Browsing by Author "Nersessian, Nancy J."

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Citation - WoS: 29
Citation - Scopus: 34
Architects in Interdisciplinary Contexts: Representational Practices in Healthcare Design
(Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2015) Kasali, Altug; Nersessian, Nancy J.
This paper reports a study of a multi-disciplinary design team operating in a sophisticated socio-cognitive and material environment. Following an ethnographic approach we aimed at understanding the nature of the complex interactions within the team, and, specifically, the role of designers in interdisciplinary contexts as they engage with other experts. The focus was on a series of key practices in adapting, developing, and translating knowledge that emerged through the interactions of experts with different disciplinary backgrounds. It was observed that while all engaging parties offered their resources to contribute to the developing design work, the exchanges around design representations developed by the architects allowed the distributed disciplinary expertise to morph into a new form of interdisciplinary expertise to solve problems in-situ. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Citation - WoS: 2
Citation - Scopus: 2
Grounding Evidence in Design: Framing Next Practices
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2017) Kasali, Altug; Nersessian, Nancy J.
By focusing on episodes from a case study of healthcare design practice investigated in situ, the aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the nature and use of evidence in design. Our account portrays a practice where sources other than scientific research findings were also considered. Based on observations and interviews from the field, the paper first provides a brief account of sources and representations of evidence. The varieties of evidence within the observed practice fall into four major groups: precedents, scientific research, embodied knowledge, and anecdotes. We observed how the participants in the design process used each of these forms of evidence to formulate and explain their design ideas in terms of mechanistic models to form causal links. These mechanistic arguments, which follow a model of scientific thinking, were repositories of transdisciplinary knowledge involving design and other disciplines.