Paradigms of Postmodernity and Implications for Planning and Design Review Processes

Abstract

Social discourse regarding design issues evolves in the contexts of the scholarly arena, the city hall, the courts, the public media, and the use/action realm or everyday life. Design review, narrowly conceived, is one of the formal mechanisms within the broader context of this social discourse. In this conception, the impact of design review on the physical environment is direct and immediate but specific and limited in scope. Altematively, it can also be considered as a generic process encompassing any or all instances of collective and critical reflection on design issues. These diverse processes may appear to lack coherence, but they have a much more fundamental and lasting effect because they shape the tacit assumptions and beliefs underlying our more direct actions. Here the broader context of design review will be considered. Following a discussion of the spatial scene, the evolution of three constructs during the past three decades-place, sustainability, and participation-into full-blown paradigms is summarized. It is shown that the three together are converging into a worldview that is taking hold globally. This emerging worldview, then, provides the grounds and the backing for substantive and procedural discussion of planning and design review.