Shape: Talking about Seeing and Doing (Hardcover)

Description

In Shape, George Stiny argues that seeing shapes -- with all their changeability and ambiguity -- is an inexhaustible source of creative ideas. Understanding shapes, he says, is a useful way to understand what is possible in design.

Shapes are devices for visual expression just as symbols are devices for verbal expression. Stiny develops a unified scheme that includes both visual expression with shapes and verbal expression with signs. The relationships -- and equivalencies -- between the two kinds of expressive devices make design comparable to other professional practices that rely more on verbal than visual expression. Design uses shapes while business, engineering, law, mathematics, and philosophy turn mainly to symbols, but the difference, says Stiny, isn't categorical. Designing is a way of thinking. Designing, Stiny argues, is calculating with shapes, calculating without equations and numbers but still according to rules. Stiny shows that the mechanical process of calculation is actually a creative process when you calculate with shapes -- when you can reason with your eyes, when you learn to see instead of count.

The book takes the idea of design as calculation from mere heuristic or metaphor to a rigorous relationship in which design and calculation each inform and enhance the other. Stiny first demonstrates how seeing and counting differ when you use rules -- that is, what it means to calculate with your eyes -- then shows how to calculate with shapes, providing formal details. He gives practical applications in design with specific visual examples. The book is extraordinarily visual, with many drawings throughout -- drawings punctuated with words. You have to see this book in order to read it.

George Stiny is Professor of Design and Computation at MIT.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix
 
 Introduction: Tell Me All about It 1
 
I What Makes It Visual? 61
 
II Seeing How It Works 159
 
III Using It to Design 311
 
 Notes 391
 
 Index 409
 

《形狀》一書中，喬治·斯蒂尼（George Stiny）主張，觀察形狀──包括其變化性和模糊性──是創意思維的源泉。他認為，理解形狀是理解設計可能性的一種有用方式。

形狀是視覺表達的工具，就像符號是語言表達的工具一樣。斯蒂尼發展了一個統一的方案，既包括形狀的視覺表達，也包括符號的語言表達。這兩種表達工具之間的關係和等價性使得設計與其他更多依賴語言而非視覺表達的專業實踐相比可比。設計使用形狀，而商業、工程、法律、數學和哲學主要依賴符號，但斯蒂尼認為，這種差異並不是絕對的。設計是一種思考方式。斯蒂尼主張，設計是用形狀進行計算，是在沒有方程和數字的情況下進行計算，但仍然遵循規則。斯蒂尼展示了計算的機械過程實際上是一個創造性的過程，當你用形狀進行計算時──當你能夠用眼睛推理，學會看而不是數──這本書將設計作為計算的概念從僅僅是啟發性或隱喻性提升到一種嚴謹的關係，其中設計和計算相互影響和增強。斯蒂尼首先展示了使用規則時看和計算的不同之處──也就是用眼睛計算的含義──然後展示了如何用形狀進行計算，並提供了具體的視覺示例。這本書非常視覺化，其中穿插著許多圖畫──圖畫中夾雜著文字。你必須親眼看到這本書才能閱讀。

喬治·斯蒂尼是麻省理工學院的設計和計算教授。

目錄：
致謝 ix
導言：告訴我所有的事情 1
第一部分 使它變得視覺化？ 61
第二部分 看到它是如何運作的 159
第三部分 使用它進行設計 311
註釋 391
索引 409