| Issues of design and collaboration in the field of architecture are the focus of this dissertation. While architectural design requires specialized knowledge and skills, its collaboration patterns were not found to be fundamentally different from other collaborative activities. Yet, commercial collaborative systems have failed to significantly penetrate the field and establish themselves as ubiquitous tools of design; partially because they lacked proper domain-specific knowledge and functionality. This dissertation aims to contribute to the success of collaborative design systems by developing and completing conceptual frameworks advanced by earlier researchers and providing templates for possible methods of implementing them. The research in this dissertation was based on an alternative approach that favors: (1) user and task analysis rather than the advancement of a normative generalized theory; (2) an emphasis on artifacts as the enablers of collaboration; (3) the development of small, focused, modular and object-oriented solutions rather than large and integrative systems; (4) the implementation of custom-designed, domain-specific solutions rather than the adaptation of general purpose tools; and (5) the generalization of collaboration patterns rather than the generalization of collaborative activity as a whole. This was accomplished through a multi-faceted approach. First, a critical review of the work done since 1962 is undertaken. Second, an illustrative participant-observer case study is conducted in which designers were observed and the role of design artifacts in enabling collaboration is discerned. Third, conceptual constructs were designed based on the literature review, experience and the case study. Fourth, several software applications and experiments were devised to analyze conceptual constructs as well as uncover new issues. These constructs and experiments acted as case studies that uncovered issues such as the role of artifacts in collaboration, competition, team hierarchy, access privileges, social awareness and information filtering. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the findings and the need to develop a far more connected design studio environment. It ends with plans for future work in the area of computer-supported collaborative design. |
