Ethical Issues

Every design field struggles with what is considered ethical and unethical. I think the most important ethical issue that architects deal with is wanting to over price their services to a customer. The client doesn't know what all goes into design a building so an architect could easily make up a lie stating that something went wrong or that adding a specific piece will bump up their price even though it wouldn't. This issue is so easy to cross the line because no one is standing over you and making sure you aren't cheating the client into paying more money; it is completely on the honor system. Every job has it's own ethical issues, and the way one deals with them truly shows what kind of person their are.

Culture is not always popular

1. What is their argument/message?

• They are arguing about the schooling and information that designers learn, and if "over-intellectual words cause you to be counterproductive".

2. What is one thing you agree with in the article?

• I agree with the early statement that to be popular you have to act dumber, because we are growing up in a society where everything has to do with looks at outside appreance instead of the smarts you have inside. In the media, people who act like they don't know anything are the ones that everyone knows and cares about.

3. What is one think you disagree with in the article?

• It was stated that designers create a body of work and not have a body of knowledge. I disagree with this because we may not know the supreme court justices, but if you ask us anything about structure or houses, we can answer those question. We have to study and learn from former architects, learn codes for buildings and structures, and memorize all the vocabulary terms that goes along with a building. People may think we don't have any knowledge because its not the things there learning, but we have to have a large vocabulary under our belts for us to succed in this profession.

3. How do you think they would define innovation?

• I think they would define innovation as taking aspects from all different topics and subjects to create a design. I feel they think designers should have a broader learning cirriculum where they learn more history, geography, etc, so we can take all these different subjects and use them to strengthen our designs.  

Innovation Types

Falling Water, designed by Wright, is an example of a aesthetic innovation, which is defined as the product's external appearance, those attributes that can be judged at first sight with no need to interact with the product or understand it. Falling Water fits this definition because the appearance of the building is not normally common, due to the water fall it cantilevers over. Thus, this design breaks the normality of a house, and establishes new possibilities of where houses can be built and what environments compliment it.

The Mason A Bordeaux, designed by Rem Koolhass, is an example of typographic innovation, which is defined as deviation of a product from its formal archetype. The Mason Bordeaux fits this definition becuase the archetypical multi-story building uses stairs to allow people to move from one level to another; however, due to a handicap man living here, this building uses an elevator style platform to mover between floors. Thus, its form breaks with the dominant mode, and establishes new designs for handicaps to travel from one floor to the next.

Revision of 8/29

Griffith's states that finding an environment suitable for one's design is a critical step in moving past the stage of designing. Griffith's and his team created many different unique and helpful inventions, but if no company or group wanted to help it grow, then the idea is useless. Architects run into this issue multiple times when design a new building. For one example the idea of creating a house over a body of water or cliff was a struggle for people to finally allow to be tested. Frank Lloyd Wright is a well-known architect for his skill in creating buildings that become one with nature. Frank Lloyd Wright designed Falling Water half over the waterfall it sat beside. At first the clients, the Kauffmans, want the house to just sit beside the waterfall, but Frank talked them into believe it would work, and now that house is one of the top known places in the United States. Wright's determination to prove that the house cantilevering over the waterfall would become famous is now one of his most famous designs. Every architect faces different challenges on how far to push the envelope on creative design, and sometimes the owner wants nothing to do with it, while others becomes a easily recognized piece of work.

8/29 discussion

What types of problems or dilemmas similar to those that Griffith encounters are you aware of in your own design field?

• No plumbing on outside walls
•  Lack of detailed measurements on any property that they are working on
• Making customers happy
• Keeping within the budget
• Following all zoning and building codes
• Buildings not being handicap accesible

How are these problems being solved

• Having inspectors periodically check on a site
• Creating groups to enforce laws about accesibility in buildings
• Resaerching information about properties
• Draw building with owner and engineers there to watch for mistakes before building occurs

Try to identify the types of problems that Owen describes. Some of these are encountered directly by Griffith; others are articulated by him. There are at least six. Note these on the article, and be ready to discuss in class.

• We know that there are winds with altitudes that are higher than that of conventional turbines, but we can't figure out a way to store that energy
• We can't make as big of turbines as we need because lengthing the blades increases their weight and their surface area, consequently, thier vulnerability to destructive stresses
• Since Internet is becoming so popular, it's carbon footprint now exceeds those of air travel
• Moving Makani beyond the prototype represents a trememndous challenge because the world is so used to transformative technological changes taking place almost instantaneously that they don't give hardware a chance becuase it takes longer to "update."
• Even when money is given to these kinds of projects, the money is distriputed to so many groups, some that already get money from other groups, that ones such as Makani doesn't recieve enough to start a business
• Global recession has put a stop to many inventive groups
• Many of their projects have a great idea but are waiting for the right application and "in" to the world
• Cover all the roads with solar cells: smart idea but very energy intensive way to build a road, but the negative point is that you're unlikely to get that energy back
• For the Squid Labs, the partners who started them left to run them
• After failing to produce an amazing invention the temptation grows to become a very vanilla consulting company
• No battery comes anywhere close to holding energy as efficiently as the fuel tank of a car
• The real problem with cell phones isn't technological; it's cultural. Coveting slightly fancier models, we abandon flawlessly functioning devices after just a year or two, long before their components have degraded