Imbrication 8 (Material à human)

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

In some of the previous imbrications, head-mounted displays enabled a better understanding of depth and scale. However, these affordances were most beneficial during individual use while constraining discussions with colleagues and the use of other non-digital artifacts. Therefore, they started to use the plug-in less with head-mounted displays and more together with traditional displays whose materiality did not hinder interaction with colleagues or non-digital artifacts.

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

This in turn changed the organizational routine by helping communication across disciplines – between engineers and architects especially, for example in the later stages of the design process when engineers are translating architects’ conceptual drawings into technical drawings. At this stage, the ability to create detailed 3D models of 2D drawings, which the architects could walk through either alone or together with an engineer, reduced the need for architects and engineers to rely on their own interpretation of 2D drawings. Instead, they could talk and discuss while referring to a common interpretation of the 2D model, the rendered 3D model created by the plug-in, in turn reducing misunderstandings. For example, at one point during my observations, three architects are sitting at the desktop computer and one of them walks through the 3D model of the church using the plug-in, Enscape (the new plug-in). They also use other artifacts to communicate, argue, and discuss the pros and cons of design ideas: paper drawings, both 2D plan drawings and 3D renderings, and the computer monitor to communicate, discuss, and edit designs.

Later, they also used physical materials (e.g. wood samples). At one instance, they discussed whether or not to use some lamps in the ceiling instead of the existing types of lamps. At other times they discussed the different materials that could or could not work with regard to the holistic composition of the nave of the church, but also if some materials would be too expensive.

This illustrates the collaborative nature of the organizational design routine and how, by being able to refer to the same 3D model and non-digital artifacts, they can, among other things, reduce misunderstandings and eventually realize their goal. More importantly, it also showed that when all of the meeting participants could refer to something on the PC monitor, while walking through the model of the church, they could discover errors more easily as both the user walking through

Thesis 139 the 3D model and his or her colleagues could view the same model, balancing the conversation between them.

So, when collaborating, they did not use the head-mounted display very often as the materiality, its inclusiveness, shut them off from their colleagues and other non-digital artifacts. However, when testing, getting updates on changes, and perceiving scale, they enrolled the head-mounted displays in the organizational design routine – but only when they had to understand aspects of the 3D model individually, for example when partner architects needed to be updated on design changes or when they needed to perceive scale and depth issues. That is, the alternative ostensive pattern in which the head-mounted display was enrolled was predominantly performed when architects and engineers had to understand the depth and scale of 3D models individually.

However, because the organizational design routine was highly collaborative, often requiring discussions and negotiations with colleagues, it was especially the new plug-in’s ability to render the 3D models instantaneously, thus enabling users to walk or fly through their models, that changed the existing ostensive pattern of the organizational design routine.

As they used these ostensive patterns at different times, the materiality of the head-mounted display could be circumvented, due to the flexibility of both the technology and the human actors involved in the organizational design routine. This was due especially to the plug-in’s compatibility with the display and to the actors’ technical competences, which allowed them to appropriate the technology in a way that suited their goals. In this manner, 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 aligns with their goals.

In short, by using different ostensive patterns, with or without head-mounted displays enrolled in them, they realized their goal of clearly and effectively communicating their idea of a building project, including the depth and scale, to each other while also being able to discover errors.

Thesis 140

Figure 17: Illustration of imbrications for the organizational design routine.

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.