Jean-Pierre Protzen

Managing design information: Issue-Based Information Systems and Fuzzy Reasoning System

Abstract Issue-Based Information System (IBIS) is an information representation system based on a structured database. It provides a hierarchically linked web structure to manage design related information around issues. In this paper, we explore the enhancement of IBIS with Fuzzy Reasoning System (FRS). The FRS details the links among issues to further objectify the logic of decision making and issue resolving. The combined system provides a general framework to represent design information and also its logic of reasoning and decision making. Such a system stimulates and assists rationalized design analysis and scrutinized decision making. It is particularly helpful in clarifying design related issues, requirements and evaluation. With its computational dynamic links, the FRS provides a foundation to machine assisted design and reasoning. We reexamine an architectural design experiment and represent the knowledge and reasoning of the architects with the system to demonstrate the systems potential use.

On Reconstructing Tiwanaku Architecture

The site of Tiwanaku is thought of as the center of a civilization of the same name that exerted its influence over the southern Andean region from around 300 B. C. when it emerged to about A. D. 1100 when it collapsed. The architecture of Tiwanaku today is reduced to several eroded mounds, outlines of courtyard structures, weathered uprights, fragmented walls, foundation stubbles, and jumbles of building stones but not a single standing, original building. It is argued that before this architecture can be understood and its anthropological and cultural significance properly appreciated, it first has to be reconstructed. The reconstruction of Tiwanaku architecture, in turn, requires an understanding of what the design principles were that gave Tiwanaku architecture its identity. Many building blocks and fragments are analyzed for the purpose of identifying the design features typical of Tiwanaku architecture, and in search of clues to their bond to other stones and to their initial appurtenance to some larger configuration. Several partial reconstructions are presented.

Who Taught the Inca Stonemasons Their Skills? A Comparison of Tiahuanaco and Inca Cut-Stone Masonry

At Tiahuanaco, on the southern rim of Lake Titicaca, Bolivia, visitors encounter enormous stone slabs and carved building blocks dressed with astonishing skill. The stones are the visible remains of a culture that flourished there about a thousand years ago. Some six hundred kilometers to the northwest, in Cuzco (Peru), one finds the different yet equally remarkable masonry of the Incas, who dominated the Andean world from the middle of the fifteenth century to the Spanish conquest in 1532. Did the Inca stonemasons learn their skills from their predecessors at Tiahuanaco? A comparative study of Inca and Tiahuanaco construction techniques reveals fundamental differences between the architecture of the two cultures. In this article, we compare masonry bonds, design details, stone-cutting techniques, and the methods of fitting, laying, and handling of stones used by both cultures. The results of this comparison suggest that the ingenuity of Inca masonry originated with the Incas, and not with their predecessors.

The Gateways of Tiwanaku

Architecture, to state the obvious, is a social act—social both in method and purpose. It is the outcome of teamwork; and it is there to be made use of by groups of people, groups as small as the family or as large as an entire nation. Architecture is a costly act. It engages specialized talent, appropriate technology, handsome funds. Because it is so, the history of architecture partakes, in a basic way, of the study of the social, economic, and technological systems of human history. (Kostof 1995: 7)

DELIBERATION AND AGGREGATION IN COMPUTER-AIDED PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

Performance evaluation is often encountered by designers, planners and other decision makers. Deliberated evaluation is a systematic method with the main purpose ‘objectification’ which means that the evaluation conducted by an evaluator can be fully understood and, further, reconstructed by others. The objectification allows an evaluators idea about a good design be carried by other designers. This method leads to a mapping, as a model of evaluation processes, from objective measures of an evaluated object to its subjectively assessed performance measure. The mapping can be reconstructed in a computer which can help in optimizing the objective properties during a design process.

MAX UHLE AND TAMBO COLORADO A CENTURY LATER

Abstract In 1901 Max Uhle, the “Father of Peruvian Archeology,” spent several weeks mapping, photographing, and studying the Inca site of Tambo Colorado and its surroundings. Because the site has suffered noticeable deterioration and damage in the intervening century, Uhle’s plans, photographs, and notes are of particular importance to anyone investigating Tambo Colorado. But more important than the historic value of Uhle’s documentation is the superior quality of his work. His plans are of an astonishing accuracy and his observations and reflections most thoughtful and astute. The present article is a critical appreciation of Uhle’s work at Tambo Colorado and compares it to current findings.

TIMES GO BY AT TAMBO COLORADO

Abstract Without a notion of time there would be no history. However; time is an elusive concept; time is not immediately observable. In the absence of written or pictorial sources that either describe or represent past events, historians and archaeologists alike are reduced to the observation or detection of what they construe to be the signs, traces, or residues of past events. The present article looks at a range of traces or residues at the Inca site of Tambo Colorado and their interpretation as events, and explores ways in which a coherent story about the construction and occupation of the site could possibly be written.

Between conflict and consensus: Searching for an ethical compromise in planning

To resolve conflicts and disagreements in planning, a compromise is often necessary. Where immediate consensus is unlikely and where antagonistic conflicts can lead to worse outcomes, a compromise is especially valued. Yet a compromise is also likely the least desired resolution, except for failure to reach a resolution. In this way, a compromise educes a mixed morality: A compromise has to presume some cooperative goodwill, yet forging a compromise often means violating important principles or abandoning some desired goods. If planners compromise, then this compromise ought to be an ethical one. But what is an ethical compromise in planning? In this article, we examine three cases of planning conflict: namely, the case of the Storm Surge Barriers in the Eastern Scheldt, the Netherlands; the case of the Cross Island Line in Singapore; and, finally, the case of the Calamity Polders, the Netherlands. Through these case studies, we draw out and illustrate three different ideal types of compromises important to planning and further describe the practical and ethical implications of a compromise.

Managing Information with Fuzzy Reasoning System in Design Reasoning and Issue-Based Argumentation

Design by argumentation is a natural character of design process with social participation. Issue-Based Information System (IBIS) is an information representation system based on a structured database. It provides a hierarchically linked database structure to manage design information and facilitate design by argumentation. In this paper, we explore the enhancement of IBIS with FRS (Fuzzy Reasoning System) technology. The FRS adds computationally implemented dynamic links to the database of IBIS. Such dynamic links can represent logic relations and reasoning operations among related issues which allows further clarification of relations among issues in IBS. The enhanced system provides a general framework to manage design information and to assist design reasoning, which in turn will contribute to machine assisted design. The final goal is to formulate a system that can represent design knowledge and assist reasoning in design analysis. The system can help designers in clarifying and understanding design related issues, requirements and evaluating potential design alternatives. To demonstrate the system and its potential use, we reexamine a design experiment presented by Schon and represent the design knowledge and reasoning rules of the architects with our system, FRS-IBIS.

DESKTOP DESIGN: A TOOLKIT APPROACH ON COST AND PLANNING MODELLING

The purposes of the paper are three-fold: – to lay out a theoretical framework on toolkits, the integration of tools in a computer-enhanced environment, tool organization, tool navigation issues and the role of design rationale ,