Imbrication 10 (Material à human)

Thesis 155 7.2.9 Imbrication 9 (Human à material)

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

For these reasons, the architects and engineers therefore saw the head-mounted display as something that constrained their intentions and what they wanted to achieve with a more immersive technology such as the head-mounted display. That is, due to the inflexibility of the physical materiality of the head-mounted display, it was hard for the actors in the organizational meeting routine to change the technology. And, if they had the technical know-how to change this important defining feature of the head-mounted display, its inclusiveness facilitated by the materiality of the casing, they could potentially lose its ability to make layman clients and users understand the model in an intuitive way and hence the ability to get focused and relevant feedback from them. As a consequence, the architects and engineers were looking for ways to change the head-mounted display. To be more precise, the architects and engineers were looking for ways to change how and when they used it due to the inflexibility of the head-mounted display.

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

As they became aware of these constraints they started to use the head-mounted display more mindfully during meetings with clients and users, while to a larger degree making use of a traditional PC monitor only. Thus, instead of using the two types of displays together, the architects or engineers, at specific times during the meeting, looked and walked around in the 3D models using a traditional PC display only, while at other times, they introduced the head-mounted display together with or without the traditional PC monitor. In other words, instead of using the two types of display in parallel, they started to use them in a more sequential manner, at different times during the organizational routine.

In this fashion, the architects and engineers could potentially solve the constraint they had run into. In particular, by using the head-mounted display and the PC monitor mindfully and at strategic points in time, they facilitated an intuitive understanding between meeting participants while the user of the head-mounted display was able to interact with the surrounding environment so they could guide him or her and get relevant feedback.

Thesis 156 Hence, at specific times, the architects and engineers looked and walked around in the 3D models using a traditional PC display only, while at other times, they used the head-mounted display together with or without the traditional PC monitor but still facilitated by the new plug-in. They used these combinations mindfully by first letting the clients look at the 3D model on a PC monitor while an architect walked through it, pointing to specific issues included in their agenda. This helped them to facilitate an intuitive understanding between meeting participants while the user of the head-mounted display was able to interact with the surrounding environment so they could guide him or her and get relevant feedback.

During my observations, situations arose that illustrated how they used the new plug-in together with a PC monitor to explain issues with a design. For instance, at one point meeting participants were sitting in a room, around a table. On the table were some 2D drawings printed on paper, plan drawings, elevation drawings, and perspective drawings. When the project architect came into the meeting room, he brought with him a laptop on which he had a 3D model of a house. Later during the meeting, the project architect began to walk through the 3D model of the house. While walking through the model, they were all on the one side of the table looking at the screen. Some of them were sitting, three or four of them, while the rest of them were standing behind the project architect who sat with the computer in front of him. When walking through the model of the house, the partner architect was pointing to the laptop screen showing and explaining some details of the house. This showcasing of the house seemed to last for around 10 to 15 minutes only. After that they closed the laptop screen and continued the meeting.

By walking through the 3D model, the architect was better able to manage the feedback and get the right amount and type of information from the meeting attendees while also having the possibility of referring to the physical 2D drawings. Additionally, he managed to make the clients present during the meeting understand the specific issues in an intuitive way by utilizing the plug-in’s vivid graphics and its affordance of walking through the model. In this instance as well as in other instances, the architects and engineers managed to create an equal dialogue through the immersive capabilities of the plug-in and a traditional PC monitor, in turn getting relevant feedback. By doing this, they avoided client and user feedback leading to a focus on potentially irrelevant issues which, if not taken seriously by the architects and engineers, could result in a bad relationship between the two parties. Or alternatively, result in a higher workload for the architects and engineers as they would have to do more work during the organizational design routine.

Thesis 157 The head-mounted display, on the other hand, was only introduced at the end of the client and user meetings. At this point, the negotiations and important decisions had already been made. In particular, they utilized the immersive properties of the head-mounted display to summarize what they had talked about during the meeting but also to impress the client.

Together the head-mounted display, the PC monitor and the plug-in helped them to reach an agreement. The architects and engineers thus made use of the immersive capabilities of the head-mounted display while not being constrained by its materiality, its inclusiveness, that shut off the customer from the surrounding environment:

“Near the end…because, with stuff like this [the head-mounted display] is when people get a little bit excited, and then the meeting becomes a little bit

more chaotic, and it’s only one person who can try [the head-mounted display]...when it’s only one person concentrating, other people will start chatting, so we do that near the end. And it is...a little bit like a summary to

whatever we talked about [during the meeting]; ‘This is how it all comes together.’” (Interview – Architect).

In summary, the agency of the two displays, the head-mounted display and the PC monitor, as well as the plug-in helped them to make clients get an intuitive understanding. The displays through their immersive capabilities and the plug-in through allowing the clients and users to discover the 3D models in the immersive VE by letting them walk and look around in a natural manner.

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

On this background, they maintained these performances in the meeting routine of which the mounted display was a part. This development is in contrast to imbrication 8 in which the head-mounted display was seen as constraint which could potentially un-enroll it of the organizational meeting routine. To elaborate, in imbrication 8, the head-mounted display was seen as a constraint because they used the head-mounted displays without considering e.g. the risk of unwanted feedback, while being unaware of the paradoxical effects of the material aspect of head-mounted displays, inclusion, which on the one hand enables an intuitive understanding but on the other hand shuts the users off from guidance, colleagues, and other physical artifacts.

Thesis 158 However, in this imbrication they had learned from the imbrication 8 and changed (or rearranged) the head-mounted display by using it mindfully at the end of each meeting to provide clients and users with an intuitive summary which helped them to agree on possible changes to the design of the project. During the organizational meeting routine, they used the non-inclusive PC monitor together with the plug-in which could help the clients and users to understand changes, by allowing them to walk through the models – either by themselves while being guided by a professional or by letting them see the changes as the architect or engineers walk through the model. In this manner, what they experienced was less immersive compared to the head-mounted display but it allowed them to create an intuitive and equal dialogue between the participants while being able to refer to the surrounding environment (other meeting participants and physical artifacts). In addition, the less inclusive PC monitor further allowed the architects and engineers to steer their attention and thus feedback in a relevant direction.

Collectively, the use of the PC monitor, the plug-in, and the head-mounted display changed the performances of the organizational meeting routine as it made them achieve their goal of facilitating an intuitive understanding between meeting participants while being able to interact with the surrounding environment so they could guide the clients and users and get relevant feedback.

The immersive capabilities of the head-mounted display combined with the non-inclusive but more flexible PC monitor and the plug-in helped the architects and engineers to achieve their aforementioned goals, leading to a more productive organizational meeting routine. In turn, the ostensive pattern of which the head-mounted display was a part, was this time around kept as an alternative way to involve and collaborate with users and often in combination with the less inclusive and thus less immersive but flexible PC monitor. Because the head-mounted display’s materiality could not be changed, it was dependent on the existing infrastructure of past technologies and organizational routines for it to become part of the ostensive pattern of this organizational routine. The architects and engineers therefore saw this more immersive ostensive pattern as matching with their current goals.

In turn, this made it possible for them to use this ostensive pattern of actions of which the affordances of the head-mounted display were a part, in the following ways.

Thesis 159 First, they could use the ostensive pattern as a guide for the actions they should take during the organizational meeting routine, which would then help them guide their own performances as well as the performances of the clients and users.

Second, as it matched their goals by not constraining their actions, they could also legitimize and explain their actions internally to colleagues.

And lastly, the architects and engineers were able to identify what future actions they should take during the meeting routine by e.g. eliciting relevant feedback from the clients and users. And because they could use this ostensive pattern in these three important ways, the affordances of the head-mounted display remained part of the organizational meeting routine.

Overall, by using the head-mounted display together with the other tools available it contributed not only to the goals of this last imbrication but to the overall goal of the routine: 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 could move forward with the project.

Thesis 160

Figure 18: Illustration of imbrications in the organizational meeting routine.

Findings of the longitudinal analysis 7.3.1 Internal routine: organizational design routine

The overall purpose of this internal organizational routine is to design artifacts such as 2D plans or elevation drawings, walkable 3D models of whole buildings, and screenshots of 3D-rendered buildings, which can all then be used in meetings with collaborators, clients, and users.

The starting point for using more immersive technologies was in the initial imbrications, imbrication 1 and 2, where the employees at the architect company wanted to complement and eventually replace physical models with immersive 3D-rendered images by enrolling a plug-in allowing the architects and engineers to produce vivid 3D-rendered images. The purpose of this change in technology was to enable them to create artifacts that communicated their idea of a building project to clients clearly and effectively – professionals and laymen alike. However, while the technology made the organizational routine more effective because they could adjust

Thesis 161 and test models more quickly using 3D images instead of physical models, in this transition they realized that they had lost the ability to communicate scale and depth clearly to the clients and users during the organizational meeting routine.

To alleviate this constraint, the following imbrications, imbrication 3 and 4, showed that they acquired a simple head-mounted display which could help them to communicate their idea, including the scale and depth, of a building project to clients, clearly and effectively. As they started to use it during the organizational meeting routine, they also started to use it internally as they gained some of the same benefits experienced by the layman clients and users – a better perception of scale and depth. However, as they started to use this head-mounted display more often, they recognized some issues which made it hard to legitimize the use of this alternative ostensive pattern of which the head-mounted display was a part.

In particular, imbrication 5 and 6 show that while they could communicate things more clearly internally to each other, they discovered that the preparations needed for using it were simply too laborious. They consequently wanted to be able to communicate their idea of a building project, including the scale and depth, clearly but also more effectively to each other. Hence, they acquired a new pair of more immersive head-mounted displays, as well as a plug-in which made it possible to first of all make the head-mounted display compatible with their existing software, but also to not only look but also walk around in vivid 3D-rendered models. However, while using the head-mounted display, the architects and engineers were shut off from the surrounding environment due to the materiality of the head-mounted display – the form and matter of the plastic casing. In this way, the use of the head-mounted display made the organizational design routine more individualized than it was before. Consequently, the alternative ostensive pattern, of which these more immersive technologies were a part, was put into question as the users could not use the new ostensive pattern to refer and make sense of their current actions together with their colleagues.

They could only use the ostensive pattern to refer and make sense of their current actions individually.

In imbrication 7 and 8, they therefore sought to make their new ostensive pattern, which involved the new and more immersive technologies, more collaborative while maintaining the benefits of the immersive aspect of the technologies. The imbrications show that the materiality, the form and matter of the head-mounted display, cut its users off from colleagues. In addition, when designing both individually and together with others, they often needed to consult other non-digital artifacts which was not possible when they put on their head-mounted display as the

Thesis 162 material properties of the device shut them off from their surrounding environment. Therefore, they started to model and render 3D models using the new plug-in, but instead of putting on the head-mounted display they simply viewed the rendered model on a traditional monitor. In this manner, they could discover errors while also being able to collaborate with their colleagues and consult non-digital artifacts during the design process.

Because they used these more immersive ostensive patterns at different times, the materiality of the head-mounted display could be circumvented due to both the flexibility of the technology and human actors involved in the organizational design routine. This was especially due to the plug-in’s compatibility with both the displays and the actors’ technical competences which allowed them to appropriate the technology in a way that suited their goals. This in turn meant, that the ostensive patterns could be used by the actors as a guide for their future performances and as a way to account for and refer to past and current performances which match with their goals.