85
fundamental role of the design team as clarifier of design intent
thus reappears.
Now that we have explored the seemingly endless chain of interdependent design issues that invariably affect material choice in a
concert hall, let’s go back just for a moment and look again at our
original design assumptions: that our purpose was to design a hall
that provides a high level of musical experience for the audience.
Everything followed from this seemingly perfectly reasonable design
objective. How could anyone argue? The history of architecture and
other design fields, however, is literally filled with examples in
which a metric associated with a seemingly unassailable functionally driven design objective is overshadowed by some other, and
perhaps less obvious, design objective. In designing for stage performances, for example, optimum views of the stage from the spectator
boxes and seats as defined by clear sight lines and proximity would
seemingly be a primary design determinant. Yet in the Renaissance
period, we know that desirable seats were often those that had only
adequate views of the stage but excellent views of the remainder of
the theater. This reflected the understood social value at the time
that seeing the audience was as important as seeing the stage. In
many Baroque theaters, the royal box did have a good view of the
stage, whereas other spectator seats often had poor orientations
toward the stage. Here, the most desired seats were often the ones
with the best view of the royal box, with it’s vice versa implication
(“to see and be seen”). Clear lines of sight and proximities to the
stage were simply less important. Thus, the social interactions and
conventions provided the dominant design context. We note this
example simply to serve as a warning that design problems can often
be too easily characterized. A good design team will spend a good
amount of time being sure that the initial design question is correctly framed in its broadest possible sense.
Further reaDing
The language and approach in sections of this chapter dealing with
characterizing products were largely adopted from sources such as Karl
T. Ulrich and Steven Eppinger, Product Design and Development, McGrawHill, 1995, although terms such as modular have been used for years in
many and various design contexts. The ideas are certainly not new to
experienced designers.
Design process discussions were drawn from several sources, including the
following books by Michael Ashby that elaborate in much more detail on
many of the topics presented here. The book by Leo Baranek is an
immensely interesting book on acoustics.
Further Reading
fundamental role of the design team as clarifier of design intent
thus reappears.
Now that we have explored the seemingly endless chain of interdependent design issues that invariably affect material choice in a
concert hall, let’s go back just for a moment and look again at our
original design assumptions: that our purpose was to design a hall
that provides a high level of musical experience for the audience.
Everything followed from this seemingly perfectly reasonable design
objective. How could anyone argue? The history of architecture and
other design fields, however, is literally filled with examples in
which a metric associated with a seemingly unassailable functionally driven design objective is overshadowed by some other, and
perhaps less obvious, design objective. In designing for stage performances, for example, optimum views of the stage from the spectator
boxes and seats as defined by clear sight lines and proximity would
seemingly be a primary design determinant. Yet in the Renaissance
period, we know that desirable seats were often those that had only
adequate views of the stage but excellent views of the remainder of
the theater. This reflected the understood social value at the time
that seeing the audience was as important as seeing the stage. In
many Baroque theaters, the royal box did have a good view of the
stage, whereas other spectator seats often had poor orientations
toward the stage. Here, the most desired seats were often the ones
with the best view of the royal box, with it’s vice versa implication
(“to see and be seen”). Clear lines of sight and proximities to the
stage were simply less important. Thus, the social interactions and
conventions provided the dominant design context. We note this
example simply to serve as a warning that design problems can often
be too easily characterized. A good design team will spend a good
amount of time being sure that the initial design question is correctly framed in its broadest possible sense.
Further reaDing
The language and approach in sections of this chapter dealing with
characterizing products were largely adopted from sources such as Karl
T. Ulrich and Steven Eppinger, Product Design and Development, McGrawHill, 1995, although terms such as modular have been used for years in
many and various design contexts. The ideas are certainly not new to
experienced designers.
Design process discussions were drawn from several sources, including the
following books by Michael Ashby that elaborate in much more detail on
many of the topics presented here. The book by Leo Baranek is an
immensely interesting book on acoustics.
Further Reading