Pedantry or communication?

Pedantry or communication?

"Don't text and drive" shouts the advice from the billboards along the road. I'm in full agreement with the campaign and its goal but I object to the advice: I do nothing wrong if I text and then drive - or if I drive and then text, for that matter. The problem is with texting while driving. "Don't drink and drive" made sense because the sequence was right: if I drink and then drive, then I'm driving while drunk, which was the thing to avoid. "Don't drink and drive" has a better ring to it than "don't drive while drunk" but "don't text and drive" doesn't express the troublesome synchronicity of texting and driving.
If I voice such objections, they're in danger of being dismissed as mere pedantry. "You do know what we mean" people say dismissively. I do think that I understand what they want to say but why don't they say it more clearly? I also manage to guess what small children mean in their agrammatical utterances but society still insists on educating small children and teaching them to speak and right properly, i.e. utilize grammar to express what they want to say with more clarity and hence effectivity. If good communication is rejected as pedantry, then it's communication that suffers doubly: firstly because it's not effective and secondly because the discussion is sidetracked to pedantic issues.

The home as background to video conferencing

The home as background to video conferencing 

As most people, I've generally enjoyed the tasks of the interior design of my own home. Arranging activities relative to spaces, building elements and furniture is a recurring issue, even when nothing changes in the activities or the building. Sometimes it is because of new insights, either from personal experience or from what others have done, sometimes it reflects new opportunities for change and sometimes it's purely due to boredom with the existing situation. 

Designing my own home is obviously from my own perspective and that of those who share it with me. I consider everything with respect to my actions and their needs, my interactions with family members and guests, and imagine the situation as I (and they) would view it: from the inside out. The external viewer is sometimes also taken into account (after all, I live in a practically glass house in the Netherlands) but their perspective is limited to what they could see in the garden or through the windows. 

The Covid-19 measures have changed this. Most of my professional contacts have become virtual, including through video conferencing. This means that many people now see the interior of my home from a perspective opposite to mine. While previously I viewed the arrangement of my computers from my vantage point, now on the computer screens I also see what the others see behind me: the photographs on the shelves, the kitchen sink and many other details from an often unflattering perspective. 

Many have taken action to remedy that and not just by using virtual backgrounds. They chose their workplace at home with care, so as to show a safe, neutral or attractive part of their home life. Some have separate places for working and for video conferencing. Quite a few feel that their privacy is invaded, while others make use of the opportunity to impress. For me, the interesting part is how strange sometimes my own home appears from the perspective of the video conferencing camera. It is as if it reveals things that are relegated to a fuzzy background in my own perception, arguably because I move and sit differently oriented to the camera in a device I'm viewing. 

Architectural labelling

Architectural labelling

The joke works in Dutch: once, many years ago, I went to buy a pair of trousers. The one I selected and tried on was fine. As I was looking at the mirror, the salesman came along and nodded approvingly. "It seems alright" I confirmed. "Meneer, het is van Frans Molenaar" ("Sir, it is by FM") he said in a surprisingly touchy tone. I couldn't resist the joke: "Het spijt me, ik dacht dat het te koop was" ("Sorry, I thought it was for sale"). 

Potentially everything carries a label today. That's not the problem. The problem arises when labels become unquestioningly synonymous with high quality. We are into labels because we associate them with status, performance, exclusivity, belongingness - all kinds of aspirations and positive expectations. Our mobile phones are preferably iPhones, our clothes and shoes come from whichever brand is popular today (and may be bankrupt tomorrow). Labels are more than a name. They indicate something we routinely associate with high quality: design. Design goods cannot be produced anonymously, they have to carry a label. "Design" implies that the products are conceived, developed and manufactured with care and attention. They may be as mass produced as other goods, out of more or less the same parts and components, using the same techniques, but they are different. Design goods represent more than utility and performance, namely a desirable lifestyle. 

It's probably inevitable that architecture follows the same trend. Architecture is more and more about style than performance, functionality, social and environmental change, despite the causes that happen to be in vogue. As a consequence, it is often more important that a building carries a label, the name of a popular or respected architect, than it fulfils its goals and requirements. A good architect produces good buildings without any doubt. This means that architects produce design goods, that they are designers. 

This is "designers" in a different sense than the one Herbert Simon used to compare the activities and tasks of architects, lawyers and physicians. It refers to form and appearance rather than solution to a problem. So, I can say that my chair is a Stokke by Peter Opsvik, that in my neighbourhood there are buildings by Herman Hertzberger but I cannot say that my knee is by Jansen or that the crowns in my teeth are by Mulder, although the work done by both that orthopedic surgeon and that dentist are technically and artistically of the highest order. As a consumer, I'm keen to associate the thing with the designer; as a patient less so. 

Suffering in the building sector

Suffering in the building sector

Among the news of the day in the Netherlands: the building sector (I can't honestly call that shambles an industry) will suffer from the effects of the corona. Yawn: is there any crisis that doesn't affect the building sector in a profound way? How long will it take us (and especially the politicians) to realize that the building sector is unsound? One cannot rely on cheap labour and volume of activity for ever, and we shouldn't support them in prolonging the agony.

Buildings are a necessity, not a luxury. We'll always need them and hopefully always ask for improvements, either from an environmental or from an economic perspective. In other words, the built environment is full of promise and opportunity, and could become a stable sector that is not that sensitive to crises. You don't hear the super markets complain that much or that often because people need them daily. Are the buildings we use, also daily and moreover constantly, less important to our safety and wellbeing?

It's high time that the building sector accepts that it's in urgent need of reform; that they need new production methods and better organization. It is unacceptable that in the age of data and computation building projects cannot be completed within time and within budget. We're either failing to plan and organize them properly or producing in outdated, inadequate ways - most probably both. The main problem is that too many stakeholders and actors have to accept the need for change and do something about it. Given the complacency and conformism of most, I cannot help being pessimistic. Too much has to change and we haven't had the brain or the guts to start yet.

Dangerologists

Dangerologists

These are dangerous times, not just for the real dangers for health and the economy but also because of the numerous dangerologists that have been coming out of the woodwork and reminding the public that they had foreseen the disaster in this book, that interview, this blog or than vlog. Sometimes they merit a nod for their predictions but mostly they deserve to be dismissed without further discussion.

Predicting possible disasters and pointing out potential dangers is easy. Everything we do is precarious, from walking on the pavement to flying to another continent, from staying with what we have to radically changing lives and environments. The ant that escapes the soles of our feet knows all about the precarity of life. We know it, too, when we manage to listen to our bodies and their anxieties at the edge of a cliff or in uncomfortable temperatures. The smallest irregularity, the tiniest miscalculation may be enough to bring on disastrous results.

The only thing dangerologists can do for us is open our eyes to systematic errors of judgement, help us identify behavioural and cultural blind spots beyond the basic precarity of life. Walking on stairs is inherently dangerous but should we just be extra careful when doing so or do we need to improve stair design? Is our usual hygiene insufficient for preventing viral infections, is the high density of people in many places inherently dangerous, is the high mobility of our times to blame for the rapid worldwide spread of disease? Much of that seems so bleeding obvious that I don't care to listen any longer.

Why one shouldn't believe in BIM maturity levels

Why one shouldn't believe in BIM maturity levels

One of the holy cows of BIM theory is the notion of maturity levels. Inspired by them, I suggest that there are also car driving maturity levels:

1.  Sitting in the driver's seat in a stationary car with the engine turned off, not touching anything 
2.  Sitting in the driver's seat in a stationary car and operating the windshield wipers
3.  Driving a car in a straight line only 
4.  Driving a car safely under any circumstances 
5.  Driving a car in a way beneficial to society and the economy 

Ludicrous? Well, no less than some of the BIM maturity levels that are currently been taken for granted. 

On a more serious note, I'm not sure what to make of these levels. The appeal of levels and categorization in general is understandable. The problem with categories is that they should be meaningful, that they should make the world easier to describe in a truthful and reliable manner - not develop arbitrary, possibly distorting filters for reality. 

Do BIM maturity levels represent stages in the development of BIM skills and knowledge, similarly to the capability maturity model, where maturity refers to the degree of formalization and optimization in the processes of an organization, from ad hoc or even chaotic to repeatable and efficient? 

I don't think that the adoption of BIM is a similar progression. One doesn't have to start from 2D CAD before moving on to nD BIM. The setup of the BIM maturity levels actually reveals the limitations of the mainstream approach to BIM deployment, including fixations on analogue practices like the production of 2D drawings and the gathering of information around these drawings, which are actually harmful to understanding BIM, as they sidetrack learners to outdated means and workflows. 

BIM maturity levels make too much of the difference between 2D and 3D representations, as if 2D building drawings do not convey 3D information or as if one could make 2D models in BIM. That some of the views of a model are 2D projections should not matter, in the same way that it does not matter that other views are tables. I won't go any further into dimensions in BIM; that chapter has been closed for me with a recent paper in Automation in Construction (Dimensionality in BIM: Why BIM cannot have more than four dimensions? doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2020.103153).

What I miss is other indications of maturity and progress, such as the correct use of symbols, properties, parameters etc, the completeness and consistency of models and other syntactic, semantic and pragmatic measures. Surely these are the most significant for the successful use of BIM. The only positive aspect of BIM maturity levels is that they emphasize the significance of a shared, central model - and then spoil it by suggesting that one can do BIM without one. 

Social distancing and design

Social distancing and design

We are constantly reminded to keep others at a distance of 1.5 or 2 metres. Most people try to do so, some ignore the advice to the irritation of the rest and others behave as if everybody is a threat, even at a great distance. Beyond personal reactions, the overall effect is spectacular: in contrast to other times, public space is heavily underused, with lots of space for everyone. It's a joy to be out and about with such low densities of people and vehicles.
I wonder what will remain after the scare is over. Will we revert to the old habits and tolerances, squeezing into every bit of space available to go as fast as possible to our destination? It seems probable that we will forget. I remember cycling through the Dutch countryside during a previous epidemic and coming close to or under flocks of birds. Wondering if they were infected, I gave them a wide berth, trying to hold my breath as long as possible. I no longer do so.
Even more important than user behaviour is the design and management of the environment. We naturally try to keep an appropriate distance at all times, as Edward T. Hall and others have observed. Unfortunately, the affordances of many environments force us to come closer than desired to others. Sometimes a distance of a few centimetres from a stranger is all we achieve in a bus, train or metro, as well as in a air terminal, cinema theatre or classroom. When the pandemic is over and current measures are relaxed, we might be forced to accept the same congested situations once again. Will we react with the indignation such poorly designed and managed environments deserve? Will we demand safe and comfortable distances at all times? How will authorities and designers react? In many respects, such a pandemic is a wake-up call: to invest not only in adequate care when something goes wrong but also in designing environments that can prevent the worst. We deserve public transportation and public space that are generous, comfortable and safe. They come at a cost but that cost seems a wise investment.