Information Technology and Praxis: A Survey of Computers in Design Practice

This is a report of the dynamic relationship between information technology (IT) and architectural practice. In this report, the attitudes and opinions of practitioners gathered through extensive recorded interviews are summarised, and these are compared with the findings of other studies. The report is compiled from the point of view of an understanding of praxis —appropriating practice as preceding theory as the model for understanding. We thereby connect what is going on in IT with concepts currently under discussion in postmodern thought and in the tradition of philosophical pragmatism. We highlight several of the major options identified by practitioners in their use of IT, including practising without computers, substituting computers for traditional tasks, delivering traditional services in an innovative way through IT, and developing new services with IT. We also demonstrate how firms are changing and are being shaped by the market for architectural services. One of the major areas of change is in how IT and related resources are managed. We consider how the role of the practitioner as an individual in a firm is changing with changes in IT, and how different prognoses about the future of IT in practice are influenced by certain dominant metaphors. Our conclusion is that IT is best understood and appropriated when it is seen as fitting into a dynamic field or constellation of technologies and practices. Such an orientation enables the reflective practitioner to confront what is really going on, as IT interacts with practice.