Digital Modeling and Shaping of Design Practices

This paper focuses on the role of digital modeling in shaping coordinative practices between architects and energy engineers in construction design. The paper presents a case study of the use of an energy performance calculation programme, a numeric digital modeling tool, that not only enables coordination between the two communities but also shapes coordinative practices around
the emerging building. The paper draws on two interlinked strands of literature that have engaged in the role of material artefacts in the social: the entanglement of technology in organizing and management (Orlikowski 2000, 2010), and the
socio-material constructivist studies of technology (Akrich 1992, Akrich et al. 2000, Latour 1991). The programme influences the coordinative practices in following ways: it shapes the modus of interaction between energy engineers and architects and enforces particular jurisdictional boundaries and related sequences of working. It also creates a ‘third space’ through which a distanced
intervention across professional boundaries becomes possible. Furthermore, the programme defines the focus of shared inquiries by referring to a particular version of energy performance. The results of this study suggest that generative potential of digital modeling tools such as the calculation programme resides in their ability to restrictively define the possible roles in, focus of and sequence of working. In addition, digital modeling provides a separate medium with the help of which the design object may be re-enacted and restructured over and over again. In the case at hand, this enabled a ‘trial and error’ type of intervention practice by energy engineers.