A Multisensory Computational Model for Human-Machine Making and Learning

Abstract

Despite the advancement of digital design and fabrication technologies, design practices still follow Alberti’s hylomorphic model of separating the design phase from the construction phase. This separation hinders creativity and flexibility in reacting to surprises that may arise during the construction phase. These surprises often come as a result of a mismatch between the sophistication allowed by the digital technologies and the designer’s experience using them. These technologies and expertise depend on one human sense, vision, ignoring other senses that could be shaped and used in design and learning. Moreover, pedagogical approaches in the design studio have not yet fully integrated digital technologies as design companions; rather, they have been used primarily as tools for representation and materialization. This research introduces a multisensory computational model for human-machine making and learning. The model is based on a recursive process of embodied, situated, multisensory interaction between the learner, the machines and the thing-in-the-making. This approach depends heavily on computational making, abstracting, and describing the making process. To demonstrate its effectiveness, I present a case study from a course I taught at MIT in which students built full-scale, lightweight structures with embedded electronics. This model creates a loop between design and construction that develops students’ sensory experience and spatial reasoning skills while at the same time enabling them to use digital technologies as design companions. The paper shows that making can be used to teach design while enabling the students to make judgments on their own and to improvise.