Week 8: Insight Through Deep Observation
Response to articles by Borden, Whyte & Nielsen
What struck me about this set of readings was the emphasis on deep observation, and to some extent, the emphasis on practical utility. I found this underlying commonality of approach as interesting as the other common theme, of people reshaping the urban environment according to their own needs.
Whyte’s analysis is most clearly an attempt to deeply observe human behavior in an attempt to make “better” public spaces. Nielsen at first seems to not focus on observation, instead creating more “convincing” fictional characters. However, it soon becomes clear that by following scriptwriting conventions, he in fact is moving to a way of working that requires deep observation. As with Whyte, his goal is eminently practical. Finally, Borden’s work is also clearly based on observation – I doubt that skaters would describe themselves as engaging in “…a kind of unconscious dialectical thought, an engagement with the spatial and temporal rhythms of the city…”!
None of the three writers actually attempt to directly ask (or reconstruct) their subject’s motivations – they stay in the realm of description. Nevertheless, this provides more useful, and interesting, information than would a more literal investigation.
This technique of deep observation, taken from anthropology and ethnography, occurs more and more often in a variety of fields. One excellent example is the work of Paco Underhill (http://www.envirosell.com/), a marketing consultant who has based his work on ethnographic fieldwork techniques. He does not use focus groups or surveys, basing his findings almost exclusively on observed behavior. In a similar vein, Christopher Alexander (http://www.patternlanguage.com/) has developed an architectural practice based on observing which architectural patterns have been observed to work, to be preferred by people. Finally, there are now a large number of projects where disposable cameras are given out to people, as a way of documenting their lives (http://redcurrent.blogspot.com/2005/09/kids-with-cameras-through-childs-eyes.html).
What is interesting to me is the process by which observation leads to the creation of a finished work, and how often the observations themselves are an interesting work in their own right.
Whyte and Nielsen are driven by practical and commercial imperatives: the end result of their endeavors is to create better public spaces, and an improved design process, respectively. However, in the course of doing so, their collected observations and character scenarios are themselves interesting, and potentially more useful and alive than the intended end product. Whyte’s detailed descriptions of public life and Nielsen’s invented characters are more interesting works than the resulting plazas or websites! Even in Borden’s case, the actual actions of the skaters are more interesting than the resulting document.
Christopher Alexander has come to this realization, I think, and instead of designing buildings, has focused on documenting patterns of building closely tied to human behaviors.
In terms of applying these ideas to creative work, I come out with two conclusions: the first, that detailed observation of human behaviors, without imputing motives, can be fascinating and is a good subject in its own right; the second, more general conclusion, is that the creative process can often be far more interesting than the intended product.