Notes on Social Architectures

An overview of this concept can be found here:

http://www.highlala.com/projects/socarch.html

The term 'social architecture' is used by Beuys briefly and interchangeably with 'social
sculpture' but the two metaphors have interestingly different implications. 'Sculpture'
implies an observer; 'architecture' implies a use. The idea of use switches the
constellation of art from a hierarchical and unidirectional "communication" from artist to
audience (the quotes here imply a skepticism), towards a model which is more
participatory and experiential, where it matters equally what the artist has provided and
what the "audience" (no longer an adequate word) makes of it.

To put it differently, sculpture and architecture can both be meaningful, but they typically
mean in different ways. Nicholas Bourriaud, in his more recent book Postproduction
offers, "why wouldn't the meaning of a work have as much to do with the use one makes
of it as with the artists intentions for it." Or, Bourriaud again, quoting Tiravanija, quoting
Wittgenstein: "Don't look for the meaning, look for the use."

With social architecture, as with physical architecture there is a kind of dialogue between
use and structure. To some extent structure determines (or conditions) use, but use also
reworks structure (cannibalizes, redefines, destroys, rebuilds). Use is both constructive
and destructive; it always reconstructs. Contemplation, as in the traditional art
experience, is neither destructive nor constructive, it takes a passive stance -- the
receptive. Use is ruthless and personal. Bourriaud again: "To use an object is necessarily
to interpret it: to use a product is to betray its concepts." This is the idea of use in a
psychoanalytic mode (in the mode of D.W. Winnicott for whom use, destruction, and
creativity are clearly intertwined). It is the kind of use a healthy infant makes of its
mother, greedy and alive. It implies needs and wants which can be fulfilled, it is
optimistic, it is the opposite of the depressive.

Looking further into this idea of use, it becomes clear that for social architectures to exist
at all, they must be functional -- in other words people have to have a good reason to be
part of them (they must have a use for them). Social architectures as artworks are always
functional artworks. People need a purpose for becoming part of the social organization
beyond the simple fact that they are participating in an artwork, otherwise the motive
force of the structure is dead.

The question of structure can also give us a bit of formal perspective on social
architectures. As the German theorist Niklas Luhmann points out, structures in social
systems consist of expectations. Expectations are created in a number of ways, through
articulated rules and guidelines, through repeated experiences, by custom and culture or
subculture, by associated physical and informational architectures. Another way of
thinking of this is that structures in social architectures are imaginary: social architectures
exist only because people believe they do and behave as if they do. This has interesting
consequences. It means that social architectures can be either fluid or persistent entirely
according to the degree that people believe in them (believe in them here means both
literally believe and also in the colloquial sense of placing value in them).

Structures in social architectures are not static, but dynamic. They must be constantly
created and recreated from their own material (autopoeitically to evoke Luhmann again).
As artworks, social artworks are generative. A set of initial conditions is put into place,
but the outcome is fundamentally unpredictable -- it is generated freshly according to a
set of rules (in the sense of rules of the game -- here being the structures of expectation
that create the 'architecture'), and created from particular spontaneous and changing
qualities of the material (the material in this case being the social desires, capacities, and
interests of the participants).

One way in which participatory artworks differ from both object-based and performative
artworks is that they acknowledge that the art experience of different participants will
vary widely -- there is no attempt to narrow or control the art experience into a single
"expression" or "communication." In this way social architectures are linked with other
participatory artworks like pysychogeographical dérives, situations, relational artworks,
happenings, parties and raves.

Michael Benedikt, in his lovely book "For an Architecture of Reality" talks about the
possibility of an aesthetic but nonsymbolic experience of architecture: "There are valued
times in almost everyone's experience when the world is perceived afresh: perhaps after a
rain as the sun glistens on the streets and windows catch a departing cloud, or, alone,
when one sees again the roundness of an apple. At these times our perceptions are not at
all sentimental. They are, rather, matter of fact, neutral and undesiring . . . . The world
becomes singularly meaningful, yet without being "symbolical." Objects and colors do
not point to other realms, signs say what they have to and fall silent. . . . We are not
conscious ("Ah, this means that...") of reference, allusion, or instruction. These processes
become transparent as their material carriers either disappear like words, or, like bells and
old trees collapse upon themselves to become crisp and real and, somehow, more the
things they are. Such experiences, such privileged moments, can be profoundly moving;
and precisely from such moments, I believe, we build our best and necessary sense of an
independent yet meaningful reality. I should like to call them direct esthetic experiences
of the real and to suggest the following: in our media-saturated times it falls to
architecture to have the direct esthetic experience of the real at the center of its concerns."

Social architectures as artworks can also allow for this "direct esthetic experience of the
real" - - they function as shapers of experience rather than as carriers of communication.
They turn from the idea of medium and mediation towards the immediate. If the art, as
John Dewey suggests, is what happens in and with experience, it opens up a wider field
of how to create experiences. The need for an art object, an artifact, vanishes. As Robert
Irwin put it, "to be an artist is not a matter of making paintings or objects at all. What we
are really dealing with is our state of consciousness and the shape of our perception."
This gives us the beginnings of a feeling for some of the aesthetic qualities of social
artworks: they foreground use over contemplation, participation over reception, direct
experience over mediated communication, and they have a dynamic, generative formal
structure. And what about beauty, what kind of beauties can we imagine in this realm?
We can ask if the formal structures of social architectures are beautiful, but we also have
to ask if they are beautiful to participate in. We are still in the territory opened up by the
Situationists in the 1960's when they declared "The new type of beauty can only be a
beauty of situations."

http://www.americaconnects.net/research/EvalDesignCTC/SECTION_1_SocialArchitect
ure.doc

Social Architecture
A series of procedures we have named “social architecture” (Plummer, 1993) provide a
practical approach to the process of taking a creative idea and converting it into a plan for
designing, implementing, and evaluating a CTC project. This process of system and
evaluation design is proposed here to be a work of "social architecture", since structural
elements are planned as a project combining people, resources, and ideas in ways
intended to accomplish a worthwhile purpose.

The social architecture process of design, enactment, and evaluation of a new project may
be just as complex, difficult, and challenging as the physical architectural process of
designing and building a custom dream home or commercial building. Even when the
new project functions as planned, whether or not intended outcomes will actually be
realized may be less certain than is the case with house building. Even in house building,
what appears in the blueprint is sometimes “not exactly” what the contractor builds.

One of the perspectives of the social architecture analogy is that we should at least begin
the process of implementing our project with the “functional equivalent” of a blueprint if
we ever hope to realize our vision of the project system. In construction of a dream
house or building, an “agreed upon” blueprint is vital to success, since so many people
are involved. Even in a small project, like when one person is visiting a new place for the
first time, a plan is very useful. As any traveler knows, even with a planned itinerary, a
destination, and a map, one can still get lost.

The design and implementation of a project involves creating a supportive environment

in which human creative, problem-solving, learning, and management behaviors occur as
the project is realized. Measurement and evaluation are built-in to provide feedback, so
that participants who interact with one another and the project’s tasks will make decisions
and take actions in an informed climate, enhancing the prospects of achieving the
intended worthwhile end result.

The “social architecture” procedures advanced here offer a systematic approach to the
project design process. Applying these procedures will lead to the completion of (1) a
whole system design diagram of the components of the project and how its
inputs/processes/outcomes are to function, and (2) the planning of evaluation procedures
to keep the project on track and document its ultimate results. The documentation
flowing from this process will provide the functional equivalent of a blueprint or system
diagram which shows the “big picture” of the project, as well as a plan for the evaluation
procedures that will assure feedback is available for continuous improvement and
ultimately, for assessing and evaluating the merit and worth of the project’s results.

Table 1 discloses a conceptual comparison of three “Social Architecture” design steps

with their equivalent planning or physical architectural procedures. It shows the intent of
each step and explains how the social architectural procedure functions.

Table 1: Conceptual Comparison of Social Architecture and Physical Architecture

Social Planning or Intent Systems Explanation of Social

Architecture Physical Architecture Procedure
Procedure Architectural
Procedure

State Values, Beliefs, "Ought" Theoretical rationale, underlying model

Concept, Preferences, and presuppositions, and/or concepts and
Model, Assumptions, principles provide a sound underlying
Rationale, Theory Vision, Goals basis, or at least an explicitly stated
rationale for how the system ideally ought
to work

Draw Strategic "Can" Shows total system dynamics, system

Network Diagram Plan or structures, part-whole relationships,
of Major Architectural functional interdependencies in a
Components Blueprint picture/diagram of how all major
component parts can fit together and
function as a system

Analyze Tactical or "Will" Analyzes how each specific part or

Inputs, Operational Plan; component within the system will
Processes, Project function in terms of its
Outputs Management inputs/processes/outputs. Relationships
Plan among resources, activities and outcomes
are specified.
A project begins with an idea or vision. The plan or design developed by participants is
based upon the idea or concept for a project which the individual or group would like to
move from dream into reality. The “social architecture” process involves:
(1) the construction of a model or arrangement of components of the project into a
meaningful whole that is explicitly based on an underlying theoretical rationale,
(2) the development of a network diagram or blueprint depicting the functional
interrelationships among the components of the project conceived as a system,
and
(3) the analysis of the relationships of the inputs, processes, and outcomes for the
component parts of the project system to better understand the dynamics of the
system, and
the design of a plan for evaluating the project, including evaluation questions,
measurement procedures, success criteria, data collection and analysis, and reporting and
use of feedback in decision-m

http://westy.jtwn.k12.pa.us/users/sja/Social_Architecture.html

Three Styles of Social Architecture:

Bennis and Nanus--chart of the values and behavior for the three styles of social
architecture accounting for 95% of contemporary organizations: Formalistic, Collegial,
and Personalistic.

Values/Behavior Formalistic Collegial Personalistic

Basis for Direction from Discussion and Self-direction
decision authority agreement
Forms of control Rules, laws Interpersonal group Actions aligned with
rewards and commitment self-concept
punishments
Source of power Superior What "we" think What I think
Desired end Compliance Consensus Self-actualization
To be avoided Deviation from Failure to reach Not being true to
authoritative consensus self
governance;
risk-taking
Position Relative Hierarchical Peer Individual
To Others
Human Structured Group-oriented Individual
relationships orientation
Basis for growth Following the Peer membership Acting on awareness
established order of self

The leader is an effective social architect to the extent that he/she can manage meaning.
To transform social architecture, three things have to happen, and these apply equally to
each of the three styles just described.
 1. Create a new and compelling vision--communicate it
2. Develop commitment to the new vision--there must be a sense of ownership
3. Institutionalize the new vision--overcome inherent resistance to change

Shared values Customer oriented

Business conducted with dignity but
humility
Always straightforward
Self-realisation
Teamwork
Strategy Delight the customer
Market leader in the aimed market segment
Structure Up-to-date infrastructure : offices,
communication systems
Flat organisation structure with small
business units with high flexibility
Systems Clear and flexible systems for:
internal and external communications,
control, reporting, compensation
Staff The right people at the right place
The right attitude, dedicated
Team spirit
Skills Comprising all aspects of international
business
- transport matters
- financing
- communications (i.a. languages)
- legal aspects and government regulations
Style Open minded
Flexible
Team spirit

Re: McKinsey 7-S Model

There is a good discussion of this model in Tom Peters book In Search of

Excellence. There are a number of articles written by McKinsey
consultants which appeared earlier in various business journals, and they
can be found in ancient issues of the McKinsey Quarterly.