Designing as Reflexive Conversation with the Materials of a Design Situation

Abstract

Designing can be understood as a dialogue of prototype and site.... designers have access to repertoires of prototypes that have been derived from their earlier experiences. Faced with a particular site and a design task, the designer selects one or more prototypes from his repertoire, seeing the site in terms of the prototype carried over to it, and seeing the prototype in the light of the constraints and possibilities discovered in the site.