RBVXBW$ Creative design: a new look at design principles

Philip Rawson, McDonald and Co., London (1987) £19.95

Rawson takes as his canvas 'the whole history of design', considering modern design to be one manifesta- tion of a broad human faculty. The designer works with four main ele- ments: 'materials', which are mod- ified by 'processes' according to 'for- mal concepts' to fulfil 'specific pur- poses'. Most of this book is taken up with illustrations and descriptions of craft processes, drawing techniques and elements of formal organization. The book is fine-art centred and conforms to the conventional art and design tradition covering basic visual elements, with chapters devoted to such things as form, colour, print and fine art itself. There are many surprising omissions. Although in- terior design and environmental de- sign are given whole chapters, there is virtually no mention of industrial manufacturing process, engineering or consumer products, and graphic design is confined to a few para- graphs in a chapter on 'print'. The book also totally omits to mention any of the new design procedures developed in the last thirty years confining the design activity to the processes associated with drawing and making, ignoring creative prob- lem solving. There are errors in the description of third angle projection in the drawing section, and in the mathematics of proportions, as well as a lack of sympathy for what makes ratios such as the Golden Section interesting to use.

In claiming this book is about creative design, the publisher is ex- aggerating its scope. It is in fact concerned with craft design and some aspects of visual creativity only, and the design principles it espouses are those long taught in art schools. The disappointing text is partly compensated for by the high quality of the illustrations, which

constitute a rich source of visual interest and inspiration. The book is targetted on an American audience, to judge from the spelling used, and it is an expensive and well produced volume. Intended to be looked at rather than read it will happily grace your coffee table.

Michael Tovey

Architectural design and CAD

Yvon Gardan (Ed), Kogan Page, London (1986) 112 pages, £17.50

This book consists of a collection of English language papers culled from the M I C A D conference series. MICADO is a French CAD/CAM and computer graphics association which acts as an umbrella organiza- tion for users and vendors working in the computer graphics industry and the applications of computer graphics in France. Since 1982 MICADO has organized a series of international conferences on CAD/ CAM and computer graphics, the proceedings being published by Hermes in France and Kogan Page in Britain.

This book consists of eleven pap- ers presented at MICAD conferences from 1984 onwards. There is no editorial introduction or linking text, but with the mix of papers chosen it is difficult to imagine what sensible links could be made. Some of the papers may be of in te res t to academics or CAD specialists, but these people would presumably have already had access to the MICAD proceedings. On the other hand, it is unlikely that the practising architect would pay £17.50 for a raw collection of conference papers on topics as varied as 'Computer aided bridge design' and 'Artificial intelligence and artificial architecture'. In con- clusion, it is difficult to see either the purpose of this book or to identify its potential readership.

Alan Bridges

Model Housing from the Great Exhibition to the Festival of Britain S. Martin Gaskell, Alexandrine Press/ Mansell Publishing, London (1986) 180 pages, £26.50

A lot of it about, and resistant to analysis (let alone cure); housing resembles the common cold. Burnett has shown one path through the tangled history of modern housing and here is another, equally valid in a more specialized way. Gaskell adopts an approach which may commend itself to a somewhat wider readership than first appears. The approach by examination of 'model' rather than typical examples focuses on housing which represented 'an ideal to be aimed at or a considered response to existing conditions'. This treatment of housing is somewhat akin to a treatment of, say, cars, which ex- amines those experimental 'cars of the future' occasionally shown off by manufacturers. Replete with innova- tory whims and fancies, they are feted for a few hours before dis- appearing from view for ever. Come the day, the motoring future never quite turns out as foreseen. Thus the 'model' (or ideal type) is less a forecast than a caricature of desig- ners' preoccupations and concerns at a point in time. Caricature sharpens the message, as any newspaper car- toon shows. By looking at 'models' we gain insight into designers' con- cerns and, that key elusive notion, their intentions.

The book begins with general consideration of the concept of mod- el housing, placed in historical con- text. An extended middle section consists of case studies arranged chronologically 1851-1951. A con- cluding discussion is about the im- pact of the subject on society and the environment. Treatment throughout is thoughtful and scholarly to a standard associated with the author. There is a useful bibliography and n u m e r o u s helpful i l lus t ra t ions ,

Vol 9 No 3 July 1988 191

among which the photographs are not crisply reproduced.

The book should appeal particu- larly to students and historians of design and the environment, and also to others attracted by the 'mod- el' artefact approach. Here the au- thor has faced formidable problems

in comparing dissimilars, for the extreme heterogeneity of the subject is undeniable. From Victorian Pea- body tenements to postwar alumi- uium 'prefabs', and from social pur- pose to building costs, the range is dauntingly wide. Perhaps the oppor- tunity might have been grasped more

firmly to draw together common threads and to point to contrasts. A more systematic treatment of the case studies, with more appraisal and comment added to existing descrip- tion, would have helped.

Christopher Powell

CALenDAR DESIGN 88: international conference

10th International ergonomics association congress

3rd International conference on applications of artificial intelligence in engineering

Computers design education: CDE '88

4th IFAC/IFIP/IFORS/IEA conference on man-machine systems

Information for designers

Design engineering show and conference

4th Cairo University conference on mechanical design and production.

Symposium on design research and semiotics

July 1988 London, UK

1-5 August 1988 Sydney, Australia

8-11 August 1988 Stanford, CA, USA

16-19 August 1988 Helsinki, Finland

12-14 September 1989 Xian, China

21-22 September 1988 Southampton, UK

27-30 September 1988 Birmingham, UK

27-29 December 1988 Cairo, Egypt

17-18th May 1989 Helsinki, Finland

Dr M.C. Forde, Dept of Civil Engineering and Building Science, University of Edinburgh, The King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JL, UK

IEA'88 Secretariat, PO Box 380, Spit Junction, NSW 2088, Australia

AIENG 88 Conference, Computational Mechanics Institute, 25 Bridge Street, Billerica, MA 01821, USA

CDE '88 Secretariat, University of Industrial Arts, H~imeentie/35C, SF-00560 Helsinki, Finland

MMS '89 Secretariat, Prof. Hu Baosheng, The Systems Engineering Institute, Xian Jinotong University, Xian, P.R. China

Dr G. Pitts, Design Group, Dept of Mechanical Engineering, The University, Southampton SO9 5NH, UK

Rachel Rogers, Cahner's Exhibitions Limited, Chatsworth House, 59 London Road, Twickenham TW 1 3SZ

Dr Mohsen Elmahdy Said, General Secretary, MDP-4 Conference, Dept. of Mechanical Design and Production, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.

Ms Susann Vihma, Symposium on Design Research and Semiotics, University of Industrial Arts, H/imeentie 135C, SF00560 Helsinki, Finland

ICED 89: International conference on engineering design

22-25 August 1989, Harrogate, UK

Conference Department, ICED 89 Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1 Birdcage Walk, London SW1H 9J J, UK

International conference on marina design and operation

26-28 September 1989 Southampton, UK

Liz Newman, Computational Mechanics Institute, Ashurst Lodge, Ashhurst, Southampton SO4 2AA, UK

192 DESIGN STUDIES