- Presentation of ‘high-medium-low’ design possibilities, presentations which
vary in their output-cost and input-management content. - Engagement of ‘trial and testing’ procedures, the demonstration of design pro-
posals modelled mathematically as ‘virtual reality’. - Use of the Delphi Technique, which devises a discourse programme for engag-
ing in a succession of interrogations and information-feedback cycles which
arrive at a socially optimal design recommendation. - Reflecting on a listing of Key Words and their antonyms and synonyms as a
stimulus for considering alternative recommendations (Riddell 1985: 28). - Gaming and modelling simulation ‘apodictic’ (near reality) techniques varying
from the abstractness of computer-modelling through to the realism of table-
top modelling. - Brokerage, bargaining and negotiation techniques for resolving design issues
within the process of ‘getting to yes’: consult Susskind and Cruikshank, Break-
ing the Impasse(1987). - Symbolic analogy formulation, the ‘sensitizing’ techniques which are an exten-
sion out of cybernetics which leads toward the identification of design param-
eters.
The workings of most of the above are well understood. The last item, ‘Symbolic
analogy formulations’, derives from Lynch’s (1960) Image of the City. This was
enlarged, updated and pragmatized in Responsive Environments (Bentley, Alcock,
Murrain, McGlynn and Smith 1985). These urban considerations are explored in
greater detail in chapter 5.
ThePerformance-Set Criteriaconnects realism with idealism. The clear inference
with figure 2.6, ‘Sequential progression’ is that step follows step with feedback
improving data, improving analyses and improving designs. The main additional
features within a radical planning pattern are the Habermasian (1984) ‘negotiat-
ing and improving’ and ‘social communication’ characteristics. The inventive
‘brainstorming’, ‘trial and testing’, ‘gaming simulation’, ‘bargaining’ and ‘sym-
bolic analogy’ approaches to design, listed earlier, are also useful. This creative
‘designer’ pattern for achieving sustainable outcomes is important because it con-
nects the process back to its philosophical roots in accordance with the notion ‘that
we learn from our mistakes’. By continuously making these revisionist connec-
tions, the radical planning operative becomes aligned to an understanding about
what is going on, what is being sought, and above all else, ‘why’ and for ‘whom’
sustainable urban planning is being produced.
The procedural challenge and sensitivity which the radical
planning approach calls into being, generates these social
questions:
- What are the ‘issues’?
Social policy redirection? Minority rights and needs?
Resource uptake options? Waste dumping and waste pro-
cessing policies? Urban layout alternatives? Regional multi-
plier potentials? Natural and heritage conservancy?
Knowledge Power Outcomes 63‘In heterogeneity is
creation of the world.’
‘Over time, the rules for
change get changed
themselves.’
‘Equilibrium is death.’
Kevin Kelly,Out of
Control, 1994.