Conservative Values and Technological Change:
New England Architecture meets Virtual Space

ACSA Northeast Regional Conference, Fall 2000 Copyright 2000, Sally Levine, Warren K. Wake

Sally Levine, Program Director, Interior Design

Warren K. Wake, Program Director, Academic Computing and Media

Boston Architectural Center

ABSTRACT

Architecture is often described as a conservative profession, one practiced by risk-averse professionals. This representation is at odds, however, with public and self-perceptions of architects as style leaders, known for their progressive or even radical designs. Architects tend to think of themselves as progressive, liberal and leading-edge in their thinking, and yet when pressed to explain their slow adoption of new technologies, a frequently given response is that "we are a conservative firm," or "we are conservative in terms of technology adoption." This paper examines the assumptions embedded in the use of the term conservative when it is applied to architectural practice in New England and then considers the Diffusion of Innovations Theory to examine why New England architects are often slow to adopt new technology. Diffusion of Innovations Theory looks at the process by which an innovation is adopted by members of a given group in society (Rogers, 1995). Finally the paper presents Virtual Architecture as an innovation primed for the architectural profession, and uses Diffusion Theory to study the process by which the profession and the region can hope to participate in this innovative technology.

INTRODUCTION

Introducing a new technology to the architectural profession, particularly in New England, can be a frustrating experience. Most innovations are met with resistance by this profession, often with the defense that the firm's conservative nature prevents adoption of the technology. In introducing virtual architecture technology, an evolution of earlier VR technology featuring permanent inhabited virtual building spaces constructed on the Internet, it is useful to examine the factors that affect technology adoption by architecture firms. The "conservative defense" is a starting point for explaining the reluctance of firms to adopt innovations, but it masks a more complex reality.

Applying the term "conservative" to the practice of avoiding or delaying adoption of technology lends a respectable air to the decision, but this is a practice that can be harmful to a professional organization. It is peculiar that in architecture, we find a profession that prides itself on being socially progressive and forward thinking, and yet one that has been slow to adopt new technologies. This reluctance predates computing. There is a long-standing tradition in architecture that new technologies (such as construction methods or materials) are viewed with skepticism and are usually adopted into practice only after proving themselves for ten years or more. With a roofing material, this perhaps makes sense. One might be reasonably skeptical about specifying a new waterproofing material that has not been field tested for ten years when it is intended to protect a building intended to last 50 years or more. But this skepticism is perhaps misplaced or even dangerous when applied to office and professional practice-supporting technologies ranging from computer-based billing to web-based virtual architecture. Waiting ten years before adopting computing and communications technologies eliminates the possibility of participating in modern markets and economies, where "long term" product lifecycles are on the order of five years.

In studying other professions, we find few instances where conservative is equated with "slow to adopt technology." The newspaper industry was quick to incorporate new technologies during the digital revolution, for instance. We do not find a situation where the progressive Boston Phoenix is distinguished by cutting edge publishing technology, while the conservative Wall Street Journal is produced by a room full of monks wielding quill pens. Yet in architecture, this particular association persists. Various schools and firms, in explaining their hesitation to adopt new technology, merely explain that "we are a conservative firm or organization" or that "we are conservative in our technology adoption." In order to better understand the relationship between the forward-thinking self-identification of architects, the conservative nature of the profession, and the profession's resistance to adoption of technology, the authors conducted a survey. Four groups were considered: professionals involved in architecture in New England, professionals involved in architecture elsewhere, non-architecture professionals in New England, and non-architecture professionals elsewhere.

The survey asked respondents to place themselves on a scale of 1-5 between "traditional" and "progressive," "conservative" and "liberal" (non-political definitions), and "old-fashioned" and "leading-edge," and to similarly rate their companies. The survey also asked respondents to indicate when (or if) their organization had adopted various technologies such as phone mail, fax, e-mail, CAD, company Websites, and wireless computing, by selecting one of five categories best describing their technology adoption practice. The five categories are described below:

1. Resistant: Have not adopted this technology or adopted it only when forced to do so.
2. Slow: Adopted this technology after it was well established.
3. Medium: Adopted this technology when it was still new, but was becoming widely popular.
4. Fast: Adopted this technology as soon as it became affordable or widely available.
5. Leader: Was among the first to adopt this technology.

Finally, respondents were asked to use this same 1-5 scale to describe their own overall tendencies toward adopting new technology.

This structure corresponds to the five-step scale often used in diffusion of innovations research, although category names vary, for instance on a scale between "laggards" and "innovators" as used in studies by Deutchsmann and Fals Borda (Rogers, 1995). The survey results were tallied, producing a weighted average of self-perception scores we call a "progressiveness index" where a score of 1 indicates self-perception as traditional, conservative and old-fashioned, and a score of 5 indicates progressive, liberal and leading-edge. Similarly, a weighted average of the technologies adopted yields a "technology adoption index" where values are indicated on the scale above: 1=Resistant, 5=Leader.

While the initial study involves too small a sample (64) to yield conclusive results, the preliminary indications are interesting. As expected, New England respondents generally considered themselves to be more conservative than those from outside New England. Contrary to expectations, however, New England architects generally described their firms as progressive, yielded a progressiveness index of 3.37, higher than the New England non-architecture index of 3.08. This is inversely correlated, however, with the technology adoption index of 3.05, compared with the New England non-architecture index of 3.58. These relationships are graphically displayed in Figures 1a and 1b.

This suggests that while architects in New England are generally inclined toward describing their firms as progressive, liberal, and leading-edge, these attitudes are not reflected in their technology adoption patterns. New England architects tend to adopt technology more slowly than those in other professions, such as law, business, construction and law enforcement, both within and outside of New England.

This yields several important points to consider when looking at the issue of progressiveness and technology adoption:

• Architects tend to adopt technologies slowly compared to their professional peers.
• Claims of being a "conservative firm" in defense of slow adoption of technology may be inconsistent with self-perceptions in other contexts.
• Other professions that describe themselves as more conservative than architects tend to adopt technology more quickly than architects.

Understanding the factors involved in the adoption of technology in design firms is important in planning the introduction of a new technology. Today we find new opportunities in what is becoming known as Virtual Architecture, virtual buildings that exist solely on the Internet but function in ways analogous to physical buildings. We recognize that accepting virtual buildings as a domain for architectural practice faces a resistance within the architectural profession; nonetheless, we will demonstrate that this professional growth does not challenge either the conservative or radical branches of architectural values; it simply allows each branch to further its own practice and its exploration of architectural expression and experience.

Virtual architecture is a recent evolution of earlier Virtual Reality (VR) technologies, realized as persistent avatar-based environments, three-dimensional virtual places that share many of the same qualities as physical space. Avatar, from the Sanskrit avatAra, translates roughly to "god’s presence on earth in human form." In this context an avatar refers to a user’s body representative in a virtual environment. Visitors to virtual buildings view and experience the digital environment as an avatar located in a space inhabited by other avatars. Controlling an avatar, a person can walk through a virtual space, talk with other avatars, pick up and move things, and perform an ever-increasing range of tasks paralleling those performed in the physical world. The presence of other persons as avatars allows for interaction with these people and provides important visual, spatial and psychological clues as to the nature of the space and the activities underway. The technology used to create these avatar-based environments is evolving rapidly, increasingly enabling these environments to express much of the sensual, haptic, interactive qualities associated with physical architectural experience. Richly rendered with lighting, textures, and movable and manipulable elements, these environments form a powerful medium not only for the display of architectural ideas, but for both the everyday experience and use as functional architecture.

These virtual architecture webspaces offer an alternative to Webpages as a setting for activities such as e-commerce and distance education. The very use of the word "page" as a description for locations on the Web reflects the graphic design community’s quick adoption of, and strong influence upon design for the Internet. In contrast to two-dimensional designs, webspaces are capable of providing the context and social experience many claim is lacking from alternative technologies. Virtual space allows people to inhabit these new realms. People are now moving into virtual buildings, decorating and furnishing them, entertaining and conducting business in them.

Increasingly virtual architecture is functioning in ways previously reserved for physical buildings. For instance, the Contact Consortium has held their last two conventions in virtual architecture conference halls, rather than physical convention centers such as Boston's Hynes Auditorium.

Controlling an avatar, a person can walk through the virtual conference hall, talk with other conference participants, attend seminars, pick up literature at booths, and attend art exhibits. It is the presence of avatars within these virtual buildings that enables the transition from image to space, from projection to presence. Avatars make the virtual buildings come alive, and allow these constructions to function as architecture.

It is ironic however that what is largely missing in virtual architecture is the architects. The architecture of the digital world may be described as vernacular, as game designers, programmers, and graphic designers and persons entirely untrained in design find themselves designing buildings. When these virtual buildings exist only for play, there is little consequence to amateur design. However as these buildings begin to serve functions such as permanent centers for Web-accessible distance learning institutions, museums, and conference halls, these persons are often unqualified to meet the challenges of these complex spatial designs. Thus, virtual architecture can greatly benefit from the sensibilities architects bring to the design of the physical environment. Architects quickly grasp that when virtual buildings are employed for serious commercial applications, the design is expected to reflect the tastes and standards of a corporation and its ideals, rather than be an arbitrary assemblage of primary-colored planes floating in space. An architect can be expected to understand, for instance, that the layout of a store must both positively reflect the company's image and values while promoting customers' easy flow and navigation through the space.

So, too, architects can benefit from the opportunities presented by virtual architecture. The development of virtual architecture has grown quickly from inception to a multi-billion dollar industry primarily within the years 1995-2000. It has fostered the launch of many small companies and has attracted the investment and participation of many large corporations such as Sony, Microsoft and Disney as well. Many clients find themselves looking for architects for their virtual spaces, but find few qualified to take the commissions. In his recent book In the Scheme of Things, Alternative Thinking on the Practice of Architecture, architect Thomas Fisher (2000) suggests that "by equating the architect with the design of buildings, we close off the tremendous opportunities that exist in the design of non-buildings, as in public policy, human organization, virtual environments, and the like." Indeed, it is hard to believe that architects would knowingly close off what is effectively another world of potential commissions.

With these opportunities and needs in mind, the authors have developed an Architecture/Interior design studio course addressing a program describing needs for both physical and avatar-based virtual environments. These issues are the core concerns of the Complementary Virtual Architecture Studio being offered this semester at the BAC, for the third time since 1998. The approach taken in this studio is to explore both physical architecture and virtual architecture, and to exploit the possibilities for mutual support between the digitized (virtual) sector and the strategic (physical) site. Students are assigned the task of developing their physical and virtual spaces to function complementarily, so that together they provide the best solution for the client’s design needs. Students consider the unique characteristics and requirements of each space, as well as the connections between the two. Rather than focusing solely on the technology or the form of virtual buildings and representations, students are reminded to concern themselves with how architecture and interior design may be applied to make such spaces suitable to live in.

Students are encouraged to use CAD and VR throughout the design process. Daniela Bartol writes (1997): "The creative process which is traditionally based on two-dimensional representations or sketches can now be transformed to take advantage of an immersive design environment, visualizing ideas and preliminary sketches in a three-dimensional space, such as that provided by a VR implementation." Formal principles of composition, such as symmetry and central organization, which are usually studied and understood in two-dimensional representations, have a different value when implemented in the 1:1 scale of the immersive design environment. The three-dimensional avatar-scaled environment gives the designer the ability to perceive the proposed space without the false assumptions that so often accompany two-dimensional representations. Proportions among various architectural elements can be verified by inhabiting the space they define. Avatar environments offer the possibility of inhabiting the virtual building, and seeing it inhabited, while designing it. By exploring new methods of sketching in space and time, new formal paradigms may emerge that have been inconceivable with traditional design methods.

In the 1998 Studio the program called for the design of a student lounge, café and display and crit space for the BAC. The physical portion was sited on the School’s first floor, and the virtual component was developed on, and accessible via, the Internet. The project statement stipulated that the virtual space was not simply to mirror the physical space, but that it was to become a metaphor parallel to the physical location. The virtual student lounge/café/display space was specified as an interactive three-dimensional avatar-inhabited space.

Both the 1999 and 2000 Design Studios focused on the needs of commercial clients. The retail sector broadly acknowledged the importance of e-commerce in 1999 and has come to recognize that this virtual activity affects their building strategy as well. The Simon Property Group of Indianapolis is among the most aggressive real-estate companies currently incorporating Internet commerce into its long-term strategy. Simon, the nation’s biggest mall operator, has formed a subsidiary, clixnmortar.com, to develop new Internet ventures for retailers and plans to begin wiring its 176 malls this year for high-speed Internet access, allowing stores to add multimedia kiosks, Web videocasts and other marketing tools. Clixnmortar.com, which is based in Chicago, is founded on the premise that soon "people will be online all the time," president Melanie Alshab said. "We believe it’ll be a very effective way for people to shop," she said of the merger of cyber and retail spaces.

The studios have yielded many unexpected discoveries. Some of the students have begun to see their virtual architecture designs as the flagship stores of their individual companies. Unconstrained by physical or structural parameters, students proceeded to design their ideal concepts. The physical space became a satellite variation on the theme, responding to physical site limitations, such as existing wall locations, structure and mechanical systems. Students work back-and-forth between the physical and virtual sites, realizing that a decision in one realm has a direct impact on its counterpart.

These parallel investigations promote a Platonic/Aristotelian debate. Cyberspace provides a location for design without compromise. Like the Great Pyramids of Giza, these spaces are built unconstrained by concerns for physical labor, expense of materials or size of construction. Conceptual works, like those of Ledoux and Boullée, can be realized in virtual space, and the visitors to those realizations may explore at their own pace, sparked by their own interests. Such pure built form and conceptualization is rare these days. Virtual architecture not only allows this, but encourages such investigations. In the context of complementary design, this dialogue between the ideal and the real is necessitated by the combined goals of the two spaces. Both sides of the monitor screen are impacted by the explorations of similar but unique spatial notions, giving increased depth to the investigations and improved quality to the physical projects. These new developments in the practice of interior design and architecture have the potential to greatly improve the quality of life in both domains.

Some questions remain unanswered. First, one of the most challenging problems our students encounter when designing virtual architecture space is finding ways to engage the human senses once there. What part of the human imagination must be stimulated in these intangible places in order to provide haptic experiences? Second, the issue of the interface between the physical and virtual architecture is addressed, but certainly not resolved. Students have only scratched the surface of finding ways to bring the virtual world into the physical space and vice-versa. It is clearly an issue that will be around for some time, and one that needs substantial attention. Third, the students recognized that they are only beginning to understand what aesthetics and functional characteristics will evolve in virtual avatar environments and how they might complement the physical. Just as early automobiles resembled horse drawn carriages and early refrigerators looked like iceboxes, it is a reasonable expectation that these aesthetics at first will be grounded in knowledge of the physical world. Yet, within the short span of the course, studio members find that the converse can be true, just as easily, with a quickly maturing virtual worlds aesthetic influencing their designs for conventional architecture.

These studios are more than theoretical, trendy, academic explorations. The authors see Virtual Architecture as a viable extension of today’s architectural practice. When virtual buildings are employed for serious commercial applications, the design is expected to reflect the tastes and standards of a corporation and its ideals, rather than be an arbitrary assemblage of primary-colored planes floating in space. The layout of a store, for instance, reflects the values of the parent company while promoting customers' easy flow and navigation through the space. As Saskia Sassen (1998) reminds us, there is no fully virtualized enterprise nor fully (digitized) industry, "even sectors that are highly digitized require strategic sites." Not only does the Complementary Virtual Architecture recognize this duality, it exploits the relationship between the digitized (virtual) sector and the strategic (physical) site.

While we can largely dispose of the "conservative defense" in considering questions of technology adoption in architecture, questions remain as to why barriers to adoption persist, and how to overcome these barriers. Given what we have discovered about the "conservative" nature of New England and this region’s architectural community, we will look elsewhere to understand the factors influencing adoption of Virtual Architecture.

Studies on technology adoption suggest that architects should be quick to adopt technology, as they match the typical profile of early adopters: early adopters as a group tend to have more years of formal education than later adopters, are more likely literate, have higher social status, greater upward social mobility, and work in larger groups (companies, schools) than late adopters (Rogers 1995). But these qualities are true of other professional groups as well, thus shed no light on why architects lag other professions in technology adoption.

A number of factors determine any given innovation’s rate of adoption. Rogers (1995) identifies these as relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. Relative advantage is "the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being better than the idea it supercedes" (Rogers, 1995, p. 212). This attribute is typically described with respect to factors such as economic profitability or social prestige. The relative advantage of adopting virtual architecture technology might be computed as the sum of the new commission opportunities arising from the technology combined with the benefit of avoiding negative impact in circumstances when commissions go to virtual architecture instead of physical buildings.

Compatibility is "the degree to which an innovation is perceived as consistent with existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters" (Rogers, 1995, p. 224). Our studies and experience in teaching virtual architecture support our belief that the successful design of virtual architecture depends upon the same skills and sensibilities required for physical architecture. As long as architects and organizations equate conservative values with a slow adoption of new technologies, however, there is a perceived incompatibility between architectural practice and the acceptance of the innovation. Pre-existing values and beliefs can have a positive or negative effective on the adoption of new innovations (Wellin, 1955), and these values, as shown in the results of the survey, will surely stand in the way of adoption.

Ease of use is another attribute that influences an innovation’s rate of adoption. Ease of use is defined as "the degree to which an innovation is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use" (Rogers, 1995, p. 16). As we have shown, the design of virtual architecture is independent of the construction of the space, just as the design of physical architecture is independent of the actual building trade skills. In both cases, the architect must understand the principles of the construction technology; however, trained construction workers can be hired to build both sites. The design of virtual architecture is a new step on the continuum of space-types which daily challenge the architect. The perception that virtual architecture requires a whole new set of skills will negatively affect the rate of adoption of this new frontier. Training and understanding the value of our skills as architects should ease the anxiety over the questions of ease of use.

In order to promote the adoption of an innovation, it is also helpful to provide the opportunity to test the innovation, allowing the user to gain confidence in their ability to make it work. This attribute of trialability is defined as "the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis" (Rogers, p. 243). Gross & Ryan (1943) found that later adopters will adopt an innovation based on peers who have already tried and used it successfully.

The final attribute of an innovation is observability, which is "the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others" (Rogers, 1995, p. 244). Teisburg (1992) cites the cellular phone as a highly observable technology. The rapid adoption of cellular telephony is largely attributable to its observability. It is a very visible technology, used in cars, restaurants, and other public places, thus allowing others to see it in use. Virtual architecture is readily observable on the Internet, but architects will encounter it there only if they have achieved Web-literacy.

In studies of technology adoption, it is often found that the greatest profits go to the early adopters. "The innovators become richer and the laggards become relatively poorer through this process" (Rogers 1995, p. 269). This yields the innovativeness-needs paradox, wherein we find that "the individuals . . . in a system who most need the benefits of a new idea . . . are generally the last to adopt an innovation" (Rogers 1995, p. 275).

It is ironic that the architectural profession, which generally describes itself as progressive, liberal and leading edge, finds itself trailing in technology adoption. In order to reverse this trend, we must begin by removing the conservative defense; it is not conservative to be slow to adopt technology, whether one considers financial outcomes, self-perceptions, or peer group practices. Minus this defense, there are still many hurdles to overcome, such as those described by Rogers as relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. But these exist in any technology adoption, thus we anticipate that once we move beyond the conservative defense, the architectural profession should behave more like other professions, and may begin to adopt technologies such as virtual architecture at a rate that better matches the progressive image that the profession imagines for itself.

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