes quite hard to find worthwhile information in the resulting mess. If only people tried to consolidate what they have to say in a definitive publication …

Standards, protocols, technologies and purpose

Standards, protocols, technologies and purpose

Once again I've been busy with literature review on BIM and related matters, once again I found myself swimming in an ocean of technicalities, most of which seem to be supporting each other's existence: protocols, guidelines, standards - all presented as obvious solutions to fundamental problems, as key enablers of change. Sometimes what they say hits the nail on the head, e.g. when they suggest that BIM adoption is not enough, that it's all down to more extensive and intensive collaboration through BIM. More often, however, it's all about how to use some arbitrary facilities: how to be a correct user of some technologies (orthopraxy), how to conform to some standards.
That's not enough: there has to be some real purpose, something that justifies the time and effort put into mastering and utilizing all these facilities. I know that this runs contrary to current sociotechnological tendencies, that the reward is often just the ability to participate, but I still need some sense of purpose: why am I modelling a wall like this; what will be the outcome; which benefits are we expecting from collaboration and conformity. Without adequate answers, I fear I'm just jumping on a bandwagon that leads me nowhere. Even with a good seat and good company, I have better things to do elsewhere.

Metrics

Metrics 

"I've measured out my life with coffee spoons" T.S. Eliot, The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock

"Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little." reported RKO Radio Pictures screen test report on Fred Astaire 

Can we reduce potential, capacity and achievement to a few numbers, however meaningful and validated by scientific research? Does Messi's physique explain why he can be fascinating to watch? I'm sure that there have been earnest explanations of his success on the basis of some physical capacities but equally certain that they don't tell the whole story; they just isolate some features and promote them over others. How about Best? He managed rather little, yet he's remembered as one of the greatest. Which metrics explain his popularity?
Academic life abounds with metrics. Even worse, people take them seriously;  they start from some index of a researcher than from a publication that appeals to them. It's easy to play the game, just like in social media: recirculating trending stuff and connecting to mutual admiration groups does the trick. Having large numbers of PhD students who routinely cite you is quite handy.
My problem is that most heavily cited publications and highly indexed researchers hold little appeal as fundamental sources. They are useful as reference points, as indications of the state of the art, existing tendencies and dominant approaches but they tell little that's new, although this may be an unfortunate side effect of their success. In the end, I have to dig deep to find something I can really learn from. Its metrics are secondary; it's quality primary.

Open and closed

Open and closed 

Now that research is so much about grants, one gets confronted with conflicting ideas about research output. Open access and open data are deemed essential for the dissemination of knowledge - and rightly so: even with the vast expanses of the Internet, there's a lot of scientific knowledge that remains inaccessible to the people who should be able to use it, like students, especially at poorer universities that cannot afford all subscriptions to all journals. Naturally, if everything is open and digital, I wonder what's the use of publishers any longer. Editors, reviewers etc. are almost always academics who deliver services just to further their area or career. Any colleague who asked for something like that would have my cooperation and of course any colleague can set up a website for accommodating publications and datasets.

At the same time, we're asked to be careful about intellectual property (IP), both our own and that of others. We have to register background IP when we enter a collaborative venture, administer foreground IP produced in such a venture, note side ground IP produced alongside the venture, and monitor postground IP that is produced afterwards thanks to the venture. Neologisms aside, I accept that IP is important as an asset and we have to protect our institutes' rights, even if we're not talking about formal IP like patents. We have to earn money nowadays and safeguarding IP is a good way of guaranteeing that.

Obviously there's a conflict between opening the door for others to access our publications and data and closing it to protect the IP that's in these publications and data. If one reads a text of mine and learns how to do something as well as I do, what prohibits them from using this knowledge? Or should I obscure some critical details in order to have exclusive rights to the real IP? Sharing knowledge and learning from each other have been hallmarks of science and research, and I'm unwilling to change that.

Even worse is that these issues are sidetracking us from our core business to legalese and managementspeak topics that contribute nothing to the main reasons why one does research: learn and explain. I don't want to spend my days like that; I don't even want to pay managers and lawyers to protect me from that. I prefer a simpler, perhaps naive world where research is an integral part of an academic's work, regardless of grants and IP. And yes, any publication provides open access to knowledge. Free access to the publication is a different matter; as I expect students to pay tuition fees, even if only to treat the education they receive as a privilege, I expect that one pays at least a small sum to be able to read a scientific book or journal. It's not different to any other book or journal.

Lysenko, Lombroso, Lamarck

Lysenko, Lombroso, Lamarck

Lysenko is a prime example of what can go wrong in science when it becomes entangled in politics. As the developer of a biology for the Soviet ideology that denounced bourgeois, capitalist falsehoods, he is considered responsible not only for scientific backwardness (including through persecution, imprisonment and execution of scientific opponents) but also widespread famine in the Soviet Union.

Lombroso did not flourish under a totalitarian regime but became quite instrumental in the oppression of people by giving police and the judiciary "scientific" reasons for considering someone a criminal on the basis of their appearance. Interestingly, this is not what Soviet scientists would denounce as bourgeois falsehoods.

Lamarck was by comparison just wrong in believing that acquired characteristics are inherited, although this is nowadays under partial reconsideration: there may be some scope for soft inheritance, after all. In any case, his other contributions to science have retained their validity. For example, he is credited with recognising the difference between insects and arachnids (and for recognising that spiders have eight legs rather than six, as it was believed by those who had read Aristotle apparently wrongly).

What connects the three "L"s for me is their fall from grace as scientific authorities, as well as their easy connection to societal priorities, either political or ideological. Authorities are troublesome because quite often everything they claim is taken for granted, even if it's a mere opinion. However, more than authorities what scares me is the ease with which we promote societal priorities to unassailable truths. In politics this is often a problem we gloss over but in science we don't even talk about it. On the contrary, we tailor research to match such arbitrariness and change without a moment's thought when new opportunities arise.

Internet

Internet 

I've been a rather early user of the Internet. Having the advantage of working at a major university, I had access to it even before the web was invented but never expected it to be that big a thing. If one had asked me back then, I would have asserted that it would be a nice thing at universities, a tool and plaything of the higher education and research world. Professional or social applications were completely out of my field of vision. This didn't change even after I started putting my courses on the Internet, having students present their work online (also in progress) and realising how valuable the Internet could be as a dissemination and communication environment.

When the extent of my teaching was reduced, my professional interest in the Internet waned, exactly at the time that it became a big thing in society in general, subsequently triggering interest in academic research and education. With raised eyebrows I saw how my colleagues became fascinated by a sequence of Internet vogues and vowed never to become involved in such matters. As a result, one may say that I've missed a lot but at the same time I was spared much. Keeping a low profile on the Internet may not be a bad thing, after all, especially for people who know they don't have something substantial to communicate to the world every hour of the day.

Sketching

Sketching

Sketches may be sacrosanct in architecture but I never managed to see them like that. Sketching may be a great way to externalise design ideas and one can learn a lot from correlating these ideas to the sketches but in the end they remain a temporary product, an intermediate state in the production of a building design. So, I fully concur with interest or even fascination in sketching but I also refuse to revere them more than the design or the building.

For years I'd been working on the automated recognition of drawings (something that deserves far more attention than it's given) and every time I presented some part of that work, there was someone who pointed out that of course these recognition approaches did not apply to sketches. Without much thought I agreed with such remarks, until one peaceful summer afternoon in the garden, when I was doodling on a piece of paper. Suddenly, the inquisitive researcher in me finally woke up and asked the obvious question: it is so? Are sketches that different from drawings?

I've spent some time on that question and the brief answer is that from a representational point of view there may be fewer differences and more similarities than assumed. Sketches are fuzzier and compound but at the paradigmatic level (the level of symbols and primitives), they often come close to drawings. I just hope that I'll be able to test this hypothesis at a large scale in the future.

The moral of the story is not about sketching or representation; it's about insisting on questioning established prejudices and conventions. It may seem silly, fractious and obstinate at times but if done with real curiosity and interest in learning, it can be a source of great pleasure to the researcher. Why do research for anything less?

Citizens

Citizens

In research and policy circles, one often hears of citizens or even "the citizen": dear, vulnerable, oppressed human beings that must be protected and helped. In historical studies, however, e.g. of what happened in Nazi German or communist countries, one also gets a different side of the citizen: people taking advantage or manipulating a system for personals reasons; thousands of denunciations by neighbours, colleagues, friends, even family. Most of the damage is done by citizens, not the relatively few agents of the secret services. It wasn't the Gestapo or the Stasi who kept everyone under observation; it was the citizens doing it to each other; the secret police often had a hard time just processing all the anonymous and eponymous denunciations they received.

What we also often see is a distinction between two kinds of citizens: on one hand, the active, well-educated initiators of actions and protectors of their rights and privileges, and on the other, a largely inert mass of low-income, poorly educated people who must be protected but can become surprisingly powerful and effective once brought into actions. This arguably suggests that citizens can achieve a lot if bothered to do so. The problem is that one cannot be certain why citizens may spring into action and what they will try to do. That's why places like the Internet can be wonderful and terrifying at the same time.

Yet another grant proposal

Yet another grant proposal

I've been preparing yet another grant proposal for a research programme new to me. So, I've spent days reading yet more bold pronouncements, learning new acronyms, adapting my intentional and ambitions to new Procrustean frameworks. Why should I do that instead of research, instead of reading something I could learn from, instead of working out a problem and exploring new approaches? Who thinks up all this triviality? It gives the impression of direction and accountability but all it does is encourage conformism: yes-men and sycophants who inflate every new vogue -sorry, societal or scientific challenge- with the samen enthusiasm and apparent loyalty before moving on to the next opportunity to get money for old rope. It's a waste of time, my tax euros, of everybody's time and money. Just imagine that fiction was written like that, that every short story and novel followed the same template, that authors spent their time writing proposals instead of books. It would have been a much poorer world, with very few books worth reading - which is arguably the case with most scientific publications today. The worst is that they're turning me into a grumpy old man, despite my intention to stay playful and happy. I need to find a real solution to such inevitably time-wasting activities before long.

Hypotheses and speculation

Hypotheses and speculation 

One of the constant irritations a researcher faces is the necessity to check what others are doing. The value of knowing what one's peers do and publish is undeniable. There's a lot to be learned from literature reviews in terms of broadening one's knowledge  (especially with complementary viewpoints) and deepening one's understanding about the potential of some approach and the nature of problems to be solved.

However, when I'm asked to see what people have been doing in practice, I worry that I'm just waisting my time. In areas like architectural computerisation we're not talking about industrial giants with tradition in and resources for R&D. In most cases, all I get to see is what one or another reseller or consultant makes on the basis of arbitrary opportunities and usually poor knowledge of theory. Rather that working hard to develop a plausible hypothesis, such people just form an opinion, assuming a lot they don't know and then embark on an adventure, convinced of the value of what they do even before they produce anything. They just speculate and claim.

I fear that this is the difference between science and architectural design, too: instead of hypotheses, architecture offers speculation; instead of validation and verification, artistic license and arrogance. Too many believe they can make something better than the other without any really valid reasons. This is often because they believe they have a better opinion but even more often because they are better - in their own opinion. They're so good, they have to brag about it.

Premature satisfaction

Premature satisfaction 

One of the things that worry me in the current grants frenzy is the displacement of effort and satisfaction from actually doing the research to acquiring the funds for it. Especially with large sums and prestigious funding organisations, it seems that the main goal has become the getting of the grant itself. People work very hard to develop a convincing proposal, often anticipating too much, possibly already doing the research in their imagination, to convince everyone (and we are talking about various kinds of judges) that they are worth the chance. When the proposal is submitted, people may feel exhausted by the effort, even fed up with the subject. And if they're successful and manage to get the grant, the jubilation can be tremendous; it's as if the research is all done already and with resounding success. Actually doing the research and delivering the promise may become a secondary matter, an aftermath. After all, what most research organisations expect is results in practical, measurable terms: publications and money. The envisaged performance rarely ever counts. It's hard not to feel the anticlimax.

Publish or perish

Publish or perish

Literature reviews are getting harder by the day, not only because there are too many papers published in scientific journals and conference but also because most of them tell little if anything new. The pressure to publish regularly and the constraints journals impose in the name of proper research are trivialising publication. I'd rather have people publish one significant thing every five years than cut it up into ten pieces so that two papers can be publish every year.

Another thing is that we shouldn't equate publication with research. Publications and citations are useful indications but essentially proxies of one's work. Research is about getting to know stuff and many times it amounts to replicating what others have already done in order to fully understand it. How does one measure this deep, thorough understanding? Review papers could be a way but journals do not encourage them. Finally, one should not underestimate reading: big chunks of research time go into reading - not just browsing the abstracts and conclusions in order to collect citations for one's own papers but proper reading, with full comprehension. That's not just a preamble to doing one's research, it's a core research activity and performance.

Filling forms

Filling forms

I've spent yet another day talking to people about research - or rather how we could fund research. Good intentions and willingness to make something of it all round but it melted down to filling yet another grant form, highly redundant and over-analytical. It's not easy making a distinction between research output and research results, deliverables, products, proofs of concept, demonstrations, pilots and all other near-synonyms. An officious young agent or official from the grant organisation, with full hipster insignia, was getting impatient with out lack of knowledge and understanding of their jargon. The group, large and varied, was confused and confusing, slow and difficult to move but in the end, with the help of tiredness, we managed to reach an almost satisfactory result. With growing impatience I tried to push ahead, making my voice heard a bit too often. I regret that; I prefer to be in the background and contribute at crucial points rather than pull the group towards any direction.

One could have called it a successful day in all. Even the travel (by Thalys train, a real joy despite the overcrowding) was relaxed and efficient. Still, I can't help feeling failed and betrayed. We talked with complete disregard for real research and its applications. If anyone in the group knew the state of the art in the areas involved, they didn't let on. What we had written could have been compiled by a high-school student doing a school project on the basis of a cursory Internet search. Weak, weak researchers: rather than doing our work properly and showing people what should and could be done, letting them gather round and forge great new things, we beg at the tables of the accidentally powerful and derive our research agenda from incoherent, incomplete and often obvious policy documents.

Crossroads

Crossroads

I started a recent research proposal with the bold statement that architecture is at a crossroads. My argument was that one could see it at the societal and professional level: many architects are unemployed or underemployed and buildings are being produced with the same mediocre methods, techniques and results for the last hundred years or so. Yet these problems are obscured by the stubborn attachment of architects to the same approaches and attitudes, as well as by local or temporary building booms, e.g. at high-demand areas like London or due to new, often public commissions relating to one-off events like the Olympic or to attempts to stimulate the construction business at times of economic crisis. Still, I claimed, it is undeniable that architecture and the built environment are not progressing at the same pace as other areas. This, I continued, is made abundantly clear at the scientific level: in many national and international research grant frameworks, such as Horizon 2020. architecture is absent from among the disciplines that benefit directly, despite that many issues and subjects in the same frameworks refer to urban environments and buildings, i.e. architectural products, as causes of societal problems as well as recipients of technological innovation.

Looking back at that text, I wonder how one recognises a crossroads. It presupposes first of all that architecture is following a path, possibly towards some end. I doubt that there would be consensus about that in architecture. Is there some progression from where we were e.g. in the post-World War II reconstruction period (an acknowledged high point)? Do we agree as to where we are going? I guess there are many opinions on that but I would be happier with a couple of substantiated views rather than temporary enthusiasm with this technology or that tendency. And if we manage to agree on the route we have been following, where are the crossroads? Which other intersecting routes do we encounter and when are the moments when we could take a decision? Here too one should expect a plethora of equally poorly substantiated options. And it's not just a matter of having too many different opinions in architecture, it's that we have so many aspects in architecture that need improvement. Each aspect seems to have its own evolutionary path and its presence among the priorities changes with the year; just think of the chequered history of sustainability in architecture.

So, in summary, we are not at a crossroads because there are no major roads, just a confused network of many paths. We have been following these paths in a haphazard way, reacting to opportunity and vogue rather than pursuing some well-defined and coherent goals. As for the future, even if we wise up and mend our ways, we may have to spend some more time following paths because there is no single road in front of us.

Perhaps more importantly, one should realise that metaphors have their dangers. They evoke powerful pictures that may explain a lot but the same pictures may also undermine the argument they are supposed to support.

An architect

An architect

Education

The subject is architecture, my profession. I went to study architecture with the modest ambition of becoming a competent professional architect, one who designs and produces decent buildings. Achieving greatness or fame, changing the history of architecture or other lofty ideas weren't even remotely in my thoughts. Understanding how to design was what motivated me and getting accepted by fellow professionals, clients and users was probably all that mattered in terms of success.

My teachers told me about this or that landmark in architectural history and however clever, beautiful or inspiring they were, I couldn't really tell what made them so important or more important than other buildings. Quite often it was just a first: the first block of flats in reinforced concrete, the first steel frame construction, the first open-plan office etc. They also told me of this or that prominent local architect and I would visit their buildings but, although there was something to be learned from practically each one, once again I couldn't tell what made them more significant than the building next door.

I soon realised that inspiration and beauty could be found even in anonymous, humble architecture (and by this I don't mean the vernacular buildings so patronisingly and sometimes hypocritically admired by great architects and critics). So, maybe because of my inability to perceive greatness in architecture, I ended up becoming more interested in other sensibilities, for which there were few ready solutions. When it came to functionality, architectural textbooks taught me enough to be cleverer than most lay people but how people (the users) might relate to a building aesthetically was far from clear.

Research

Opportunity and curiosity turned me into a researcher (with teaching becoming more and more a consequence of research). Looking back at my career, I've designed little, constructed even less and the last thing I did as a professional architect was a long time ago. Still, by training and interest I remain an architect and persist in looking at the world from an architect's perspective, with respect to what architects know or ignore. I'm still delighted by buildings that appear to work well; they make me feel proud of my profession. I'm also irritated by things that don't work, buildings poorly designed or constructed, instantly keen to understand how I might be able to rectify them or generally improve an environment or the processes leading to it.

Research is not about publications, projects or grants; primarily, it's a great way of learning. One has first to understand what is already known. This means a lot of critical reading (literature research), accompanied by attempts to synthesise what one learns from reading. That's what every academic should be doing. Teaching without it is merely repeating what others have said or presenting arbitrary, untested opinions. Unfortunately, there's a lot of ideas one gets from reading or just thinking, without ever managing to process it through reals research. They end up on scraps of paper, in journals and all kinds of notes to oneself. The purpose of this blog is to collect them and see what emerges then. So, bear with me while the plot hopefully thickens.