Dialectic of design, rhetoric of representation

Abstract

This paper examines the role of representation in mediating contentious developments. To the extent that contentions over form may arise from concerns about future development, design-based communication may minimize conflict. This paper argues the design process itself is mediation. Design arguments entail a rhetorical act since all arguments require rhetorical postures. From discourse analyses of three twenty-plus-year-old and two contemporary Southern Californian developments that include interpretation of compositional contents of graphic representations, this paper posits the rhetorical purpose of design representations and how their styles, modes and technologies were utilized to mediate development disputes presented in these case studies.

Acknowledgements

Earlier case studies referred to in the manuscript are drawn from a study entitled, ‘Form in Contention: Design and Development Disputes’, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts under Grant 92-4251-0031; and the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California. The graphics of Figures 1-10 were all taken from public reports available from public agencies, and also included in the report cited above.

Notes

1. It included such distinguished professional planners and architects as Henry N. Cobb, Allan Jacobs, Laurie Olin, Warren Travers and David H. Vena.

2. This team included well-known New Urbanists such as Andrés Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Stefanos Polyzoides and also Allan Jacobs.

3. Then a professor of city design at MIT, and later the Dean of Penn Design, University of Pennsylvania.

4. From personal interview with Millennium Partners developer.