Academic literature on the topic 'Diverserighe Studio (Architectural firm)'

This study discusses the architectural work of an office named @Batubata, owned by the architectural firm Studio Air Putih. The object was chosen because it won two prestigious awards in the best office category and a lot of media coverage. It's just that there are no studies that discuss the office academically and in detail. So in this study review looking for the main characteristics of the Studio Air Putih office by dissecting and deciphering the building elements using the Archetype understanding of Thomas Thiis Evansen's thoughts. This study uses a descriptive qualitative approach where primary data is obtained through observation and interviews. Literature study was conducted to obtain secondary data.

The author, an architect who graduated in 1996 from the Department of Architecture and Urbanism, Ricardo Palma University, Lima, Peru, is currently working as a research visitor at the Urban Studio of Professor Haruhiko Goto at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. Further to being Head of her architectural firm in Lima (since 2003) with a grant from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), her projects include the final coordination, with Austrian architect Hans Hollein, of the Landscape Project for the Lima Headquarters of Interbank (the second largest bank in Peru); her role as Assistant Project Manager of EMILIMA S.A. (Lima Municipal Real Estate Firm), and her research work on Japanese Gardens in Okinawa (Shuri Castle's Gardens restoration Consultant) under landscape engineer Shimada Hiromitsu. The text that follows is a slightly revised and edited version of a paper presented by the author at the international symposion on "Globalization and Local Identity," organized jointly by the World Society for Ekistics and the University of Shiga Prefecture in Hikone, Japan, 19-24 September, 2005.

Abstrak_ Biro arsitektur di Kota Makassar umumnya didominasi oleh entitas yang belum memiliki kantor fisik untuk mencerminkan profesionalisme dan kredibilitasnya. Dalam konteks pertumbuhan kota yang pesat, kebutuhan akan kantor yang menunjukkan keprofesionalan menjadi semakin krusial. Kantor sewa menjadi salah satu solusi bagi biro arsitektur yang belum memiliki kantor fisik yang representatif. Namun, saat ini kantor sewa yang tersedia di Kota Makassar belum mampu memadai kebutuhan tersebut, padahal sangat diperlukan. Sementara itu, belum terdapat standar kriteria jenis dan luasan kebutuhan ruang kantor sewa bisnis pemula biro arsitektur sehingga dibutuhkan penelitian untuk mengidentifikasi seberapa besar unit ruang dan kebutuhan ruang apa saja yang paling dominan dibutuhkan oleh bisnis pemula biro arsitektur di Kota Makassar. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi seberapa besar unit ruang dan kebutuhan ruang apa saja yang paling dominan dibutuhkan oleh biro arsitektur pemula. Metode penelitian campuran melalui kajian literatur dan kuesioner digunakan untuk mendapatkan pemahaman yang holistik. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ruang prioritas yang dibutuhkan oleh bisnis pemula biro arsitektur berkapasitas kurang dari sepuluh orang dengan luas kebutuhan ruang kurang lebih sebesar 34,25 m2 mencakup ruang direktur, ruang staf administrasi, ruang principal architect, dan ruang studio. Sedangkan kebutuhan lainnya tetap dipertimbangkan dalam desain kantor sewa sebagai fasilitas bersama. Kata kunci: Efisiensi Ruang; Kantor Sewa; Kebutuhan Ruang; Biro Arsitektur Pemula Abstract_ Architecture firms in Makassar City are generally dominated by entities that do not yet have a physical office to reflect their professionalism and credibility. In the context of the city's rapid growth, the need for an office that demonstrates professionalism becomes increasingly crucial. Rental offices are one of the solutions for architectural firms that do not yet have a representative physical office. Still, currently, the rental offices available in Makassar City cannot meet this need, despite its importance. Meanwhile, there are no standardized criteria for the type and size of space requirements of architectural bureau start-ups' rental offices, so research is needed to identify the necessary number of space units and the most dominant space requirements for architectural bureau start-ups in Makassar City. This research aims to identify how many space units and what space needs are most dominantly needed by a beginner architectural bureau. A mixed research method through literature review and questionnaires was used to gain a holistic understanding. The results showed that the priority space required by a start-up architecture firm with a capacity of less than ten people and an area of approximately 34.25 m2 includes a director's room, administrative staff room, principal architect room, and studio room. At the same time, other needs are still considered in the rental office design as shared facilities. Keywords: Space Efficiency; Rental Office; Space Requirement; Beginner Architecture Firm

As part of Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC), architectural design projects are carried out by an architectural design studio consulting firm, where within the company there is a design team consisting of human resources with expertise in design and project administration. The architectural design project is part of the Initiating and Planning process in the AEC project. In the framework of the Monitoring & Controlling process, tools are needed in the form of Standard Operating Procedures in the form of steps and documents where assessment and reporting can be carried out properly. Method of creating SOP is to use a Flowchart, so that will be a concise and easy-to-understand flow can be made, so that analysis and evaluation can then be carried out based on the sequence of steps of a series of process activities. Several conclusions obtained from this study: previous research shows that work discipline has an influence on employee performance; the performance aspects assessed by members of the design team are the quantity of work (project scope), time to do the task, and quality of work (conformity with company quality standards); aspects of work discipline that are assessed by team members, namely discipline in working hours regulations, discipline in dress and behavior etiquette, discipline in interacting and coordinating with other work units, and discipline in following regulations; performance appraisal is carried out by a superior in the design department (principal architect), while the work discipline assessment is carried out by a supervisor from the HR development department.

The article examines mobile systems urban greening as a factor of sustainable development, because in modern cities urbanized structures absorb landscaping. Cities are growing and developing very fast, and green areas are becoming less and less. In response to high-rise compacted buildings, the search for other forms of returning natural complexes to the city structure is required. The growth of urban population and the density of urban development attaches special importance to the problem of creating zones of ecological comfort. The development of the city leads to a reduction in clean air, water, green space and silence, which is so lacking in modern man with his fast pace of life in cities. Nowadays, the problem of landscaping of urban areas can be solved without demolition of buildings, by creating environmentally friendly areas with the help of mobile landscaping systems. Mobile systems urban greening is city landscaping that is implemented through structural elements that can be implemented, moved, and if necessary, removed from the city fabric. The article analyzes the world experience of creating a vertical park with the help of mobile greening systems. The vertical park was developed in New York by the architectural firm «EFGH Architectural Design Studio». The park is developed in a small area and its effective use is created by upward development, instead of planar. This design not only allows you to plant greenery in highly urbanized areas of the city and improve the environment, but it can also attract tourists. The article emphasizes that the sustainable development of the city of Odessa requires a single landscape and ecological framework, which would be connected into a single system of urban green spaces. With the growth of the city of Odessa, increasing the number of stories, building density, construction of public services, especially in the central part of the city, the question of maintaining the continuity and uniformity of green spaces in the city. To create such an environmentally sustainable green framework of the city, it is advisable to use mobile systems urban greening.

This paper presents a critique to the traditional business model followed by many architecture studios who utilize the ‘architectural competition’ as a format for developing new ideas and innovation. The abundant competition calls, implying free labour, that architectural competitions facilitate has become a mechanism to coerce architectural innovation towards the benefit of a ruling elite. The Plethora Project studio has attempted since 2011 to hybridize the practice of architecture with forms of entertainment in order to allow cultural engagement and ultimately communicate the challenges that architecture faces not only from a perspective of technological progress but from one of social progress as well. To do so, the medium of video games has been selected to communicate complex systems of interdependence, inviting a new audience of non- architects to participate in the construction of knowledge and discourse by understanding complex webs of interdependence that link material resources, knowledge, labour andaccess. The studio sits at the intersection between an architectural firm and a gaming studio with social interest. This implies the necessity for innovation in economic strategies that enable the autonomy of ideas and the development of non-conventional projects.

Este trabajo presenta una crítica al modelo de negocios tradicional usado por muchas oficinas de arquitectura que utilizan el “concurso de arquitectura” como una manera de desarrollar nuevas ideas e innovar. Los nume- rosos concursos de arquitectura, que implican trabajo no remunerado, se han convertido en un mecanismo para forzar la innovación arquitectónica en beneficio de la élite dominante. El taller Proyecto Plethora ha tra- tado, desde 2011, de hibridar la práctica de la arquitectura con formas de entretenimiento que permitan el compromiso cultural y, en última instancia, comunicar los desafíos que enfrenta la arquitectura no solo desde una perspectiva de progreso tecnológico sino también desde un plano de progreso social. Para hacer esto, el medio de los videojuegos ha sido elegido por su capacidad de comunicar complejos sistemas de interde- pendencia, invitando a un público nuevo, sin conocimientos de arquitectura, a participar en la construcción de conocimiento y de nuevos discursos por medio de la comprensión de redes complejas de interdependencia que unen recursos materiales, conocimiento, trabajo y acceso. El taller se posiciona en la intersección entre la oficina de arquitectura y un estudio de videojuegos con interés social. Esto implica la necesidad de innovación en estrategias económicas que permitan la autonomía de ideas y el desarrollo de proyectos no convencionales. Abstract_ This paper presents a critique to the traditional business model followed by many architecture studios who utilize the ‘architectural competition’ as a format for developing new ideas and innovation. The abundant competition calls, implying free labour, that architectural competitions facilitate has become a mechanism to coerce architectural innovation towards the benefit of a ruling elite. The Plethora Project studio has attempted since 2011 to hybridize the practice of architecture with forms of entertainment in order to allow cultural engagement and ultimately communicate the challenges that architecture faces not only from a perspective of technological progress but from one of social progress as well. To do so, the medium of video games has been selected to communicate complex systems of interdependence, inviting a new audience of non-architects to participate in the construction of knowledge and discourse by understanding complex webs of interdependence that link material resources, knowledge, labour and access. The studio sits at the intersection between an architectural firm and a gaming studio with social interest. This implies the necessity for innovation in economic strategies that enable the autonomy of ideas and the development of non-conventional projects.

A Site for the Study of Ambience Deep in Melbourne’s subterranean belly lies a long, dark space dedicated to screen-based art. Built along disused train platforms, it’s even possible to hear the ghostly rumblings and clatter of trains passing alongside the length of the gallery on quiet days. Upon descending the single staircase leading into this dimly-lit space, visitors encounter a distinctive sensory immersion. A flicker of screens dapple the windowless vastness ahead, perhaps briefly highlighting entrances into smaller rooms or the faintly-outlined profiles of visitors. This space often houses time-based moving image artworks. The optical flicker and aural stirrings of adjacent works distract, luring visitors’ attention towards an elsewhere. Yet on other occasions, this gallery’s art is bounded by walls, private enclosures which absorb perceptions of time into the surrounding darkness. Some works lie dormant awaiting visitors’ intervention, while others rotate on endless loops, cycling by unheeded, at times creating an environment of visual and aural collision. A weak haze of daylight falls from above mid-way through the space, marking the gallery’s only exit – an escalator fitted with low glowing lights. This is a space of thematic and physical reinvention. Movable walls and a retractable mezzanine enable the 110 metre long, 15 metre wide and almost 10 metre high space to be reformed with each exhibition, as evidenced by the many exhibitions that this Screen Gallery has hosted since opening as a part of the Australian for the Moving Image (ACMI) in 2002. ACMI endured controversial beginnings over the public funds dedicated to its gallery, cinemas, public editing and games labs, TV production studio, and screen education programs. As media interrogation of ACMI’s role and purpose intensified, several pressing critical and public policy questions surfaced as to how visitors were engaging with and valuing this institution and its spaces. In this context, I undertook the first, in depth qualitative study of visitation to ACMI, so as to address these issues and also the dearth of supporting literature into museum visitation (beyond broad, quantitative analyses). Of particular interest was ACMI’s Screen Gallery, for it appeared to represent something experientially unique and historically distinctive as compared to museums and galleries of the past. I therefore undertook an ethnographic study of museum visitation to codify the expression of ACMI’s institutional remit in light of the modalities of its visitors’ experiences in the Gallery. This rich empirical material formed the basis of my study and also this article, an ethnography of the Screen Gallery’s ambience. My study was undertaken across two exhibitions, World without End and White Noise (2005). While WWE was thematically linear in its charting of the dawn of time, globalisation and apocalypse, visitor interaction was highly non-linear. The moving image was presented in a variety of forms and spaces, from the isolation of works in rooms, the cohabitation of the very large to very small in the gallery proper, to enclosures created by multiple screens, laser-triggered interactivity and even plastic bowls with which visitors could ‘capture’ projections of light. Where heterogeneity was embraced in WWE, WN offered a smoother and less rapturous environment. It presented works by artists regarded as leaders of recent practices in the abstraction of the moving image. Rather than recreating the free exploratory movement of WWE, the WN visitor was guided along one main corridor. Each work was situated in a room or space situated to the right-hand side of the passageway. This isolation created a deep sense of immersion and intimacy with each work. Low-level white noise was even played across the Gallery so as to absorb the aural ‘bleed’ from neighbouring works. For my study, I used qualitative ethnographic techniques to gather phenomenological material, namely longitudinal participant observation and interviews. The observations were conducted on a fortnightly basis for seven months. I typically spent two to three hours shadowing visitors as they moved through the Gallery, detailing patterns of interaction; from gross physical movement and speech, to the very subtle modalities of encounter: a faint smile, a hesitation, or lapsing into complete stillness. I specifically recruited visitors for interviews immediately after their visit so as to probe further into these phenomenological moments while their effects were still fresh. I also endeavoured to capture a wide cross-sample of responses by recruiting on the basis of age, gender and reason for visitation. Ten in-depth interviews (between 45 minutes and one hour) were undertaken, enquiring into the factors influencing impressions of the Gallery, such as previous museum and art experiences, and opinions about media art and technology. In this article, I particularly draw upon my interviews with Steven, Fleur, Heidi, Sean, Trevor and Mathew. These visitors’ commentaries were selected as they reflect upon the overall ambience of the Gallery–intimate recollections of moving through darkness and projections of light–rather than engagement with individual works. When referring to ambience, I borrow from Brian Eno’s 1978 manifesto of Ambient Music, as it offers a useful analogy for assessing the complexity within subtle aesthetic experiences, and more specifically, in a spatial environment generated by electronic means. An ambience is defined as an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint…Whereas the extant canned music companies proceed from the basis of regularizing environments by blanketing their acoustic and atmospheric idiosyncrasies, Ambient Music is intended to enhance these. Whereas conventional background music is produced by stripping away all sense of doubt and uncertainty (and thus all genuine interest) from the music, Ambient Music retains these qualities. And whereas their intention is to ‘brighten’ the environment by adding stimulus to it… Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think…Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting. (Eno, "Ambient Music")While Eno’s definition specifically discusses a listening space, it is comparable to the predominantly digital and visual gallery environment as it elicits similar states of attention, such as calm reflection, or even a peaceful emptying of thoughts. I propose that ACMI’s darkened Screen Gallery creates an exploratory space for such intimate, bodily, subjective experiences. I firstly locate this study within the genealogical context of visitor interaction in museum exhibition environments. We then follow the visitors through the Gallery. As the nuances of their journey are presented, I assess the significance of an alternate model for presenting art which encourages ‘active’ aesthetic experience by privileging ambiguity and subtlety–yet heightened interactivity–and is similar to the systemic complexity Eno accords his Ambient Music. Navigating Museums in the Past The first public museums appeared in the context of the emerging liberal democratic state as both a product and articulation of the early stages of modernity in the nineteenth century. Museum practitioners enforced boundaries by prescribing visitors’ routes architecturally, by presenting museum objects within firm knowledge categories, and by separating visitors from objects with glass cabinets. By making their objects publicly accessible and tightly governing visitors’ parameters of spatial interaction, museums could enforce a pedagogical regulation of moral codes, an expression of ‘governmentality’ which constituted the individual as both a subject and object of knowledge (Bennett "Birth", Culture; Hooper-Greenhill). The advent of high modernism in the mid-twentieth century enforced positivist doctrines through a firm direction of visitor movement, exemplified by Le Corbusier’s Musée à Croissance Illimitée (1939) and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York (1959) (Davey 36). In more recent stages of modernity, architecture has attempted to reconcile the singular authority imposed by a building’s design. Robert Venturi, a key theorist of post-modern architecture, argued that the museum’s pedagogical failure to achieve social and political reforms was due to the purist and universalist values expressed within modern architecture. He proposed that post-modern architecture could challenge aesthetic modernism with a playful hybridity which emphasises symbolism and sculptural forms in architecture, and expresses a more diverse set of pluralist ideologies. Examples might include Hans Hollein’s Abteiberg Museum (1972-1982), or the National Museum of Australia in Canberra (2001). Contemporary attempts to design museum interactions reflect the aspirations of the ‘new museum.’ They similarly address a pluralist agenda, but mediate increasingly individualised forms of participation though highly interactive technological interfaces (Message). Commenting about art galleries, Lev Manovich greets this shift with some pessimism. He argues that the high art of the ‘white cube’ gallery is now confronting its ‘ideological enemy’, the ‘black box’, a historically ‘lower’ art form of cinema theatre (10). He claims that the history of spatial experimentation in art galleries is being reversed as much moving image art has been exhibited using a video projection in a darkened room, thereby limiting visitor participation to earlier, static forms of engagement. However, he proposes that new technologies could have an important presence and role in cultural institutions as an ‘augmented space’, in which layers of data overlay physical space. He queries whether this could create new possibilities for spatial interaction, such that cultural institutions might play a progressive role in exploring new futures (14). The Screen Gallery at ACMI embodies the characteristics of the ‘new museum’ as far as it demands multiple modalities of participation in a technological environment. It could perhaps also be regarded an experimental ‘black box’ in that it houses multiple screens, yet, as we shall see, elicits participation unbefitting of a cinema. We therefore turn now to examine visitors’ observations of the Gallery’s design, thereby garnering the experiential significance of passage through a moving image art space. Descending into Darkness Descending the staircase into the Gallery is a process of proceeding into shadows. The blackened cavity (fig. 1) therefore looms ahead as a clear visceral departure from the bustle of Federation Square above (fig. 2), and the clean brightness of ACMI’s foyer (fig. 3). Figure 1: Descent into ACMI's Screen Gallery Figure 2: ACMI at Federation Square, Melbourne Figure 3: ACMI’s foyer One visitor, Fleur, described this passage as a sense of going “deep underground,” where the affective power of darkness overwhelmed other sensory details: “I can’t picture it in my mind – sort of where the gallery finishes… And it’s perfect, it’s dark, and it’s… quiet-ish.” Many visitors found that an entrance softened by shadows added a trace of suspense to the beginnings of their journey. Heidi described how, “because it’s dark and you can’t actually see the people walking about… it’s a little bit more mysterious.” Fleur similarly remarked that “you’re not quite sure what you’re going to meet when you go around. And there’s a certain anticipation.” Steven found that the ambiguity surrounding the conventions of procedure through Gallery was “quite interesting, that experience of being a little bit unsure of where you’re going or not being able to see.” He attributed feelings of disorientation to the way the deep shadows of the Gallery routinely obscured measurement of time: “it’s that darkness that makes it a place where it’s like a time sync… You could spend hours in there… You sort of lose track of time… The darkness kind of contributes to that.” Multiple Pathways The ambiguity of the Gallery compelled visitors to actively engage with the space by developing their own rules for procedure. For example, Sean described how darkness and minimal use of signage generated multiple possibilities for passage: “you kind of need to wander through and guide yourself. It’s fairly dark as well and there aren’t any signs saying ‘Come this way,’ and it was only by sort of accident we found some of the spaces down the very back. Because, it’s very dark… We could very well have missed that.” Katrina similarly explained how she developed a participatory journey through movement: “when you first walk in, it just feels like empty space, and not exactly sure what’s going on and what to look at… and you think nothing is going on, so you have to kind of walk around and get a feel for it.” Steven used this participatory movement to navigate. He remarked that “there’s a kind of basic ‘what’s next?’… When you got down you could see maybe about four works immediately... There’s a kind of choice about ‘this is the one I’ll pay attention to first’, or ‘look, there’s this other one over there – that looks interesting, I might go and come back to this’. So, there’s a kind of charting of the trip through the exhibition.” Therefore while ambiguous rules for procedure undermine traditional forms of interaction in the museum, they prompted visitors to draw upon their sensory perception to construct a self-guided and exploratory path of engagement. However, mystery and ambiguity can also complicate visitors’ sense of self determination. Fleur noted how crossing the threshold into a space without clear conventions for procedure could challenge some visitors: “you have to commit yourself to go into a space like that, and I think the first time, when you’re not sure what’s down there… I think people going there for the first time would probably… find it difficult.” Trevor found this to be the case, objecting that “the part that doesn’t work, is that it doesn’t work as a space that’s easy to get around.” These comments suggest that an ‘unintended consequence’ (Beck) of relaxing contemporary museum conventions to encourage greater visitor autonomy, can be the contrary effect of making navigation more difficult. Visitors struggling to negotiate these conditions may find themselves subject to what Daniel Palmer terms the ‘paradox of user control’, in which contemporary forms of choice prove to be illusory, as they inhibit an individual’s freedom through ‘soft’ forms of domination. The ambiguity created by the Gallery’s darkness therefore brings two disparate – if not contradictory – tendencies together, as concluded by Fleur: “The darkness is – it’s both an advantage and a disadvantage… You can’t sort of see each other as well, but there’s also a bit of freedom in that. In that it sort of goes both ways.” A Journey of Subtle Cues Several strategies to ameliorate disorienting navigation experiences were employed in the Screen Gallery, attempting to create new possibilities for meaningful interaction. Some reflect typical curatorial conventions, such as mounting didactic panels along walls and strategically placing staff as guides. However, visitors frequently eschewed these markers and were instead drawn powerfully to affective conventions, including the shadings of light and sound. Sean noted how small beacons of light at foot level were prominent features, as they illuminated the entrances to rooms and corridors: “That’s your over-whelming impression, because it’s dark and there’s just these feature spotlights… and they’re an interesting device, because they sort of lead your eye through the space as well, and say ‘oh that’s where the next event is, there’s a spotlight over there’.” The luminescence of artworks served a similar purpose, for within “the darkness, the boundaries are less visible, and… you’re drawn to the light, you know, you’re drawn to those screens.” He found that directional sound above artworks also created a comparable effect: “I was aware of the fact that things were quiet until you approached the right spot and obviously it’s where the sound was focussed.” These conventions reflect what Trini Castelli calls ‘soft design’, by which space is made cohesively sensual (Glibb in Mitchell 87-88). The Gallery uses light and sound to fashions this visceral ‘feeling’ of spatial continuity, a seamless ambience. Paul described how this had a pleasurable effect, where the “atmosphere of the space” created “a very nice place to be… Lots of low lighting.” Fleur similarly recalled lasting somatic impressions: “It’s a bit like a cave, I suppose… The atmosphere is so different… it’s warm, I find it quite a relaxing place to be, I find it quite calm…Yeah, it has that feeling of private space to it.” Soft design therefore tempers the spatial severity of museums past through this sensuous ‘participatory environment.’ Interaction with art therefore becomes, as Steven enthused, “an exhibition experience” where “it’s as much (for me) the experience of moving between works as attending to the work itself… That seems really prominent in the experience, that it’s not these kind of isolated, individual works, they’re in relation to each other.” Disruptions to this experiential continuity – what Eno had described as a ‘stimulus’ – were subject to harsh judgement. When asked why he preferred to stand against the back wall of a room, rather than take a seat on the chairs provided, Matthew protested that “the spotlight was on those frigging couches, who wants to sit there? That would’ve been horrible.” Visitors clearly expressed a preference towards a form of spatial interaction in which curatorial conventions heighten, rather than detract from, the immersive dynamic of the museum environment. They showed how the feelings of ambiguity and suspense which absorbed them in the Gallery’s entrance gradually began to dissipate. In their place, a preference arose for conventions which maintained the Gallery’s immersive continuity, and where cues such as focused sound and footlights had a calming effect, and created a cohesive sensual journey through the dark. The Ambience of Art Space Visitors’ comments acquire an additional significance when examined in light of Eno’s earlier definition of what he called Ambient Music. He suggested that even in relative stillness, there exists a capacity for active forms of listening which create a “space to think” and generate a “quiet interest.” In addition, and perhaps most importantly, these active forms of listening are augmented by the “atmospheric idiosyncrasies” which are derived from conditions of uncertainty. As I have shown, the darkened Screen Gallery obscures the rules for visitor participation and consequently elicits doubt and hesitation. Visitors must self-navigate and be guided by sensory perception, responding to the kinaesthetic touch of light on skin and the subtle drifts of sound to constructing a journey through the enveloping darkness. This spatial ambience can therefore be understood as the specific condition which make the Gallery a fertile site for new exchanges between visitors, artworks and curation within the museum. Arjun Mulder defines this kind of dynamism in architectural space as a form of systemic interactivity, the “default state of any living system,” in the way that any system can be considered interactive if it links into, and affects change upon another (Mulder 332). Therefore while museums have historically been spaces for interaction, they have not always been interactive spaces in the sense described by Mulder, where visitor participation and processes of exchange are heightened by the conditions of ambience, and can compel self-determined journeys of visitor enquiry and feelings of relaxation and immersion. ACMI’s Screen Gallery has therefore come to define its practices by heightening these forms of encounter, and elevating the affective possibilities for interacting with art. Traditional museum conventions have been challenged by playing with experiential dynamics. These practices create an ambience which is particular to the gallery, and historically unlike the experiential ecologies of preceding forms of museum, gallery or moving space, be it the white cube or a simple ‘black box’ room for video projections. This perhaps signifies a distinctive moment in the genealogy of the museum, indicating how one instance of an art environment’s ambience can become a rubric for new forms of visitor interaction. References Beck, Ulrich. “The Reinvention of Politics: Towards a Theory of Reflexive Modernization.” Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Eds. Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash. Cambridge: Politics, 1994. 1-55. Bennett, Tony. The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. London; New York: Routledge. 1995. ———. “Culture and Governmentality.” Foucault, Cultural Studies and Governmentality. Eds. J.Z. Bratich, J. Packer, and C. McCarthy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. 47-64. Davey, Peter. “Museums in an N-Dimensional World.” The Architectural Review 1242 (2000): 36-37. Eno, Brian. “Resonant Complexity.” Whole Earth Review (Summer 1994): 42-43. ———. “Ambient Music.” A Year with Swollen Appendices: The Diary of Brian Eno. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. 293-297. Hooper-Greenhill, Eileen. “Museums and Education for the 21st Century.” Museum and Gallery Education. London: Leicester University Press, 1991. 187-193. Manovich, Lev. “The Poetics of Augmented Space: Learning from Prada.” 27 April 2010 ‹http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/fuchs/modules/creative_technology/architecture/manovich_augmented_space.pdf›. Message, Kylie. “The New Museum.” Theory, Culture and Society: Special Issue on Problematizing Global Knowledge. Eds. Mike Featherstone, Couze Venn, and Ryan Bishop, John Phillips. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006. 603-606. Mitchell, T. C. Redefining Designing: From Form to Experience. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993. Mulder, Arjun. “The Object of Interactivity.” NOX: Machining Architecture. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004. 332-340. Palmer, Daniel. “The Paradox of User Control.” Melbourne Digital Art and Culture 2003 Conference Proceedings. Melbourne: RMIT, 2003. 167-172. Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966.

“What's the brief?” is an everyday question within the graphic design process. Moreover, the concept and importance of a design brief is overtly understood well beyond design practice itself—especially among stakeholders who work with designers and clients who commission design services. Indeed, a design brief is often an assumed and expected physical or metaphoric artefact for guiding the creative process. When a brief is lacking, incomplete or unclear, it can render an already ambiguous graphic design process and discipline even more fraught with misinterpretation. Nevertheless, even in wider design discourse, there appears to be little research on design briefs and the briefing process (Jones and Askland; Paton and Dorst). It seems astonishing that, even in Peter Phillips’s 2014 edition of Creating the Perfect Design Brief, he feels compelled to comment that “there are still no books available about design briefs” and that the topic is only “vaguely” covered within design education (21). While Phillips’s assertion is debatable if one draws purely from online vernacular sources or professional guides, it is supported by the lack of scholarly attention paid to the design brief. Graphic design briefs are often mentioned within design books, journals, and online sources. However, this article argues that the format, function and use of such briefs are largely assumed and rarely identified and studied. Even within the broader field of design research, the tendency appears to be to default to “the design brief” as an assumed shorthand, supporting Phillips’s argument about the nebulous nature of the topic. As this article contextualises, this is further problematised by insufficient attention cast on graphic design itself as a specific discipline. This article emerges from a wider, multi-stage creative practice study into graphic design practice, that used experimental performative design research methods to investigate graphic designers’ professional relationships with stakeholders (Meron, Strangely). The article engages with specific outcomes from that study that relate to the design brief. The article also explores existing literature and research and argues for academics, the design industry, and educationalists, to focus closer attention on the design brief. It concludes by suggesting that experimental and collaborative design methods offers potential for future research into the design brief. Contextualising the Design Brief It is critical to differentiate the graphic design brief from the operational briefs of architectural design (Blyth and Worthington; Khan) or those used in technical practices such as software development or IT systems design, which have extensive industry-formalised briefing practices and models such as the waterfall system (Petersen et al.) or more modern processes such as Agile (Martin). Software development and other technical design briefs are necessarily more formulaically structured than graphic design briefs. Their requirements are generally empirically and mechanistically located, and often mission-critical. In contrast, the conceptual nature of creative briefs in graphic design creates the potential for them to be arbitrarily interpreted. Even in wider design discourse, there appears to be little consistency about the form that a brief takes. Some sources indicate that a brief only requires one page (Elebute; Nov and Jones) or even a single line of text (Jones and Askland). At other times briefs are described as complex, high-level documents embedded within processes which designers respond to with the aim of producing end products to satisfy clients’ requirements (Ambrose; Patterson and Saville). Ashby and Johnson (40) refer to the design brief as a “solution neutral” statement, the aim being to avoid preconceptions or the narrowing of the creative possibilities of a project. Others describe a consultative (Walsh), collaborative and stakeholder-inclusive process (Phillips). The Scholarly Brief Within scholarly design research, briefs inevitably manifest as an assumed artefact or process within each project; but the reason for their use or antecedents for chosen formats are rarely addressed. For example, in “Creativity in the Design Process” (Dorst and Cross) some elements of the design brief are described. The authors also describe at what stage of the investigation the brief is introduced and present a partial example of the brief. However, there is no explanation of the form of the brief or the reasons behind it. They simply describe it as being typical for the design medium, adding that its use was considered a critical part of addressing the design problem. In a separate study within advertising (Johar et al.), researchers even admit that the omission of crucial elements from the brief—normally present in professional practice—had a detrimental effect on their results. Such examples indicate the importance of briefs for the design process, yet further illustrating the omission of direct engagement with the brief within the research design, methodology, and methods. One exception comes from a study amongst business students (Sadowska and Laffy) that used the design brief as a pedagogical tool and indicates that interaction with, and changes to, elements of a design brief impact the overall learning process of participants, with the brief functioning as a trigger for that process. Such acknowledgement of the agency of a design brief affirms its importance for professional designers (Koslow et al.; Phillips). This use of a brief as a research device informed my use of it as a reflective and motivational conduit when studying graphic designers’ perceptions of stakeholders, and this will be discussed shortly. The Professional Brief Professionally, the brief is a key method of communication between designers and stakeholders, serving numerous functions including: outlining creative requirements, audience, and project scope; confirming project requirements; and assigning and documenting roles, procedures, methods, and approval processes. The format of design briefs varies from complex multi-page procedural documents (Patterson and Saville; Ambrose) produced by marketing departments and sent to graphic design agencies, to simple statements (Jones and Askland; Elebute) from small to medium-sized businesses. These can be described as the initial proposition of the design brief, with the following interactions comprising the ongoing briefing process. However, research points to many concerns about the lack of adequate briefing information (Koslow, Sasser and Riordan). It has been noted (Murray) that, despite its centrality to graphic design, the briefing process rarely lives up to designers’ expectations or requirements, with the approach itself often haphazard. This reinforces the necessarily adaptive, flexible, and compromise-requiring nature of professional graphic design practice, referred to by design researchers (Cross; Paton and Dorst). However, rather than lauding these adaptive and flexible designer abilities as design attributes, such traits are often perceived by professional practitioners as unequal (Benson and Dresdow), having evolved by the imposition by stakeholders, rather than being embraced by graphic designers as positive designer skill-sets. The Indeterminate Brief With insufficient attention cast on graphic design as a specific scholarly discipline (Walker; Jacobs; Heller, Education), there is even less research on the briefing process within graphic design practice (Cumming). Literature from professional practice on the creation and function of graphic design briefs is often formulaic (Phillips) and fractured. It spans professional design bodies, to templates from mass-market printers (Kwik Kopy), to marketing-driven and brand-development approaches, in-house style guides, and instructional YouTube videos (David). A particularly clear summary comes from Britain’s Design Council. This example describes the importance of a good design brief, its requirements, and carries a broad checklist that includes the company background, project aims, and target audience. It even includes stylistic tips such as “don’t be afraid to use emotive language in a brief if you think it will generate a shared passion about the project” (Design Council). From a subjective perspective, these sources appear to contain sensible professional advice. However, with little scholarly research on the topic, how can we know that, for example, using emotive language best informs the design process? Why might this be helpful and desirable (or otherwise) for designers? These varied approaches highlight the indeterminate treatment of the design brief. Nevertheless, the very existence of such diverse methods communicates a pattern of acknowledgement of the criticality of the brief, as well as the desire, by professional bodies, commentators, and suppliers, to ensure that both designers and stakeholders engage effectively with the briefing process. Thus, with such a pedagogic gap in graphic design discourse, scholarly research into the design brief has the potential to inform vernacular and formal educational resources. Researching the Design Brief The research study from which this article emerges (Meron, Strangely) yielded outcomes from face-to-face interviews with eleven (deidentified) graphic designers about their perceptions of design practice, with particular regard to their professional relationships with other creative stakeholders. The study also surveyed online discussions from graphic design forums and blog posts. This first stage of research uncovered feelings of lacking organisational gravitas, creative ownership, professional confidence, and design legitimacy among the designers in relation to stakeholders. A significant causal factor pointed to practitioners’ perceptions of lacking direct access to and involvement with key sources of creative inspiration and information; one specific area being the design brief. It was a discovery that was reproduced thematically during the second stage of the research. This stage repurposed performative design research methods to intervene in graphic designers’ resistance to research (Roberts, et al), with the goal of bypassing practitioners’ tendency to portray their everyday practices using formulaic professionalised answers (Dorland, View). In aiming to understand graphic designers’ underlying motivations, this method replaced the graphic designer participants with trained actors, who re-performed narratives from the online discussions and designer interviews during a series of performance workshops. Performative methodologies were used as design thinking methods to defamiliarise the graphic design process, thereby enabling previously unacknowledged aspects of the design process to be unveiled, identified and analysed. Such defamiliarisation repurposes methods used in creative practice, including design thinking (Bell, Blythe, and Sengers), with performative elements drawing on ethnography (Eisner) and experimental design (Seago and Dunne). Binding these two stages of research study together was a Performative Design Brief—a physical document combining narratives from the online discussions and the designer interviews. For the second stage, this brief was given to a professional theatre director to use as material for a “script” to motivate the actors. In addition to identifying unequal access to the creative process as a potential point of friction, this study yielded outcomes suggesting that designers were especially frustrated when the design brief was unclear, insufficiently detailed, or even missing completely. The performative methodology enabled a refractive approach, using performative metaphor and theatre to defamiliarise graphic design practice, portraying the process through a third-party theatrical prism. This intervened in graphic designers’ habitual communication patterns (Dorland, The View). Thus, combining traditional design research methods with experimental interdisciplinary ones, enabled outcomes that might not otherwise have emerged. It is an example of engaging with the fluid, hybrid (Heller, Teaching), and often elusive practices (van der Waarde) of graphic design. Format, Function, and Use A study (Paton and Dorst) among professional graphic designers attempts to dissect practitioners’ perceptions of different aspects of briefing as a process of ‘framing’. Building on the broader theories of design researchers such as Nigel Cross, Bryan Lawson, and Donald Schön, Paton and Dorst suggest that most of the designers preferred a collaborative briefing process where both they and client stakeholders were directly involved, without intermediaries. This concurs with the desire, from many graphic designers that I interviewed, for unobstructed engagement with the brief. Moreover, narratives from the online discussions that I investigated suggest that the lack of clear frameworks for graphic design briefs is a hotly debated topic, as are perceptions of stakeholder belligerence or misunderstanding. For example, in a discussion from Graphic Design Forums designer experiences range from only ever receiving informal verbal instructions—“basically, we’ve been handed design work and they tell us ‘We need this by EOD’” (VFernandes)—to feeling obliged to pressure stakeholders to provide a brief—“put the burden on them to flesh out the details of a real brief and provide comprehensive material input” (HotButton) —to resignation to an apparent futility of gaining adequate design briefs from stakeholders because— “they will most likely never change” (KitchWitch). Such negative assumptions support Koslow et al.’s assertion that the absence of a comprehensive brief is the most “terrifying” thing for practitioners (9). Thus, practitioners’ frustrations with stakeholders can become unproductive when there is an inadequate design brief, or if the creative requirements of a brief are otherwise removed from the direct orbit of graphic designers. This further informs a narrative of graphic designers perceiving some stakeholders as gatekeepers of the design brief. For example, one interviewed designer believed that stakeholders ‘don’t really understand the process’ (Patricia). Another interviewee suggested that disorganised briefs could be avoided by involving designers early in the process, ensuring that practitioners had direct access to the client as a creative source, rather than having to circumnavigate stakeholders (Marcus). Such perceptions appeared to reinforce beliefs among these practitioners that they lack design capital within the creative process. These perceptions of gatekeeping of the design brief support suggestions of designers responding negatively when stakeholders approach the design process from a different perspective (Wall and Callister), if stakeholders assume a managerial position (Jacobs) and, in particular, if stakeholders are inexperienced in working with designers (Banks et al.; Holzmann and Golan). With such little clarity in the design briefing process, future research may consider comparisons with industries with more formalised briefing processes, established professional statuses, or more linear histories. Indeed, the uneven historical development of graphic design (Frascara; Julier and Narotzky) may influence the inconsistency of its briefing process. Inconsistency as Research Opportunity The inconsistent state of the graphic design brief is reflective of the broader profession that it resides within. Graphic design as a profession remains fluid and inconsistent (Dorland, Tell Me; Jacobs), with even its own practitioners unable to agree on its parameters or even what to call the practice (Meron, Terminology). Pedagogically, graphic design is still emerging as an independent discipline (Cabianca; Davis), struggling to gain capital outside of existing and broader creative practices (Poynor; Triggs). The inherent interdisciplinarity (Harland) and intangibility of graphic design also impact the difficulty of engaging with the briefing process. Indeed, graphic design’s practices have been described as “somewhere between science and superstition (or fact and anecdote)” (Heller, Teaching par. 3). With such obstacles rendering the discipline fractured (Ambrose et al.), it is understandable that stakeholders might find engaging productively with graphic design briefs challenging. This can become problematic, with inadequate stakeholder affinity or understanding of design issues potentially leading to creative discord (Banks et al.; Holzmann and Golan). Identifying potentially problematic and haphazard aspects of the design brief and process also presents opportunities to add value to research into broader relationships between graphic designers and stakeholders. It suggests a practical area of study with which scholarly research on collaborative design approaches might intersect with professional graphic design practice. Indeed, recent research suggests that collaborative approaches offer both process and educational advantages, particularly in the area of persona development, having the ability to discover the “real” brief (Taffe 394). Thus, framing the brief as a collaborative, educative, and negotiative process may allow creative professionals to elucidate and manage the disparate parts of a design process, such as timeframes, stakeholders, and task responsibilities, as well as the cost implications of stakeholder actions such as unscheduled amendments. It can encourage the formalisation of incomplete vernacular briefs, as well as allow for the influence of diverse briefing methods, such as the one-page creative brief of advertising agencies, or more formal project management practices while allowing for some of the fluidity of more agile approaches: acknowledging that changes may be required while keeping all parties informed and involved. In turn, collaborative approaches may contribute towards enabling the value of contributions from both graphic designers and stakeholders and it seems beneficial to look towards design research methodologies that promote collaborative pathways. Mark Steen, for example, argues for co-design as a form of design thinking for enabling stakeholders to combine knowledge with negotiation to implement change (27). Collaborative design methods have also been advocated for use between designers and users, with stakeholders on shared projects, and with external collaborators (Binder and Brandt). Others have argued that co-design methods facilitate stakeholder collaboration “across and within institutional structures” while challenging existing power relations, albeit leaving structural changes largely unaffected (Farr 637). The challenge for collaborative design research is to seek opportunities and methodologies to conduct design brief research within a graphic design process that often appears amorphous, while also manifesting complex designer–stakeholder dynamics. Doubly so, when the research focus—the graphic design brief—often appears as nebulous an entity as the practice it emerges from. Conclusion The research discussed in this article suggests that graphic designers distrust a creative process that itself symbolises an inconsistent, reactive, and often accidental historical development of their profession and pedagogy. Reflecting this, the graphic design brief emerges almost as a metaphor for this process. The lack of overt discussion about the format, scope, and process of the brief feeds into the wider framework of graphic design’s struggle to become an independent scholarly discipline. This, in turn, potentially undermines the professional authority of graphic design practice that some of its practitioners believe is deficient. Ultimately, the brief and its processes must become research-informed parts of graphic design pedagogy. Embracing the brief as a pedagogical, generative, and inseparable part of the design process can inform the discourse within education, adding scholarly value to practice and potentially resulting in increased agency for practitioners. The chameleon-like nature of graphic design’s constant adaptation to ever-changing industry requirements makes research into the role and influences of its briefing process challenging. Thus, it also follows that the graphic design brief is unlikely to quickly become as formalised a document or process as those from other disciplines. But these are challenges that scholars and professionals must surely embrace if pedagogy is to gain the research evidence to influence practice. As this article argues, the often obfuscated practices and inherent interdisciplinarity of graphic design benefit from experimental research methods, while graphic designers appear responsive to inclusive approaches. Thus, performative methods appear effective as tools of discovery and collaborative methodologies offer hope for organisational intervention. References Ambrose, Gavin. Design Thinking for Visual Communication. Fairchild, 2015. Ambrose, Gavin, Paul Harris, and Nigel Ball. The Fundamentals of Graphic Design. Bloomsbury, 2020. Ashby, M.F., and Kara Johnson. Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design. Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2010. Banks, Mark, et al. "Where the Art Is: Defining and Managing Creativity in New Media SME’s." Creativity and Innovation Management 11.4 (2002): 255-64. Bell, Genevieve, Mark Blythe, and Phoebe Sengers. "Making by Making Strange: Defamiliarization and the Design of Domestic Technologies." ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 12.2 (2005): 149-73. Benson, Joy, and Sally Dresdow. "Design Thinking: A Fresh Approach for Transformative Assessment Practice." Journal of Management Education 38.3 (2014): 436-61. Binder, Thomas, and Eva Brandt. "The Design:Lab as Platform in Participatory Design Research." CoDesign 4.2 (2008). Blyth, Alastair, and John Worthington. Managing the Brief for Better Design. Routledge, 2010. Cabianca, David. "A Case for the Sublime Uselessness of Graphic Design." Design and Culture 8.1 (2016): 103-22. Cross, Nigel. Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work. Berg, 2011. Cumming, Deborah. "An Investigation into the Communication Exchange between Small Business Client and Graphic Designer." Robert Gordon U, 2007. David, Gareth. "The Graphic Design Brief." 5 June 2021 <https://youtu.be/EMG6qJp_sPY 2017>. Davis, Meredith. "Tenure and Design Research: A Disappointingly Familiar Discussion." Design and Culture 8.1 (2016): 123-31. De Michelis, G., C. Simone and K. Schmidt, eds. An Ethnographic Study of Graphic Designers. Third European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. 1993. U of Surrey, UK. Design Council. "How to Commission a Designer: Step 4: Brief Your Designer." Design Council. 3 June 2021 <https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/how-commissiondesigner-step-4-brief-your-designer>. Dorland, AnneMarie. Tell Me Why You Did That: Learning “Ethnography” from the Design Studio. Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, 2016. ———. "The View from the Studio: Design Ethnography and Organizational Cultures."Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings 2017. Vol. 1. 2017. 232-46. Dorst, Kees, and Nigel Cross. "Creativity in the Design Process: Co-Evolution of Problem–Solution." Design Studies 22 (2001): 425–37. Eisner, Elliot. Concerns and Aspirations for Qualitative Research in the New Millennium. Issues in Art and Design Teaching. RoutledgeFalmer, 2003. Elebute, Ayo. "Influence of Layout and Design on Strategy and Tactic for Communicating Advertising Messages." Global Journal of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences 4.6 (2016): 34-47. Farr, Michelle. "Power Dynamics and Collaborative Mechanisms in Co-Production and Co-Design Processes." Critical Social Policy 38.4 (2017): 623–644. DOI: 10.1177/0261018317747444. Frascara, Jorge. "Graphic Design: Fine Art or Social Science?" Design Issues 5.1 (1988): 18-29. DOI: 10.2307/1511556. Harland, Robert G. "Seeking to Build Graphic Design Theory from Graphic Design Research." Routledge Companion to Design Research. Eds. Paul Rodgers and Joyce Yee. Routledge, 2015. 87-97. Heller, Steven. The Education of a Graphic Designer. Allworth P, 2015. ———. "Teaching Tools." Teaching Graphic Design History. Allworth, 2019. 312. Holzmann, Vered, and Joseph Golan. "Leadership to Creativity and Management of Innovation? The Case of the 'Innovation Club' in a Production Company." American Journal of Industrial and Business Management 6 (2016): 60-71. HotButton. "Kind of a Design Brief?" 2016. 28 July 2018 <https://web.archive.org/web/20160310013457/http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/forum/graphic-design/general/1619626-kind-of-a-designbrief?p=1619683#post1619683>. Jacobs, Jessica. "Managing the Creative Process within Graphic Design Firms: Literature Review." Dialectic 1.2 (2017): 155-78. Johar, Gita Venkataramani, Morris B. Holbrook, and Barbara B. Stern. "The Role of Myth in Creative Advertising Design: Theory, Process and Outcome." Journal of Advertising 30.2 (2001): 1-25. Jones, Wyn M., and Hedda Haugen Askland. "Design Briefs: Is There a Standard?" International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education. 2012. Khan, Ayub. Better by Design: An Introduction to Planning and Designing a New Library Building. Facet, 2009. KitchWitch. "Kind of a Design Brief?" 2016. 28 July 2018 <https://web.archive.org/web/20160310013457/http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/graphic-design/general/1619626-kind-of-a-design-brief?p=1619687#post1619687>. Kwik Kopy. "Design Brief." 2018. 5 June 2021 <https://www.kwikkopy.com.au/blog/graphic-designbrief-template>. Koslow, Scott, Sheila Sasser, and Edward Riordan. "What Is Creative to Whom and Why? Perceptions in Advertising Agencies." Journal of Advertising Research 43.1 (2003). “Marcus”. Interview by the author. 2013. Martin, Robert Cecil. Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices. Prentice Hall PTR, 2003. Meron, Yaron. "Strangely Familiar: Revisiting Graphic Designers’ Perceptions of Their Relationships with Stakeholders." RMIT University, 2019. ———. "Terminology and Design Capital: Examining the Pedagogic Status of Graphic Design through Its Practitioners’ Perceptions of Their Job Titles." International Journal of Art & Design Education 40.2 (2021): 374-88. “Patricia”. Interview by the author. 2013. Paton, Bec, and Kees Dorst. "Briefing and Reframing: A Situated Practice." Design Studies 32.6 (2011): 573-87. Patterson, Jacinta, and Joanne Saville. Viscomm: A Guide to Visual Communication Design VCE Units, 2012.1-4. Petersen, Kai, Claes Wohlin, and Dejan Baca. "The Waterfall Model in Large-Scale Development." . Proceedings of Product-Focused Software Process Improvement: 10th International Conference, Profes 2009, Oulu, Finland, June 15-17, 2009. Eds. Frank Bomarius et al. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. Springer, 2009. 386-400. Phillips, Peter L. Creating the Perfect Design Brief: How to Manage Design for Strategic Advantage. Allworth P, 2014. Poynor, Rick. "Does Graphic Design History Have a Future?" Print 65.4 (2011): 30-32. Roberts, Lucienne, Rebecca Wright, and Jessie Price. Graphic Designers Surveyed. Ed. Lucienne Roberts. London, UK: GraphicDesign&, 2015. Sadowska, Noemi, and Dominic Laffy. "The Design Brief: Inquiry into the Starting Point in a Learning Journey." Design Journal 20, Sup. 1 (2017): S1380-S89. Seago, Alex, and Anthony Dunne. "New Methodologies in Art and Design Research: The Object as Discourse." Design Issues 15.2 (1999): 11-17. Steen, Marc. "Co-Design as a Process of Joint Inquiry and Imagination." Design Issues 29.2 (2013): 16-28. DOI: 10.1162/DESI_a_00207. Taffe, Simone. "Who’s in Charge? End-Users Challenge Graphic Designers’ Intuition through Visual Verbal Co-Design." The Design Journal 20, Sup. 1 (2017): S390-S400. Triggs, Teal. "Graphic Design History: Past, Present, and Future." Design Issues 27.1 (2011): 3-6. Van der Waarde, Karel. "Graphic Design as Visual Arguments: Does This Make a Reliable Appraisal Possible?" Perspective on Design: Research, Education and Practice. Eds. Raposo, Daniel, João Neves, and José Silva. Springer Series in Design and Innovation. Springer, 2020. 89-101. VFernandes. "Kind of a Design Brief?" 2016. 28 July 2018 < https://web.archive.org/web/20160310013457/http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/graphic-design/general/1619626-kind-of-a-design-brief#post1619626>. Walker, Sue. "Research in Graphic Design." Design Journal 20.5 (2017): 549-59. Wall, James A., Jr., and Ronda Roberts Callister. "Conflict and Its Management." Journal of Management 21.3 (1995). Walsh, Vivien. "Design, Innovation and the Boundaries of the Firm." Research Policy 25 (1996): 509-29.

Bridging the Gap studio brings US graduate students together with Iraqi graduate students for a collaborative urban design studio focusing on urban redevelopment proposals for selected commercial districts in the two capital cities of Washington DC and Baghdad. Each group serves as information sources, eyes-on-the-ground, cultural informants, fact-checkers, and design critics for their overseas counter-parts. We communicate through multiple digital means. The theoretical basis of the studio draws upon multiple disciplines. Initial motivation was citizen diplomacy, an international relations concept that engages private citizens in “individual endeavors that serve their own interests and diplomacy which includes a framework for cooperation be-tween countries.” 1 A key theoretical underpinning of the studio is globalization, cutting across multiple disciplines, spanning practice and academia. 2 Initial support came from a multi-national design firm that viewed the studio as a vehicle for inculcating competencies of global practice. Interaction with the firm’s architects, including a studio design competition bringing US and Iraqi students to the Washington DC office for internships, shows students how practitioners put those cultural understandings and skills into action. Globalization has also influenced the discipline of geography, leading to innovations in the field of comparative urbanism3 4 to work “across diverse human experiences.” Bridging the Gap Studio produces studies in comparative urbanism as the US and Iraqi students discover both similarity and difference in their focus districts. The pedagogical method draws upon situated learning theory, positing that learning should take place in authentic practice settings and within social communities.5 While one could argue that every architectural design studio exemplifies situated learning, Bridging the Gap studio offers a particularly robust example, creating a setting that mimics global practice and a social community that includes inhabitants of the urban places under study.

than the ones the students is accustomed to, are all some of the outcomes of participating in a study abroad program. Understanding the value of travel, our college started a study abroad program two years ago. Currently preparing for our third semester in Barcelona, we have been assessing what has worked and what has not so we can adapt and evolve to keep the program fresh and relevant. This paper will cover our pedagogy and process, the type of classes we taught and the reasons behind them but more than anything, the way it has changed the participating students when compared to those who have not participated in a program of this type. The semester was divided into four courses: ARC394-Places and Culture, was designed to function as a walking tour of the city of Barcelona, where the students learned on the go by visiting sites following a chronological history of the city that took place throughout the semester. ARC494-Contemporary Architecture Practice, took place in both the classroom and by visiting contemporary architecture sites. The course was taught by EMBT (Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue) as an opportunity for the students to learn the design thinking and process behind the main project of a working architectural firm as they take an idea from sketch to construction. ARC581-Contemporary Spanish Architecture, offered the student the opportunity to visit: Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Bilbao, Madrid, Figueres and Olot on walking tours covering the history of these locations from an architectural and design perspective from antiquity to modernity. And finally, ARC501-401, a vertical design studio where the student was able to bring all the classes together to design a project in the city of Barcelona, putting to the test, how their experiences influenced their designs. All of these courses where designed to work together creating an interdependent system that allowed the participants to learn through experiencing architecture and design, while being able to implement that newly learned design knowledge into site and cultural specific design projects.