WHAT DESIGN DOCUMENTS (CAN) DO

Power relations and knowledge mediation through design documents in building design processes.

This PhD-project investigates the role and functioning of design documents in the contingent reality of building practice. Design documents are socio-technical tools through which a building project is developed, and therefore fundamental in a design process, but rarely addressed as such in academia.

The PhD research stays close to the realities of practice and looks into the back-office of concrete building production. It aims to grasp the turmoil and the contingencies of a project in development and make it comprehensible, beyond polished narratives in discourse. This allows to address tacit dimensions of knowledge production and negotiation in a design context, and of the practical use of theory and standardized documents. The project probes deeply into three design processes of finished building projects in Flanders between 2010 and 2020, in the first place based on archives of architects and structural engineers. Each time, the development of the structural design is the focus, to introduce disciplinary complexity inherent to building design, and definitively leave behind the author-focus on the architect.

The design process is approached from an epistemic angle: as a process in which knowledge about the future project is generated by continuously concretizing ideas, verifying them, communicating them and consolidating them. These activities materialize in ‘design documents’ - sketches, plans, calculation models, materials lists, and more. More than material remnants of the process or by-products of a cognitive activity, the combined set of most recent documents constitutes, at the time, the most concrete version of the project, serving as essential points of reference for further development and therefore fundamental to the design process.

The main premise of the research is that those documents are not merely instrumental. They distribute agency, structure design thinking, anchor tacit and embedded knowledge. “The cascade of ideas on paper, (...) is necessarily also a centre of power – the locus of control and negotiation."(Henderson, 1994) Especially in complex processes requiring the integration of knowledge from multiple disciplines, documents mediate this knowledge, acting as knowledge containers, gatekeepers, black boxes and enablers. Secondly, all these kinds of ‘documents’ are strongly predefined, have their own histories, epistemic contexts and carry cultural assumptions. Therefore, the project questions the role and functioning of documents in how knowledge comes in into design project, how it is applied, verified, negotiated and stabilized.

Four specific sets of design documents, each are mediating knowledge in a different way, are selected from detailed process reconstructions and further scrutinized in detail. The subversive deployment of a depiction of a FEM-model in the context of a design competition, the use, role and evolution of a diagram, the shifting formats of a bill of quantities and various approaches of a parameter in a formula are unpacked in their specific context and on pivotal moments in the respective design processes.

These documents are mundane and seem straightforward and unambiguous. However, the research illustrates how they actively shape the design process, by ingeniously mediating and transforming the vast heterogeneous bodies of knowledge that converge in building projects. The research builds on theoretical frameworks from Science and Technology Studies and Design Studies, while its grounding in building practice situates it firmly within architectural theory. By providing insights into the realities of practice, the research challenges persistent narratives, redefines disciplinary boundaries, fosters critical thinking and cultural awareness on what building design entails. This can nurture more effective teamwork and agility to react to current societal challenges in building industry.