Imbrication 1 (Human à material)

Thesis 141 The organizational meeting routine

The overall purpose of the external organizational routine is to show the status of the project to the clients and/or to get feedback from the clients or the future users of the building so that the architects/engineers can move forward with the project. Sometimes, the client(s) and the user(s) are the same. For example, in a project of building a new church, the pastor provided information where to place the baptismal font, and he also had an important say in relation to the funding of the project, e.g., how much money was allocated to the design of the church.

The first step of the organizational routine is when the architect/engineer presents the agenda and the topics that need to be discussed with the client/user. For example, a topic could be the diverse types of wall material for the interior of the church room. The presentation is done by the project architect while other representatives from the office contribute when necessary. In the next step, the clients provide feedback on the presentation. Subsequently, feedback and other topics are discussed. The meeting ends when the time runs out or when the architect/engineer receives enough feedback to go on with the project.

From this description of the ostensive pattern of the organizational routine, I will identify, in the following section, the imbrications of the employees and the technologies that occur over time.

Through these imbrications, I highlight the performative variations that include head-mounted displays in the organizational meeting routine. With that I aim to understand whether or not these variations will create a new ostensive pattern or modify or maintain existing ostensive patterns of the organizational routine. This potentially new or modified ostensive pattern can be used for the employees to either guide future performances or account for past performances, or be used as a reference to current performances and thus become a viable alternative ostensive pattern.

In this way, I aim to shed light on how head-mounted displays, including the technical infrastructure it relies on, imbricate with organizational routines.

Thesis 142 during meetings. When using physical models, the client and the user could imagine how a future design would look like because they provided 3-dimensionality, although in rather little detail as the models were often scaled-down versions of a room or a building. This was because they were mostly intended to communicate dimensions and scale. For example, to show the height of a clock tower relative to the rest of a church building.

2) With the new goal in mind, the actors identify a constraint in the technology.

However, the artifacts did not allow users and clients to provide rich feedback, as it was difficult for them to interpret especially the 2D drawings, but also the physical models which were made in the early stages of a project and which were often quite abstract:

“…like when you show them a white volume physical model made in foam, and it’s at a scale that they might not understand, or it doesn’t have the detail

that they want to see…” (Interview – Architect).

The feedback from the clients was consequently not relevant because it was difficult for them to understand scale and depth issues. In addition, these physical models were often very laborious to craft and change.

As digital technology slowly developed to become more immersive, e.g. vivid and photorealistic 3D images, the architects and engineers started to perceive the technology, the physical models especially, as a constraining factor. That is, their current tools, and especially the physical models, were seen as constraining because they wanted to be able to get focused and relevant feedback from the meeting participants in an effective manner in order for them to move forward with the project.

3) Actors change/modify the technology(ies), leading to a new material agency.

To overcome this constraint, the company decided to change the 2D CAD program they use to create 2D drawings, by extending it with a plug-in. This extension allowed the architects and engineers to develop more immersive 3D images on the basis of the renderings of their 2D drawings. The 3D images helped them to create more vivid and detailed visions of their clients’

projects at an earlier stage of the project.

In this manner, the ability to create more immersive 3D images facilitated a more specific dialogue between the professionals and their clients, thus resolving the constraint that the physical models posed.

Thesis 143 7.2.2 Imbrication 2 (Material à human)

4) The material agency of the technology provides opportunity for new affordance(s).

Similar to the internal organizational routine, the use of a new plug-in for the existing software enabled them to model immersive 3D still images. As mentioned, the primary reason for using these images for clients and users was to get more precise and detailed feedback from them on future buildings as 2D drawings and physical models were too abstract. These 3D images were often shown to clients and users either on printouts or on a computer monitor during meetings, for example as part of a PowerPoint presentation. The 3D images were more immersive and could also be produced more efficiently. That is, in contrast to the physical models, they were less abstract and offered some sense of scale and depth by modelling for example humans next to a building, while also being more efficiently produced. This helped clients and users to become more involved during meetings:

"...we had brought these 3D renderings with us [3D images printed on paper].

It certainly made it easier for them to imagine [the project]. Because it was hard [for them] to imagine the project in 2D...[by showing] the plan drawings...the elevation drawings...and the section drawings [referring to 2D drawings that show the project from above, from the side, and a cut-through of

the building]. So, when they started to see the [3D] renderings...something clicked [for the users]: ’Oh, well, does it look like that!’ So, they [the 3D renderings] were a really good translating factor.” (Interview – Architect).

As they started to do more 3D images, and as they got better hardware, it took less time to render the images.

5) The affordance(s) interact(s) with the organizational routine, which might lead to change.

Consequently, they replaced physical models little by little, to the extent that they were rarely used at the meetings with clients and users as the plug-in allowed them to achieve their goal of getting focused and relevant feedback from the meeting participants in an effective manner.

And because it allowed them to achieve their intended goal, once the plug-in was used in the organizational meeting routine, the plug-in, as well as the immersive 3D images it could produce, created an alternative ostensive pattern which became an integral part of the organizational routine.

Thesis 144 An important reason for the success of the plug-in was that the digital materiality of both the existing software and the plug-in allowed the workers to manipulate with it in a relatively straightforward way. That is, they could with relative ease integrate the plug-in into the existing infrastructure created by previous imbrications (existing software and hardware and existing organizational routines). Due to these factors, the ostensive pattern of actions that the plug-in afforded, supported their goal. Consequently, the meeting participants could use this new pattern of actions as: a reliable guide for their future performances, as a way to explain and legitimize past actions to the other actors involved, and as a way to make sense of their current performances because the affordances, enabled by the plug-in, supported their goals.

1) Change in the organizational routine creates a new human agency and a new goal.

As the more immersive 3D images replaced physical models, they discovered some issues with the immersive 3D images. That is, while the 3D images provided users with a more vivid and detailed vision of future building projects, the way users perceived scale and depth sometimes hindered communication between meeting participants. In particular, clients and users had to interpret and imagine the scale and depth of the designs that the 3D images portrayed. For example, the size of a window relative to the wall can be difficult for non-professionals to assess.

And while the architects and engineers often included other items in the immersive 3D images to better show the scale and depth of building projects, for example by placing a human-sized figure next to a door, misunderstandings could arise between the meeting participants. On the other hand, the physical models, while often abstract, were physical and could thus provide a more intuitive form of scale and depth to users and clients but were inefficient, and hard to change.

As a result, the architects and engineers wanted to acquire an alternative tool that could provide a more intuitive form of understanding scale and depth to the often non-professional users and clients that were participating in the meetings.