This grant provides funding to organize and conduct a two-day workshop to enable and promote collaborative research agendas between architectural and engineering design researchers. The intellectual merit of this workshop lies in the knowledge gained by aggressively engaging the issues at the contested border between engineering design and architecture. The objectives of this workshop are to: 1) provide a forum to identify and discuss the barriers to effective collaboration between architecture and engineering design researchers; 2) allow participants to share best practices and successful collaborative strategies; 3) examine how the barriers and best practices identified should impact design education; and 4) identify collaborative research directions for architectural and engineering design researchers to pursue at NSF. The workshop will engage 50 people from academia, industry, and government agencies by inviting participants from a wide range of architectural design and engineering design communities. The results of the workshop will be documented in a report that will be distributed through a website and emails to appropriate communities.
If successful, this workshop will promote design pedagogy to improve educational practices in both engineering design and architecture. Synergies between communities will be explored and identified, with new research agendas being developed. The workshop has the potential to significantly impact the way in which architects and engineers approach the design of complex building structures, particularly in light of the present emphasis on green design. The attractiveness of project-based learning will be explored and emphasized to attract the best and brightest to the design professions. Representatives from Philadelphias Charter High School for Architecture and Design (CHAD) will be invited to participate in the workshop, extending Penn States current outreach partnership and presenting the challenges and opportunities from offering pre-college design education to a diverse population of students.
NSF Workshop: Collaborative Practice: When Engineering Design Meets Architecture 4-5 November 2010, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA USA Organized and Prepared by: Franca Trubiano and William W Braham , Penn Design, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA USA Dan Willis, Architecture Timothy W. Simpson, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering John Messner, Architectural Engineering Gul Kremer, Engineering Design & Industrial Engineering The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA USA This workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation through NSF Grant No. CMMI-1042293 and CMMI-1042222 With support from the NSF, the workshop, Collaborative Practice: When Engineering Design Meets Architecture, sought to cultivate a common research language and to foster cross-cultural understanding amongst architects and engineers, with the aim of overcoming many of the historic barriers that have hindered our effective collaboration. Based on discussion with Dr. Bloebaum and Dr. Larry Bank (former NSF Program Director for Structural Materials and Mechanics), the Penn State/UPenn Design team hosted the workshop in Philadelphia. Over one-and-a-half days, approximately 50 architecture and engineering faculty, along with a few deans and other academic administrators, and representatives from industry formed connections with other like-minded researchers, and learned from their experiences developing funded research programs from NSF and other sources. Break-out groups tackled specific issues aiming to identify effective strategies for increasing the range of collaborative opportunities available to architects and engineers in the area of design. Motivation for the Workshop The borders between the design disciplines of architecture and engineering design, particularly in terms of their accepted methodologies for research and practice, remain unclear. Each discipline tends to operate as if their methods and customs were universally applicable. Each has the tendency to speak primarily to those who share their native language and core beliefs, and each believes that its cultural outlook is superior. This lack of cross-border respect and comprehension presents an obvious obstacle to true collaboration. The workshop was motivated by the belief that the greatest potential for discovery and transformational innovation in the design of buildings exists at the contested border between engineering and architecture design practices. In keeping with the findings of The 2004 National Innovation Initiative Report [5], the most innovative findings, methods, and products are likely to come at the intersection of disciplines, rather than—in the case of engineering and architecture—by either operating in isolation. Consequently, the intellectual merit of this workshop lies in the knowledge gained by aggressively engaging the issues at the border between engineering design and architecture. This workshop provided a starting point for an open discussion of collaborative research possibilities and the pitfalls of interdisciplinary work. At the contested border between engineering and architecture design practices exists the greatest potential for discovery and transformational innovation. The intellectual merit of this workshop lay in the knowledge gained by aggressively engaging the issues at the contested border between engineering design and architecture. This workshop provided a starting point for an open discussion of collaborative research possibilities and pitfalls of interdisciplinary work. Finally, best practices from successful collaborations were presented and catalogued, and directions for future engagements identified. The broader impacts of the workshop stem from advancing design pedagogy to improve educational practices in both engineering design and architecture. The attractiveness of project-based learning should be utilized to attract the "best and brightest" to the design professions. Opportunities to develop cross-disciplinary approaches to design education were discussed. We brought together design researchers and practitioners from architecture, architectural engineering, and engineering design for the two-day intensive workshop to catalyze collaborative research across these fields. Presenters from engineering design, architecture, and related disciplines discussed the borders and language barriers between their accepted research and practice methods.Workshop participants observed both a live architectural critique or "jury," and an engineering design project review. These two means of determining quality, each endemic to its discipline, were then discussed and contrasted through presentations and a panel discussion involving both design researchers and practitioners. In addition, successful interdisciplinary teams of researchers explained their strategies for obtaining NSF support for research in design. Invited guests from the professions and industry presented recent advances that span the disciplines of architecture, engineering, and construction. Summary of Workshop Objectives Provide a forum to identify and discuss the barriers to effective collaboration between architecture and engineering design researchers, Allow participants to share best practices and successful collaborative strategies, Examine how the barriers and best practices identified should impact design education Identify collaborative research directions for architectural and engineering design researchers to pursue at NSF Recommendations from the Workshop Include: 1. Expand scope of NSF solicitations and review panels for interdisciplinary design activities. 2. Promote the awareness of Design as Research 3. Promote awareness of the value of research to Design. 4. More discussion needs to occur regarding our alternative "design paradigms". 5. Interdisciplinary understanding must go beyond "colonization".
