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Arts & Communication Nebula rasa: The diaphanous in architectural design

3. Cognitivism and creativity: A concise reasoning processes, giving rise to the so-called “protocol
overview studies,” in which participants sketched and verbalized
their thinking processes. It should be emphasized that
To understand why modern design theory has not spent such studies were useful in understanding the “reasoning
much attention on the diaphanous, we introduce a sharp of designers.” That does not mean, however, that the
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distinction between two scientific paradigms. During the entire design process is understood; it entails merely that
decades following the Second World War, Western design its reasoning is clarified. However – and this has been a
theory adopted a broadly cognitivist approach to creativity. recurring question – the cognitivist paradigm always had
Following the cultural influence of both positivism and the problems in locating the site of creativity or the properly
rise of the mechanist worldview, designing was framed as generative potential within a design process. If designing
a kind of rational problem-solving or heuristic search. 8-10 is just reasoning, where does the creativity reside? Why are
Correspondingly, the designer was viewed as a rational, designers not just engineers then?
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economical optimizer. Again, corresponding to that idea,
creativity was viewed as a kind of heuristic selection of the Certainly, there have been attempts to address these
best possible solution for a relatively well-defined problem. questions. For instance, the work of Teresa Amabile on
Especially the first generation of design theorists during creative processes can be read as an attempt to address
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the 1960s and 1970s postulated rather than argued for this that gap in the cognitivist paradigm. Amabile closely
notion, although many of their core concepts remain firmly followed the procedure-like models of the first generation
entrenched in the design literature. During the 1980s, the but added that “creativity-relevant skills” are required to
thematic focus shifted toward the sociological aspects of advance from mere problem-solving to reaching truly
designing, but the core of the approach always retained – creative solutions. Amabile concluded that creativity and
in some form or the other – its cognitivist inheritance. personal traits are closely linked. An open, experimental,
flexible, and explorative mindset seems being conducive to
Cognitivism champions the idea that designing is a creativity. Moreover, the creative mind experiments with
specialized form of deliberative reasoning. Admittedly, new cognitive pathways to broaden the range of strategies
this form of reasoning may be less structured and more to break through cemented habits and patterns that shape
open-ended than philosophical reasoning, legal reasoning, thoughts and ways of approaching problems. Amabile
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or bounded rationality, but it is nevertheless concerned builds on an earlier conception of the creative personality
fundamentally with the development of theories or micro- developed by Donald McKinnon, who held that creative
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theories about a given design idea. There is certainly a deep persons tended to more expressive, thereby affording
kinship with the idea of logos or human rational capacities themselves easier access to the richness of the subjective
here. The operation of the creative mind was often quickly experience. This coincides with the finding by McCrae
subordinated to the capacity for logical reasoning, either in that a defining characteristic of creative personalities is
the inductive or deductive sense. 11,12 openness to new experiences. In addition to dealing with
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The cognitivist orientation had its roots in the post- new experiences, the creative process is also distributed
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war work on cybernetics. This can be seen in how visual in time. McKinnon held that often, there are phases of
representations were viewed: they were regarded as carriers engagement, disengagement, withdrawal, insight, and
of informational contents. Following Norbert Wiener’s evaluation. While it is tempting to frame these phases as
and Marshall McLuhan’s cybernetics theories, such neatly delineated, in reality, they seamlessly revert into one
representations were deemed successful if their contents another. In an additional refinement of this picture, Harvey
could be unambiguously interpreted. Consequently, and Berry have argued that we might distinguish between
the designer was viewed as a rational agent who made various forms of creativity, some of which are concerned
sketches to aid effective decision-making, recording with novelty in the narrow sense, while others are focused
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options, or communicating ideas to others. The design on integration. This insight was already present in design
drawing was regarded as a decision-theoretic, heuristic, or theories from Alexander (1965) to the so-called Systematic
communicative tool. It became the physical transcript of Design Models, which distinguished between phases of
divergence and integration. 20-23
3 Horst Rittel explicitly made the point that spatial planning
is a process of variety creation and reduction in his 1970 The layered and variegated nature of the creative
article Der Planungsprozess als interativer Vorgang von process was also recognized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Varietätserzeugung und Varietätseinschränkung [The in his seminal study of “flow states.” On the one
Planning Process as Iterative Progression of Variety Generation hand, flow states are “autotelic” – that is, they become
and Variety Reduction], highlighting the core idea that ends in themselves. They invite involvement, play, and
heuristic reasoning forms the basis of design activity. enjoyment. They also provide a cognitive advantage, as

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2024) 4 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1922