Anette Sommer

Architects´ language - Users´ language-
Interpreters in planning

1) Prologue

¹Imagine you were an architect and you had a contract.
For this project it would be possible to get into contact with the actual future users. What would you do? Would you take advantage of this opportunity? What would you ask the people and how would you do this?
And after you got the information, how would you include it into your design process? Would you consider this information at all?

2) Introduction

²The subject "architecture-language-epistemology" leads my focus on the differences in the languages that architects on the one hand, and everyday users on the other hand use when talking about architecture. I am concentrating on the difficulties in mutual understanding between the two groups.
First I will try to describe how architects, because of their education, relate to different experiential backgrounds and reality standards concerning architecture than users do. And this impacts the languages used when talking about architecture.
My question is: Are there possibilities of interpreting these two languages of architecture? How can one translate the users´ language, based on everyday use, into architects´ language, based on concepts? Is it possible? And why should one even bother?
In this context I will present some findings of an empirical investigation, that was done as part of a just realized dialogue-oriented planning strategy here in Cottbus.

3) Language

³Please let me make some rather evident conclusions on the phenomenon of language in order that I may develop their relevance for my thesis.
Day by day we talk to many people - to intimate friends, family, collegues, acquaintances of any kind. We have learned what to say to whom, when and how, what is OK and what isn´t. We exchange our experiences via some kind of language, while there is a consensus on signs and rules¹.
With some we have a better understanding, with some less. Theoretically we are also able to communicate with people where this consensus is not yet evident, such as people with other cultural, subcultural or professional backgrounds, even with animals ; if we do want to understand them and take the time we need to mutually express ourselves.
Basically we have every possibility that one can think of and use, to symbolically encode our self-expressions: Facial expressions, body gestures/ movements/ positioning, skin reactions, tones and voices, plus the aid of objects².
The prerequisite for understanding is a consensus on signs, which implies that communication partners are able to interpret the signs and especially invest the time and patience needed to engage into this en- and decoding or rather translation process³.
In our context I would prefer to define language generally as a communication system, serving in principle as a means of transport, in order to exchange experiences with others and to understand what others have experienced. Language therefore has a fundamental social aspect⁴. By communicating we express our experiences and thereby identify with them. On the other hand we also receive feedback from our environment, which helps to somehow classify what we experienced. In this way we receive additional information, and another quasi experience is made. Language therefore is a means to classify experiences in our world view and ourselves in this world, testing and developing our concepts at the same time⁵.

⁴Yet we should distinguish: the experiences one makes are not identical with the coded and communicated information. Experiences and their connected thoughts and emotions are hardly ever as ordered and consecutive as language suggests, although they help us to share. Thoughts seem to chase each other, muddle and happen at the same time. Emotions are often contradictory and can inhibit clear thoughts. Still we try with the help of a means of expression, which we socially understand as effective, to communicate our experiences as appropriately and coherently as possible. This implies: we conclude, reduce, interpret, observe - and depending on the partner receiving this information, the outcome will vary somehow. Our partner (or ourselves if we are the listener) is concerned with a back-translation refering to the background of their own experiences and concepts. They extend, compose, fill gaps as they please, interpret, make prognoses, and translate the information in a differently structured frame of experience. This implies that, even if I know the rules, there is no guarantee that I will understand or will be understood, in a sense that understanding means getting as close as possible to what I intend to express.
The transport itself is not enough, because it also needs a process of understanding, such as double checks, and feedback. The more similar the frames of experiences, as in families, between close friends and collegues, the faster understanding may happen - and even in these cases explanations and feedback are necessary⁶.

⁵Language as a means of expression is socially learned in large and small groups that we live in: the language of a country, a regional dialect, subculturally used languages or professional languages.
It´s not the language that in principle distinguishes groups, but these languages seemingly happen to express most adequately specific experiences with specific aspects of environment shared among the group members.The used language therefore is the best known and practiced way for expressing and sharing these experiences -at least within the group.
If one cannot refer to certain experiences, e.g. parachute jumping or reading high standard city maps, exchanging and understanding are inhibited and intensive efforts are needed to translate them into another frame of reference. The same happens when concepts about the world and the environment are structured and coded differently, as is often found between generations or professional groups.

⁶Because of their individual, social, physical and cultural experiences, everyone develops a structured and consistent concept of the world, which increasingly is revised. Orientation in the environment is optimized and predictions are made, the goal being a more effective interaction with the world.
If I agree to a mutual process of understanding, I would try to re-interpret and thereby understand the communicated information from my experiential background, e.g. try to include it into my system. Confronted with a strange and challenging perspective, which I couldn´t easily intergrate and I couldn´t really understand, I would be forced to either extend and make changes in my system or reduce the spectrum of my experiences in order keep everything as it is - which implies that I wouldn´t really be open for a process of mutual understanding. Motivation hereby seems to play an important role⁷.

4) Architecture

⁷So what about architects and non-architects, talking about architecture?
The subculture with its specialized language in which architects are socialized mainly refers to observations on ideas, concepts and plans about physical space and quasi idealized users. The environmental aspects of concern include structure, form, norm, function, construction and material of the physical environment.
The use of architecture 1:1 in everyday life though is far removed from this ideal; it lies in individual routines, patterns of action, perception and experience which are temporarily, socially, individually and physically correlated in a complex way. For every one of us it is somewhat different, because other aspects seem important at the time. The experience of architecture in everyday life thus is far from the ideal in the sense that it is related to a totally different standard with many more relevant perspectives than the physical or spatial. Experiences of architects (shaped by planning concerns) and users (shaped by appropriation) are therefore expressed in different languages.
Users don´t only talk about space and material when they talk about architecture, but about what they do and how and when and with whom and why and what is important and what they enjoy and so on. Architecture is embedded in their complex daily experiences with their individual environmental aspects and isn´t reflected in its specifity, like architects for example are trained.

⁸When talking to users about their neighborhood one somehow must acknowledge that they won´t easily reflect architecture seperately from familiy life and work. However they could relate a lot about their life in and around a specific building.
When talking to architects about buildings one has to somehow acknowledge that they will concentrate on concepts, layouts and „functioning" (there seems to be an unspoken consensus regarding this term’s meaning...).
Users usually can´t make a lot out of the architects´ "concepts" - if they should ever learn about it- and architects on the other hand are often disappointed if talking to users, because they seem to have heard almost nothing "about architecture" but a lot about "the users´life"⁸.
Architects´language and users´language both make statements about architecture on the background of their frames of reference. Neighter one or the other is better or worse than the other, talking about architecture, both describing reality. In order to understand both users and architects and to eventually evaluate architecture, those distinct frames of references mut be explicitly acknowledged. If architects shall understand the users or users the architects -e.g. during the process of planning- one needs a procedure of mutual translation and a specially motivated interactive process of understanding.

⁹What then are the implications for planning and evaluation of architecture? First one must state -refering to recent planing practice- thet there is a lack of interaction between users and architects. This is especially true in planning itself. So far it became clear that a nourishing contact demands for appropriate motivation and openness on both sides. This, though, usually isn´t available - thinking of time schedules, money, status quo - if architects don´t make extraordinary efforts or external „interpreters" are asked to moderate -I will soon come to explain this with a practical example.

¹⁰After all, how should one translate? Where is the "dictionary"? Where the "grammer"? There are approaches to develop translation rules, for example the tremendous effort done with the "Pattern Language" by C. Alexander, S. Ishikawa & M. Silverstein (1977). But often such ideas are judged as driving out degrees of freedom and are therefore neglected by architects. Surely it is a difficult, if not impossible task to find a commonly accepted grammer or a dictionary, taken for being granted. But maybe this isn´t necessary in the end? Maybe it is possible to find a common frame of reference for both groups, which they share besides architecture?

5) A translation approach in two stages

¹¹Considering a setting for planning where interaction between architects and users could take place with a goal of mutual understanding, how should one proceed in order to make it work as far as useful outcome, money and time is concerned?
In the beginning you already tried to think of possibilities - let´s take a situation in Cottbus for further discussion⁹. There the city asked for a redesign of the "Altmarkt" in a dialogue-oriented way, meaning to include more citizen involvement than is usual in public domains where demanded by law.

¹²Here I will focus on the section where 1) the predesign concept was introduced to the public and 2) feedback of the potential future users influenced the re-evaluation of concept. For me the task was to enhance a dialogue on the plan, which implied that we needed a translation process during the planning stage itself, going in both directions, based on a process of mutual understanding.

5.1. Translation stage I

¹³The aim of this translation was - regarding what we already discussed - to give the citizens any help necessary for them to understand the main features of the architects’ approach and concept.

5.1.1. Theoretical Considerations

¹⁴Design process typically deals with ideas, the real project not yet being constructed. Like that the citizens at this stage had to be confronted with architects´ language. I have already outlined why it would be a problem to get users, without this experiential background, to think about architecture on that level. - They are specialized in 1:1 appropriation. Asking them about the concept demands a) an understanding of the idea and b) the ability to mentally and emotionally move within this virtual in 1:100 abstracted situation, thus relating their experiences.

¹⁵Even if users are not familiar with architectural plans and models it is possible to create reference to a common experience. The thinking in models and experiences with smaller standards and abstract realities is familiar to everyone who has grown up in our culture insofar as such abstract operations take place in playing - children with their model railways, building bricks or dolls - and facilitate a fundamental step in cognitive development¹¹. This experience remains with us and offers a common reference that would make it possible also for non-architects to refer to design models, with some assistance.
Assistance would imply, to encourage people to implement their thoughts spontaneously and playfully into the model, and in general play with their ideas. It seems to be important for the interviewer to behave as a model in this context, giving the rules, showing how to do it and like that - this I consider very important to make the translation work - motivate others, to open up for a process of mutual understanding¹⁰.
In this sense I like to call this whole procedure "model-play-interviews". Even though this title might have some not so serious connotation it seems to be exactly this playful aspect that facilitates the process, not only triggering creative potentials but also cognitively and emotionally creating an appropriation-like experiential frame of reference yet being within design process. Another important factor for this procedure lies in the fact, that the design concept is not only described in the architects´ words, but that it is tried, as good as possible, to describe it in its possible impacts for everyday life situations, thus relating the abstract idea to practical experiences.

5.1.2. Procedure

¹⁶The participants were enabled, by an easy to understand vivid three dimensional model (1:100) of this predesign concept, created by the architects, where positions of objects could be changed or objects (i.e. cars, trees, benches, fountain...) completely removed. People could walk around the model and see it from a birds´eye view or from a ground level. There was additional material available to quickly create new objects, e.g. by cutting styrodur.
With the help of this model and in every day examples I explained the idea and showed the areas and aspects that still had to be discussed. The questions and suggestions of the participants were directly translated into consequences for the model, e.g. objects were taken out out or moved to other places. The impacts of these changes for the whole layout of the area were discussed and checked if they were really wanted¹¹.
The whole process was taped and each final outcome was photographed.

5.1.3. Evaluation

¹⁷How did this first stage of translation work out after all? Regarding previous considerations the citizens should show evidence that they were able to evaluate the plan in interaction with their experiential background.
In the beginning they often offered cliché solutions, but through the process they related it to what they experienced in front of this model situation and sometimes came up with new and unique solutions. They checked their ideas with the probable consequences, they took the ideas of the architects seriously and tried to understand them, they tried to think with the larger perspective in mind, and related their personal wishes and needs to this.
Analysis of the interviews process show, that all participants, having received such assistance and translation help (ca. 100), were able to indulge into this rather complex and abstract process of problem solving in front of this three dimensional mini-model.

¹⁸Another case I consider important: Sometimes the architects themselves dropped by and talked to the people. They sincerely tried to explain their approach with the help of the model and with every day examples, but their problem was, that as soon as the person understood and then evaluated the concept from their point of view, the architects became trapped in a rather familiar situation: they started to defend their concept. Like that they didn´t really succeed in simply listening and trying to understand.

¹⁹A quasi control group of another 40 participants existed also. This group didn´t receive special help with the model. Although they were able to change things and were told the main features of the concept, they didn´t receive help in translating their ideas into consequences for the whole area - a rather normal situation in common public participation strategies, one could say.
There was hardly any interaction with the features of the predesign concept and the model. Usually -without the interpreters deliberate assitstance - opinions were mentioned and problems in general were described without reference to what was there in the model - i.e. the architects´ ideas how to deal with such problems and opinions possibly, practically and aesthetically.
It was interesting to see that in this group there was rarely anything to photograph, because nothing was moved or added or related to the predesign model.

²⁰The different development in those two groups implies that translation help is indeed facilitating and intensifying feedback directly on the concept model, based on appropriation experience, if users are deliberately motivated and encouraged to indulge into interaction with the planners´ considerations concerning their possible future.

5.2 Translation stage II

²¹The second stage aimed at translating the divers and complex user perceptions for the architects, e.g. assisting them in understanding and implementing this feedback into their further design considerations.
Let us go back one step: The user feedback existed as photographed solution options and taped interview processes. For architects´ language, as we discussed before, practical spatial solutions fit very well and, accordingly, in this case the architects tried to get a hold of those photo prints already during the interview process. Certainly one can think of a concept evaluation on this level but such a translation strategy seems not enough.

5.2.1. Theoretical Considerations

²²Therefore I´d like to explain my theoretical considerations in more detail.
Users are specialists in architecture appropriation, architects in planning. This shall not imply that non-architects don´t have good ideas or that architects are not themselves users of architecture. Yet a certain specialization can be acknowledged, e.g. non-architects overseeing aspects while trying to find spatial solutions, because they are not used to thinking about spacial features and behavior/experience in that specific way, and architects on the other hand having a perception of architecture specifically concerned about the building and therefore professionally socialized and trained.
With this in mind the non-architects feedback shouldn´t be reduced to its spatial solutions and statements. As a matter of fact a way should be found to communicate the information based on complex every day use experience, in a way that comes close to the architects´ way of thinking and designing.

²³Assuming that again a commonly shared experiential level for architects and non-architects should be found, not necessarily refering to space, I thought of the ability to deal with problems in the environment. Architects are trained to solving design tasks, i.e. anticipating, analyzing and solving problems on several levels. Users, dealing with their environment, are confronted daily with conflicts and compromises between their action goals and the environmental situation, and thus are used to both adjust and adapt¹³.
So for the architects´ re-evaluation it seemed to make sense to interpret not only the spatial solutions but also the users anticipation of compromise and conflict, captured in the taped interview processes. This under the premise that the professionalism of non-architects with architecture is in practically experiencing problems with the built environment and the professionalism of architects is in solving problems relating to the built environment.

5.2.2. Procedure

²⁴The photo solutions did not reveal the process that lead to one and not to another solution. But if the architects only knew about what concerned the people and what they might not have considered in that way before, they might become inspired to find new approaches. The analysis of the interview processes revealed certain subjects, that people dealt with in different ways, yet obviously trying to concentrate on similar questions¹⁴.

5.2.3. Evaluation

²⁵How did the planners actually deal with the feedback? Were they able to include the named areas of concern into their concept? Were they open for the users´ perspectives, e.g. did interaction take place?

²⁶4 stages can be identified in this process:
1) In the beginning there was a longing for spatial options, so, as I mentioned before, they kept asking for the printed solutions even during the interview process (although they didn´t receive them then).
2) After the interviews were interpreted and they received the whole feedback documentation the planners still kept looking for spatial answers. It was necessary to repeatedly encourage, to deal with the fields of concern in more detail.
3) So it came to a phase were they really read and studied the feedback and tried to deal with those concerns, even if this implied changes in the concept.
4) Finally they were so familiar with the results that during a pre-presentation they described the outcome of the model-play-interviews themselves and I didn´t need to add so much myself. Plus they obviously included important aspects in their re-evaluation.
Still there is scepticism and hesitation on their side regarding this dialogue. This might have to do with the creators´ vulnerability in creative processes. In the future this should be considered in more detail.

²⁷Although the intensity of understanding during the second stage can be discussed and one has to state that in the future even more activity of the interpreter, especially in this stage should be involved, the process in 4 stages illustrates, that interaction indeed took place.
Considering the first stage one can imagine that without deliberate assistance the planners -even though they were open for this dialogue experiment - would have concentrated on the spatial options only, as they are trained and used to, not really wanting to or having the time to, and basically not knowing how to deal with the complex information constructively. Without their basic openness they might as well have ignored the feedback completely

6) Discussion

²⁸After this empirical excursion I want to come back to my initial question. Is it possible to interpret between architects´ language and users´ language? Why should one bother?
The Cottbus project favours the thesis that without interpretation of some sort mutual understanding is difficult, especially because the frames of reference don´t match and the education of architects and planners doesn´t explicitly offer help here. They can´t refer to experience and don´t see the need to act in that direction. Thus grammer is lacking, vocabulary is limited and no comon frame of reference seems to exist.

²⁹The model-play-interviews I’ve discussed here functioned with the moderating help of an interpreter, so why shouldn´t this then be enough -if such interpreters were available when necessary? Unfortunately there is no systematic education of such interpreters, neighter in architects´ language nor in users´ language, yet only rather accidential in special cases of interdisciplinary work settings, being confronted with both backgrounds.

³⁰This all is leading to the conclusion that during education of architects special seminars, or embedded withing design projects, should offer preperatory experiences with processes of mutual understanding; specific problems between architects and non-architects and translation possibilities thus could be investigated, evaluated and optimized.
Such seminars could have 4 goals, regarding the previous discussion:
1) translating and presenting design presmises and concepts vividly and close to daily life experiences.
2) asking questions about architecture that are not directly related to space, form etc. but to life in the building and its surrroundings.
3) interpreting information from interviews especially regarding indirect statements about architecture (one possibility being the analysis of fields of concern).
4) distinguishing constructive feedback concerning concepts from aggression towards the person.

³¹But why should one bother with all this, besides all the other demands during education, if not interested in participatory planning processes?
I’ve talked about the social aspect of language and how it serves an exchange of experiences and observations in order to evaluate them at the same time. Mutual understanding demands mutual openness and readiness to question one’s concepts. There are several occasions in the routines of architects’ lives, where they have to talk to non-professionals, e.g. the contractors. They must talk about architecture in their different languages and must understand each other, and this often enough causes problems, struggles, and concerns on both sides. Here again, we must deal with differences in experiences and their consequences for communiation that I’ve outlined - after all it doesn´t matter if it is an explicit participative planning process or a standardized one.

³²Does it after all make sense to help solve the discussed communication problems and like that bring the underlying and different perspectives on architecture closer together?
It is not only that on the architects side additional test conditions for the concept would exist, or for the non-architects enlarged experiences with architecture besides sightseeing opportunities would be offered and might even lead to a higher identification and satisfaction with their environment. I especially consider it important because it offers architects an opportunity to be closer to the people´s life with architecture, to the relativity and variety of their needs and to their humanity.

7) Fußnoten

¹see Austin, J.L. 1972; Searle, J.R. 1971; Shank, R.C. & Abelson, R. 1977.
²see Crott, H. 1979.
³vgl. Habermas, J. 1881a/b.
⁴see Apel, K.O. 1976; Bühler, K. ; Mead, G.H. 1934; Thayer, L. 1987.
⁵see Argyle, M. 1972; Bandura, A. 1978; Bruner, J.S. 1963 und 1981; Vygotsky, L.S. 1964.
⁶see Schulz v. Thun, F. 1988; Watzlawick et al. 1969.
⁷see Kelly, G.A. 1955; Lecky, P. 1945; Epstein, S. 1979; Sommer, A. & Ermer C., 1993.
⁸cit. after statements of several architects and students.
^{9An interdisciplinary team, consiting of the architects (the office of Nagler/Bahrdt, Cottbus), a architectural critic (Prof. Dr. E. Führ) and the author as architectural psychologist, worked out the whole planning procedure in detail.
10}see: Piaget, J. 1969b; Bruner, J.S 1963.; Vygotsky, L.S. 1964.
¹¹see: Bandura, A. 1978.
¹²For example, if people wanted to have more trees in the middle of the area, we discussed how this would affect the market activities in general and particular. Did they want these impacts? How could this be solved otherwise? Why were the trees so important in this area? Could they be somewhere else as well? How would they use the place? How do they use it now?
Each statement was related to the model.
¹³see Altman, I. & Rogoff, B. 1987.
¹⁴Another example: Historically there was a city hall in the middle of the "Altmarkt" and one of the questions was whether to rebuild it in some way or not. Ther were several options thought of by the citizens, but none of them seriously considered reconstruction. Some wanted a sort of light illusion at night, others wanted access to the cellar, some prefered signs on the ground and much more alike. All those different ideas shared a same motiv - the people wanted to be able to somehow experience the fact of the historic city hall today in the context of their life rather than the building itself.

8) References

Alexander, C; Ishikawa, S & Silverstein, M. 1977. A Pattern Language. Berkeley.

Altman, I. & Rogoff, B. 1987. World Views in Psychology: Trait, Interaction, Organismic and Transactional Perpsectives. In D. Stokols & I. Altman (Eds.) Handbook of Environmental Psychology. New York.

Apel, K.O. 1976. Transformation der Philosophie. Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinschaft. Bd. 2. Frankfurt/M.

Austin J.L. 1972. Zur Theorie der Sprechakte. Stuttgart.

Argyle, M. 1972. Soziale Interaktion. Köln.

Bandura, A. 1978. The self system in reciprocal determinism. American Psychologist, 33, 344-358.

Bruner, J.S. 1963. The process of education. New York.

Bruner, J.S. 1981. The pragmatics of acquisition. In W. Deutsch. (Ed.): the Child´s construction of language. New York: S 39-55.

Bühler, K. 1934. Sprachtheorie. Jena.

Crott, H. 1979. Soziale Interaktion und Gruppenprozesse. Stuttgart.

Epstein, S. 1979. Entwurf einer integrativen Persönlichkeitstheorie. In S.-H. Filipp (Hrg.): Selbstkonzeptforschung: Probleme, Befunde, Perspektiven. Stuttgart.

Habermas, J.: Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt: Bd. 1, 1981a; Bd. 2, 1981b.

Kelly, G.A. 1955. The psychology of personal constructs. New York.

Lecky, P. 1945. Self consistency: A theory of personality. Long Island, New York.

Mead, G.H. 1934. Mind self and society. Chicago.

Piaget, J. 1969b. Nachahmung, Spiel und Traum. Stuttgart.

Schulz von Thun, F. 1988. Miteinander Reden: Störungen und Klärungen. Reinbek.

Searle J.R. 1971. Sprechakte: Ein philosophisches Essay. Frankfurt/M.

Schank, R.C. & Abelson, R. 1977. Scripts, plans, goals and understanding. Hillesdale, N.J.

Sommer A. & Ermer C. 1993. Selbstwert und Kommunikation. Berlin.

Thayer, L. 1987. On communication. Norwood, New Jersey.

Vygotsky, L.S. 1964. Denken und Sprechen. Stuttgart.

Watzlawick, P.; Beavin, J.H. & Jackson, D.D. 1969. Menschliche Kommunikation: Formen, Störungen, Paradoxien. Bern.