メタファーを介した他者との対話によるデザインの創造的プロセス

 In modern society, design problems are getting more and more complex and designers have to overcome them. Under this background, the aim of our study is to understand how designers exercise their creativity and establish a new methodology for creative designs. Especially we have focused on the concept of metaphor and its creativity in architectural design. In this paper, we deal with collaborative design in which many design subjects are involved and understand the functions of metaphors in the process of dialogue between them. To get a record of design process as an object of analysis, we conducted a design experiment in which two architectural students participated as designers. We used two methods for analysis of design process to know how their design is developed through metaphors in the dialogue between them.<br><br> Firstly, we tried to grasp how often design subjects have dialogue in the design process. We use the time of verbal act and the frequency of turn-taking as the indexes for the analysis of quantity of dialogue. The result is as shown below.<br><br> 1) Metaphors activate a dialogic process developed by two design subjects.<br> By using metaphors in a discussion with the other design subject, the time of verbal act of each design moves get shorter and the frequency of turn-taking increase. As a result, the design subjects can make a dialogue with each other more actively.<br><br> 2) In the dialogic process through metaphors, not both but one of the design subjects in the team have an initiative to develop their design.<br> Design subjects share many design languages of metaphors, but it doesn't mean that each subject develop his or her thinking equally actively but that one of the members in the team have a strong initiative and develop his or her ideas and then the other subjects understand what he or she is thinking about.<br><br> Secondly, we use the method of Linkography developed by G. Goldschmidt to clarify relations between design moves generated by two designers. Especially we applied network analysis to Linkograph based on graph theory. The result is as shown below.<br><br> 3) By having discussions through metaphors, design subjects can share ideas and a strong consensus are built.<br> Design subjects interpret a metaphorical language of designing based on their experience and understand its meanings clearly. As a result, they can share a central idea in a design process and build a strong consensus on the idea.<br><br> 4) Design subjects can interpret a meaning of a metaphor in several ways and expand the conceptual domain of the design object.<br> In general, we interpret a metaphor in several ways because interpretation of metaphors is based on an experience of interpreter. So there are cognitive discrepancies between design subjects and they can expand the conceptual domain in different directions building the strong empathy for their central ideas. By this cognitive mechanism, metaphors can support designer's creative thinking in collaborating design process.