Collective Intelligence in Design

Abstract

That digital technology has transformed the forms and spaces of what we design has become commonplace. Its transformative potential for forms of design practice and spaces of knowledge has remained less examined, but is ultimately more radical in its implications. With the shift from the second machine age to that of information, the reflexive network has replaced the assembly line as a preeminent model of organisation even as media infrastructures have augmented physical transportation at multiple scales stretching from discrete sites of production and consumption, to economic, political and even social institutions. This nexus of computation, telecommunications and new organisations of economic and political power suggest that the 19th-century division of design into distinct professions might now be displaced by different organisations of knowledge and practices. The texts and projects contained in this issue demonstrate how networks of international, transdisciplinary, decentralised practices are emerging to reposition and retool design practice to engage today's unconventional problems, site briefs, clients and manufacturing processes.'Collective intelligence', as both a concept and a term, has its roots in a number of historical and contemporary contexts. In the 1960s Marshall McLuhan noticed the emergence of new social organisations based on principles of decentralisation and collectivity. Enabled in part by the advent of telecommunication technology, McLuhan quaintly referred to this model as 'the global village'. 1 Computing pioneer Douglas Englebart went further by suggesting that communication

The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration

“…found that intermittent rather than constant social influence produced the best performance among humans collectively engaged in complex problem solving [ 81 ]. As we are reminded in Hight & Perry's article on collective intelligence and architectural design, ‘collective intelligence is not simply technical, but also explicitly social, political, and by extension, professional’ [ 2 , p. 6]. Our findings empirically reinforce their caution that the relationship between architectural design and collective intelligence extends beyond technical considerations.…”

“…This second empirical study was also a quasi-field experiment at a Fortune 500 multinational and was conducted at the global headquarters of OpenCo2. 2 At the time of the study, OpenCo2 was in the process of a multi-year headquarters redesign, which-as in Study 1-involved a transformation from assigned seats in cubicles to similarly assigned seats in an open office design, with large rooms of desks and monitors and no dividers between people's desks.…”

“…Boundaries between 'us' and 'them' have long captured human interest. Yet even as social scientists continue to study the value of a vast array of boundaries [1], in an era in which the nature of work is changing [2][3][4], managers and organizational scholars have increasingly framed boundaries as barriers to interaction that ought to be spanned [5][6][7][8], permeated [9] or blurred [10] to increase collaboration. In the most physically salient and concrete example, 'spatial boundaries' [11] at work-such as office or cubicle walls-are being removed to create open 'unbounded' offices in order to stimulate greater collaboration and collective intelligence.…”

“…OpenCo1 is a pseudonym for the corporation's real name, which has been anonymized 2. OpenCo2 is a pseudonym for the corporation's real name, which has been anonymized.rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org Phil.…”

Towards a new disciplinary framework for contemporary creative design practice

“…Instead, a new capacity for collaboration has encouraged new types of design practice (Hight and Perry 2006). Encouraged by the rise of telecommunication technologies, new 'interconnections' and 'configurations of knowledge' have materialised (Gibbons et al 1994) and presented new opportunities for creative engagement.…”