CCT204H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Jakob Von Uexkull, Ernst Haeckel, Design Thinking
12 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
CCT204 Design Thinking
Dr. Ann Donar
Monday, June 11, 2018
Reminder
● Next class (W6L11)
○ All components of A2 are due 3:15 pm in Lab
● A2 has to be related to the theme of board games
Agenda
● Design of Environments
○ Martin Krampen’s article
■ Semiotics in Architecture and Industrial, Product Design
● Other creativity methods and review of previous ones learned
● More on A2 and examples from previous years
● Examples of Labs 5, 6, 7
● In-class assignment #4
● Quiz 2 next week
○ Lab Test: Design an environment (isometric or perspective drawing), apply one
or more of concepts; ex. Redesign S419 or parking lot
Design of Environments - Use of Design Elements
● Similar to Graphic Design (Visual)
○ Line (and sight lines)
○ Colour
○ Texture
○ Space*
○ Shape
○ Lighting* - how you maximize daylight and sunlight
● Principles
○ Balance, emphasis, hierarchy, unity + variety
● Fundamental concepts
○ Ecology
■ Biologist Ernst Haeckel 1866
● “Ecology is the general science that studies the relationship
between the organism and its external environment.”
○ Scale
■ Our lived-in visible environment is composed of all we must see in order
to act successfully. Defining proportions of space.
■ Ranges from textures in millimeters to objects measurable in meters to
landscapes measurable in kilometers
○ Reciprocity
■ Organisms and their environments - inseparable whole
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Ex. Parking lot. Change the look and feel, the relationship between the users and the
environment (ecology). Relationship: Orderly vs crowded, too similar, too exposed. Change the
feel to more protective and orderly, easily recognizable.
James Gibson
● James Gibson proposed that our terrestrial habitat is best described by its
○ Medium
■ Gaseous atmosphere
■ Permits locomotion, seeing, hearing, smelling
○ Substances
■ Solid or semisolid state (ex. quicksand), different in makeup, e.g. density
■ Impossible to move through him; do not permit motion through them
○ Surfaces
■ Laid out in the environment
■ Have different textures and pigment (you can change these as a
designer)
● *Gibson coined the term affordance (form)
○ Ecological equivalent of meaning
○ “The object offers what it does because it is what it is.”
● Affordance is similar to
○ Counterability (Jakob von Uexkull, precursor to ethology)
■ “Everything which we get to see is adapted to our human needs.”
■ “Everything surrounding us...has only its sense and meaning by its
relationship to us humans.”
● Not the form of the object, e.g. chair, which is denoted by the
word, but its counter-ability
● (Ethology: the study of human behaviour; the study of human
behaviour and social organization from a biological perspective)
● Syntactics of surfaces and their layouts
○ Open environment
■ Only the ground (terrestrial or a paved surface), e.g. desert
○ Convexities and concavities
■ Natural or manmade clutter
○ Enclosure
● Layout of surfaces surrounding the medium
■ Total encoursure is rare, e.g. embryo
■ Most enclosures are partial enclosures, e.g. hole, cave
○ Place
■ Location in the environment
■ Have a name but no sharp boundaries
■ Inclusion into larger places
○ Attached objects
■ Partially surrounded by the medium
■ Most of them are attached to the ground
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
All components of a2 are due 3:15 pm in lab. A2 has to be related to the theme of board games. Semiotics in architecture and industrial, product design. Other creativity methods and review of previous ones learned. More on a2 and examples from previous years. Lab test: design an environment (isometric or perspective drawing), apply one or more of concepts; ex. Design of environments - use of design elements. Lighting* - how you maximize daylight and sunlight. Ecology is the general science that studies the relationship between the organism and its external environment. Our lived-in visible environment is composed of all we must see in order to act successfully. Ranges from textures in millimeters to objects measurable in meters to landscapes measurable in kilometers. Organisms and their environments - inseparable whole. Change the look and feel, the relationship between the users and the environment (ecology). Relationship: orderly vs crowded, too similar, too exposed.
