International Journal of Technology and Design Education 5: 171, 1995. © 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Research in Progress

Semiotic Processes in Architecture

Peter Medway writes: I am studying the ways in which language, spoken and written, both inde-

pendently and in dynamic interaction with drawing, contributes to bringing about buildings. In a series of studies over three years I have been inves- tigating uses of these semiotic processes in architectural practice at different stages of projects: initial design, bidding for contracts, production of working drawings and specifications and management of construction. In parallel I have been studying the ways the same semiotic processes operate in architectural education, mainly in one university School of Architecture although with supplementary data from others.

My principal data-collection method is the video recording of extended episodes of activity, lasting from a few hours to several days, together with interviews at those sites and also at a larger number of others. The main work has been done in Canada, with some evidence also from the United States, England and the Netherlands.

I came to this work from a background in education which included research in both language in education and school design and technology education. Architecture suggested itself as an interesting case to study for two main reasons: it is an exceptionally language-rich field of technolog- ical activity, with a discourse that is to some extent accessible to non-specialists and in which the public feels able to participate in a way it cannot in, say, the discourses of electronics-based technologies; and it encompasses a range of versions and manifestations, from unambiguously technological preoccupations with materials and structures to architecture as a form of art, concerned with such issues as meaning, symbolism, ritual and cultural memory.

A report of aspects of this work appeared in IJTDE Vol. 4, no. 1, 1994.

Correspondence to: Dr Peter Medway Centre for Research on Language in Education and Work, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6. Email: pmedway@ ccs.carleton.ca Fax 613-788-2642