Saturday, November 06, 2010

Patterns & research

Researchers believe that there is a pattern in all random things that are happening around us. I am not sure if this was also the case in earlier researches. It would be rather better to indicate two kinds of research: Proposing new patterns or identifying new patterns.
A classic example of finding patterns is 'Learning from Las Vegas" - the method is such researches is primarily to work with some research material (data) and find meaning into it. Such researches always are constrained within the extent of data and generalizations. nevertheless, the merit of the research lies in extrapolating important points within this limitation.

Of another type is say - "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander. He proposes that there is a pattern to everything that we do.

In both the cases, the methodology still remains the question of debate. A method itself may be a pattern - chosen or assumed or proposed...Nevertheless, in all the cases, a research opens up new ways of seeing the existing abstract information around us.

we had an interesting session on discussion of "what is abstract" with Prasad Shetty in the first year design studio. It would take me another post to detail what we discussed. But one thing that was established in the studio was that we never know "everything" about "anything". We know all only in abstraction. There are a lot of things to archive from the first year studios, also second year to some extent. It seems like a big game of dots, where I keep joining them in different configurations to "see" different things. But i don't know what to do of these new things that I see...
It also becomes a question of suggesting/identifying a pattern...

So i maintain a book in which i keep noting things down. Now I have to have enough dots to be able to make an interesting pattern.

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