Research through Designing (RTD) has been conducted via LArch methods of reflection-in-action in an interplay with Interaction Research and elements from Actor-Network-Theory. Together, they comprise an exploratory research design. Documentation and qualification are provided mainly through visual material such as maps, mappings, photos, and sketch logbooks from meetings. These data constitute the qualifica-tion, reflections and discussions of the thesis.
The LArch methods particularly employed mappings, as continually used during the research and field trips. The aim was to use existing knowl-edge on, e.g. flow paths, infrastructure and physical characteristics of locations in new configurations, pointing to alternative relationships and affordances. The methods furthermore consisted of documenting and qualifying aspects of the research by reading planning documents, stud-ying maps and so forth. This is a classic modus of documenting common to landscape architecture: from lab to field and back and vice versa.
Using multi-methods is not new to LArch as a profession. During the research, the methods have developed into a more integrated approach, which has started to form into what I propose as a method: Design Comments. Design Comments have been used to promote the exchange of different knowledge and perspectives in transdisciplinary contexts.
The foundation for this was mappings that articulate landscape affor-dances and potentials for action. The Design Comments became an inte-grated method, pushing how RtD LArch knowledge can contribute to the collective skilled practices of seeing affordances as well as propositions for what ´could be´ attached to real-world problems. This is described in Chapter 2.3 Design Comments, and the concept of affordances is further discussed in the Chapter 4.5 Affordances.
Figur 2.2.8: The diagram provides an overview on the types and modus of data collection and what it is meant to produce knowledge on, within different categories of case-information.
TYPE DATA & DOCUMENTATION KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION ON
meetings
- disciplines and value attribution - practices in CA|HOW
- processual/procedures - facts on CA|HOW
project material - project drawings - visualisations - movie clips
- visual communication of CA|HOW projects - design practices
- practices of locating CA|HOW projects
external, related
- physical LA context of CA|HOW - planning context
- historical LA properties - settlement patterns and urban
development
field - field trips
- visual documentation (photos, diagrams, notes on maps)
- embodied experiences (scents, tones, lines of vision, movement)
- spatial characteristics of UrbLA - building practices, building materials - visible landscape properties (topog-raphy, typology, infrastructure, scale, barriers, vegetation, water bodies)
lab
lab-real-world
- mappings, diagramming - reading
- rendering new configurations and relations
- connecting past-present-future
landscapes
- rendering affordances
- propositional affordances (strategic) - synthesis and analysis of case info
- actor encounters using lab material
- pushing value discussions
- activating actors collective knowledge - testing LArch approaches
- responsive research; letting actors meanings count
INTERNALഩCASE-INFORMATIONEXTERNALഩCASE-INFORMATIONDESIGNINGഩCASE-INFORMATION
Follow the actors and interact
Employing real-time cases and using interaction has meant that I, as a researcher, influenced the case encounters and intentionally took an active role in the cases. I was deliberately influencing my subject matter of research. This is not a new situation or discussion in research and to claim full neutrality between subject and object, researcher and the researched, is well-acknowledged as impossible: researchers always influence the field of research and vice versa. In general, researchers will, of course, be aware of this. In the present context, the influence of the researcher has purposefully been sought through intervening using LArch tools. The research objective was always made clear to the case actors in order to provide as much transparency as possible, including when new actors entered meetings. However, unintentional or unnoticed influences have most likely formed part of the case encounters too.
From the outset, it was important to acknowledge relationally- and network- dependent interplays between human and non-human actors.
Following on from this, the ANT perspective has enabled a situational interpretation, where human interactions are coupled with the relevant non-human actors of the project. The connection between Actor-Net-work-Theory (ANT) and LArch RTD is that ANT specifically addresses the relational interplay between human and non-human actors in forming situations and actions. Connecting human and non-human actors relates to the core practices of Larch, for example, by connecting human movement, water’s flow, sensory sensations, the feeling of safety, light, scents, seasonal changes, vegetation types, biodiversity, soil conditions, materials, costs, structure and the size of planting holes. During the case encounters, I followed the human case-actors together with the non-human actors of the project, e.g. project drawings and the physical areas designated for CA|HOW-projects.
ANT
analysis and qualification project material, field, external, related documents
broadening knowledge on subject matter
Interaction
lab-real-world-feedback, meetings addressing transdisciplinarity and the
´how to´
LArch RTD as method
addressing value creation in urban landscapes and ´the how to´
Figur 2.2.9: The diagram shows Research through Designing (RTD) as the leading method with elements of (inter)action Research (IAR) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT).
eing present and situated
”I plunge into my notebook, trying to inscribe carefully traces of the discussions I have witnessed just moments ago. In doing so, I was trying to maintain a regime of presence that, although temporary, had to be prudent, imperceptible and not aggressive vis-á-vis the actors observed.”
Quote Albena Yaneva (Yaneva, 2009, p. 39):
To some extent, the cases of this research were followed using a spatial-ethnographic-ANT-approach, related to what is described by Albena Yaneva in ´The making of a building” (Yaneva, 2009). Yaneva describes how she makes an effort to maintain a regime of non-aggres-sion vis-à-vis presence and thus has to make her notes afterwards. This same approach provided real-world insights on transdisciplinary and intersectoral practices of CA|HOW. The situated encounters delivered informal, behind-the-curtain knowledge on the subject matter.
The difference, however, is the interactive component of this research.
The meeting encounters were not observation studies; they were the arena of interaction. The Interaction research consisted of establishing a transdisciplinary dialogue on value creation in CA|HOW time, real-world problems. The interactions focused on pushing value creation by introducing material, aiming to activate existing knowledge, and hope-fully to push the skilled practices of value creation in the transdisciplinary contexts of CA|HOW. The responses from the case-actors functioned as a concurrent testing/qualification of the LArch methods. Albertsen describes how ´things (non-human actors) and human actors are the mediators of each other´ (Albertsen, 2002). To explicate the concept of a mediator, Albertsen describes it in contrast to the communicator that is supposed to disseminate knowledge as unaltered as possible, whereas, quote Albertsen, own translation: “the mediator is active and positive.
It [the mediator] is doing something itself that cannot be reduced to effect or distortion of something else. A mediator is never exactly the cause or the consequence of its associated mediator. […] an actant can, literally, be anything that is acknowledged to be the source of an action”
(Albertsen, 2002, pp. 17–18). The concept of ´mediator´ describes quite well how the LArch methods of mapping and interacting with tangible material became a mediator of knowledge exchanges.
Figur 2.2.10: Sketchy notes from meeting encounters
Real-time cases and situated learning
Following real-time cases provided situated, in-depth, imperfect knowl-edge. For a start, the intention was not to try to follow every aspect of the processes or actor behaviour in the cases, and neither was it possible to attend all meetings. In addition to this we must also exempt email correspondence, phone calls, ad hoc meetings in the corridors, informal chats at other meetings, pre-existing actor constellations, power-rela-tions, sectoral practices, former collaboration experiences or stressful situations caused by working conditions, printer breakdowns, interfering media headlines or politicians special areas of interests – all of which go on unbeknown to me. Conversely, the actors provided me with additional background information on, e.g. prior experiences of troublesome public processes or challenges in cross-departmental and cross-sectoral collab-oration. These insights gave me a deeper contextual understanding of the subject matter and thus also the setting for value creation.
The process of following real-time cases meant being part of situated
´in-between´ situations, which also changed my research perspective.
It drove the need for employing theoretical frameworks relating to value, enabling me to go beyond my initial, practice-based assumptions on value creation as ´added-value´. In this way, the real-time cases informed, formed and changed the discussions, analysis and conclusions of the thesis. Another question is how Interaction research establishes a relationship between researcher and the actors followed.
Contextual and temporal perspectives
The temporal perspective further emphasises these research charac-teristics: I followed the cases on-off for two years and four months.
During this time span, I achieved situated knowledge on the actors’
practices and work fields related to CA|HOW including how they became acquainted with my methods and me as a person. The temporal perspec-tive led to a deeper understanding of the actors´ worlds and broadened my contextualised knowledge of the subject matter. It also led to a sense of growing personal relationships. The door swings both ways when interacting over time, and the consequences are two-fold: it provided situated knowledge, and it also instigated a lessening of the distinction between researcher and the researched and less distancation. The main-tenance of the research objective was the continuous baseline.
Contextual circumstances have likely furthered the openness of the actors: the clearly stated ´soft´ objective (added-value) functioned as an entry point. Furthermore, I represented an ´individual´ actor without economic or positional interests (position within their organisation), I, therefore, I did not represent private interests (protecting my property or sales value), political interests (the AAA funded the research) or media interests in creating headliners. The temporal perspective of following the cases for a longer timespan played a role too, as this necessarily meant knowing each other differently than if I had followed them for a short time. In addition to this, the time perspective also resulted in changing actor constellations.
Figur 2.2.11: Top: Sketchy reflec-tion notes on the methods.
Bottom: Structural outline of the iterative elements of the research process of following case leads, studying these further through LArch methods and tools, and then, taking this knowledge into the next case encounter as an continuous process of learning and producing knowledge through the case studies.