From Reflecting-in-Action Towards Mapping of the Real

Abstract

In Chapter 8, “From Reflecting-in-Action towards Reality Mapping”, Albena Yaneva, in the first part of her text discusses two possible ways of architectural enquiry: reflective enquiry (recalling a particular example from Donald SchÖn to exemplify his understanding of the term); and the mapping controversies method as an example for a hybrid self-exemplifying mode of enquiry. She draws a comparison between ShÖn´s descriptions of reflexivity in the studio and the type of reflexivity implied by a mapping controversy experiment. She uses a real case study done by her students on Heathrow airport, but tells the story of what they did as if we were to follow them in the process of mapping a controversy. This description aims at tracing some parallels with ShÖn´s approach while illustrating at the same time what it means to engage in such a mapping (it is a social science enquiry into the complexity of design rather than a purely technical mapping of reality - the reader will be told that at the end). She then further explains the mapping controversies approach, its history and how this method has been used in design education. She illustrates how this type of social science enquiry is translated into design, and vice versa, how designers can inform controversy studies in a better way. In her conclusion, she discusses the object/thing distinction in an architectural context, and considers what design education can gain from similar experiments of visualising things as complex ecologies rather than static objects. She also argues for the need of more realistic and less meta-reflexivity-based approaches in design education.