The next exercise was to rank order the issues and alternatives, and this was done using a Delphi technique. Figure 4 represents what was actually the laying out of the small diagrams on a very large table. The constants all are in the left most column. The variables are listed along the top row, but they are in the rank order of their perceived importance, with the most important being to the left. The alternatives diagrams are below their heading and are also in rank order of likely success as the judged by the class using Delphi methods. Thus one can interpret the positions of the diagrams on the table in the following way. Every constant diagram must be included and in addition, the most likely successful design strategy would be to select the top row of issue alternatives starting from the left. If compromises were to be made, they could be made the two ways: first, by choosing to ignore the less important issues, or, by dropping to second or third best alternatives for any issue but preferably not the more important ones. This process was completed at the end of the third studio class.

 

　　In the next phase of the studio, each individual student was required to prepare an initial design by selecting an appropriate set of the diagrams. A lottery was held and the number one winning student had first choice among the variables diagrams. Each subsequent student in the lottery ranking was required to choose a different set from all previous students. Thus, when the selected diagrams were overlain on a light table, there were 14 substantially different initial diagrammatic designs. These were available after the fourth studio class, at the end of the second week.

 

　　A special issue of pedagogic ethics had to be discussed with the studio students in this phase. Even in the most organized or faculty led studio, there is an absolute right for a student to explore his or her own ideas, and in his or her own way. This is an issue which must be discussed openly and the students must understand that an objective of the faculty member is the teaching and testing of a method which is expected to be of interest and use to the student. The priority in this studio is not the encouragement of the students’ idiosyncratic creativity. I am well aware that some colleagues and some students do not agree with this position but it is the one which I hold. The ethics of being a teacher require this to be openly stated, openly discussed, and somehow managed within the social contract between student and teacher.

 

　　Each student then prepared a physical model of his or her initial design. At the end of the sixth week, these were presented in a standard scale using standard and mass produced materials, and in a representational style organized by a student subcommittee. Each model could be segmented and placed in a shipping carton  (Fig.05).

 

　　Fourteen designs were flown to Bermuda along with three students who presented these designs to the group of persons actually responsible for the redevelopment of the site. After careful consideration, the Bermudian committee decided that three of the designs should be moved forward to the next stage.

 

　　This was reported to all in a presentation and discussion by the students who went to Bermuda. The students whose designs were not chosen to go forward then had to join the team of one of the three designs which would be presented at the end of the semester. The teams were of approximately equal size and were organized on a volunteer basis, and the studio continued with three very different design strategies (Fig.06).

 

　　At the end of the semester, a presentation of these three designs was held at Harvard with Mr. Swan and other representatives of Bermuda present. The entire class was then invited to return to Bermuda to present the three final designs. Bermuda at that time had a population of approximately 90,000 persons and about 10,000 persons saw at least one of the several presentations made by the students. The committee and Mr. Swan then decided to place the choice of one of the three park concepts before the electorate in a special election. The intent was not to build one of the student designs but rather to identify the preferences of the general public for the strategies which were embedded in the design options. This election was held and it is interesting to note that the winning design C, was the one which most closely conformed to left hand section of constants and the upper row “best options” in the diagram layout with which the studio got started(Fig.04).

 

　　2.2 TEPOTZATLAN, MEXICO

 

　　The following example, Tepotzotlan Mexico, is an application of the diagramming method to a problem at different scales and with different products, but using a digital adaptation of the basic approach. This was a graduate-level studio which I taught in 2004-5 at Harvard with Juan Carlos Vargas-Moreno, and in collaboration with a faculty/student team from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (UAM) in Mexico city led by Professor Anibal Figueroa, and with the full cooperation of the municipal government.

 

　　Tepotzotlan is a municipality at the northern edge of what may be the largest city in the world. It is facing enormous development pressures, as it is on the main highway to the north of Mexico. It has, and is surrounded by, considerable amounts of social housing and distribution warehouses. There are increasing amounts of `informal housing'. The untreated sewage of the entire Mexico City area flows via Tepotzotlan, some in canals and some in a broken pipe system under Tepotzotlan. Yet the municipality retains the character of a group of relatively small settlements, with some agriculture and large adjacent National Forest lands.

 

　　The main attraction of the town of Tepotzotlan is the church and monastery of St. Francis Xavier, founded in 1584. This extraordinary complex is now the national museum of colonial art, and a major Mexican tourist attraction. The sponsor, FUNDEA, is the leading Mexican environmentally-oriented NGO. It has a large landholding in the municipality, and this area is partly developed and operated as an environmental-education park. Tepotzotlan has been identified by the Mexican Ministry of Tourism as one of 10 national priority areas for tourism development.

 

　　Thus the several potential conflicts needing resolution: housing, transport, water, sewage treatment, tourism, conservation, and recreation, and all in a rapidly changing, environmentally degraded, politically complex and relatively poor economy. There were issues and "projects" ranging from metropolitan-regional to very detailed scales, and always the need to play a constructive part in helping the municipality to shape its future.

 

　　During the five-day visit to Tepotzotlan, Mexico, the students participating in the studio created a list of projects and policies as reactions to the daily meetings, discussion, visits and information that had been gathered. Each project was proposed by one or more students and presented in brainstorming sessions that were held at the end of each day. But they were not edited or rejected. By the end of the eight-day field visit, the students had identified around 200 projects.

 

　　The project proposals had a specific protocol in order to be considered and entered in the system. The technical process had been designed by Juan Carlos Vargas-Moreno. The projects were first entered in a "project list" composed in EXCEL spreadsheet and then diagrammed by hand on a large regional map of 3 by 6 meters size that was placed in the studio work space. The table-map was a large print of the most recent high-resolution orthophotography and several layers of transparent plastic sheet. While the orthophoto allowed the students to locate and describe the geography of each proposed project, the plastic sheets allowed the sketching of projects over the orthophoto in independent sheets. In the EXCEL spreadsheet, each project had a number, the name of student who proposed it, a classification that determined if the project was a spatially specific physical change or a policy. Furthermore each project had to be classified in one or more of eight color-coded categories: national or municipal government related, neighborhood related, transportation, industrial, ecological (including hydrology), heritage, utilities or wildlife restoration.

 

　　During the last day of the site visit, students were divided in groups corresponding to each category, and were asked to act as experts by selecting up to 20 of the most significant projects in each category. This limit certainly focused the students on the issues of strategy and priority. A new short-list of around eighty projects was selected for further development. These projects were then digitized as diagrams in a GIS employing ESRI ArcMap 9.0. Each project diagram was digitized as a separate layer in the color code of its assigned category and the full spectrum of attributes entered in the EXCEL spreadsheet. With this electronic data base of individual projects, and by simply selecting the number of wanted layers via the spreadsheet, the students created different clusters of projects as overlays in a 3-D visualization generated by ESRI’s ArcScene. The visualization featured the orthophotography draped over the digital elevation model and covered by the individual project layers in inverse order of presumed importance. Different clusters such as tourism or ecological-related projects were created as initial explorations. This allowed the students to visualize the cumulative effect of different projects and categories in the region of study. Later, through class discussion, three scenarios were developed by combining different projects. The three scenarios were: tourism, ecological and economically–driven alternatives. Each scenario was presented in a 3-D visualization (Fig.07) and coded as a group of project numbers (e. g. projects: 2, 6, 26, 55, and 43). These visualizations were presented to the local collaborators and government representatives, and discussed for future refinement. This had been accomplished within the site visit.

 

　　Later, several more scenarios of more complex objectives were prepared and compared before the studio team decided to focus on one. This was developed further into an alternative municipal plan (Fig.08), and several projects developed at much more detailed scales.

 

　　3 CONCLUSION

 

　　I have illustrated two variations of the application of the framework to a studio's beginning phase which relies on a mix of diagramming and Delphi methods and of judgment. I have used these methods many times in short workshops. In all cases, the participants were made fully aware that this stage was intended as a scoping exploration with the objective of identifying the issues and needs for a more thorough use of the framework over a longer period of time, with better data and with application to projects at different scales of design.

 

　　It is obvious that one of the individual costs of this highly organized team-based studio structure is that each student cannot and does not do all tasks even though each student participates in each phase of the study. Because of this students are encouraged to make presentations to the class meetings of things which they are doing and which may be of interest to others. The project belongs to the students as a group. Credit is shared by the team in alphabetical order. There may be internal tasks in which certain pieces are broken down under individual authorship. Indeed it is expected that every project have some component in which each student can say, "I did this."  But these situations are known in advance because of the study design.  Everything else is "we".

 

　　And what about the faculty? The faculty roles are varied and challenging. Clearly there is the role of producer-of organizing the situation in which the studio project can occur. It takes a long time. It carries a certain personal interest and commitment and it is not always fully successful. There is a considerable consultant-in-chief role in which advice is sought both teams and individual students. It must be either given, or students directed to other expert consultants, frequently other faculty members. Without doubt, there is a substantial "hidden hand" role, in which constant observation is necessary to ensure against disaster. Students are often overly ambitious. They frequently underestimate the impacts of problems which are unforeseen but which experience knows may occur. There are also important mediation roles, frequently around social questions and issues of organization. There is the real responsibility of ensuring that the individual educational needs of individual students are met within the scope of the team organization. There is the faculty role as "critic", but only after the students have reviewed and discussed the work in progress. Finally there is the legal responsibility of oversight, ensuring that the project is not a disaster and that it is completed within the constraints of time and money available. Yet the most difficult faculty role is that of purposefully abstaining from controlling the many difficult managerial and design decisions, and letting the group learn by experience. After all, it is these experiences which are among the critical educational lessons to be gained by the students.

 

　　I cannot claim that this approach and its several teaching methods will always work efficiently and well. I fully acknowledge that they are potentially open to diagrammatic exaggeration and errors of judgment, and that they are dependent upon the participants having sufficient comfort in working together and in making rapid diagrams and judgments. At worst, they can raise questions for further research, data development and alternative design strategies. However, in my experience and at best, they provide clear, rapid and robust ways of "getting started".

 

　　Reference:

 

　　Bermuda, Department of Planning. The Pembroke Marsh Plan, 1987 Bermuda: Department of Planning, Government of Bermuda, 1987.

 

　　Steinitz, C. (1990) A Framework for Theory Applicable to the Education of Landscape Architects (and Other Environmental Design Professionals). Landscape Journal, 9, 136-143.

 

　　Steinitz, C et al (2003),  Chapter 3,  "The Framework for Alternative Futures Studies" , in Steinitz, Carl, H. Arias, S. Bassett, M. Flaxman, T. Goode, T. Maddock, D. Mouat, R. Peiser, and A. Shearer, Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes: The Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora, Island Press, Washington, D.C.

 

　　Steinitz, C., (2012),  A Framework for Geodesign, Esri Press, 2012 (to be published in Chinese in 2013 by Peking University Press)

 

　　Steinitz, C., A. Figueroa, and G. Castorena, eds. <ital>Futuros Alternativos para Tepotzotlan/ Alternative Futures for Tepotzotlan.<ital> Mexico D.F., Mexico: Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, 2010.

 

　　Biography:

 

　　Carl Steinitz is a Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning, Graduate School of Design,Harvard University.

 

　　About the Translators:

 

　　KUANG Zhi-feng, born in Guangdong Province in 1990, is a student of School of Architecture, South China University of Technology;

 

　　LIN Guang-si, born in 1977, Guangdong Province, is a teacher of School of Architecture, South China University of Technology.