Tangerine Blog

Looking with intent, and showing that you did

If we identify what people are actually doing when they’re developing and interpreting technical drawings, we’d be close to recognizing the problems addressed by the core work of AEC professionals.

If we’re hungry and need to eat, we can make a spear, throw it into a wild boar, clean, cook, and eat it. There are instruments involved but the sequence of acts and assemblage of things needed, don’t slip our grasp. After some training passed on culturally, we can hold it all in mind without outstripping our cognitive limits.

AEC projects are not like that. AEC projects quickly surpass our cognitive limits. We’re in compulsory need of instruments of cognitive aid. The need is not confined to any single phase of AEC work. It begins on day one of project design and continues all the way through the last day of construction.

What does such an instrument do precisely, in AEC? What is the nature of cognitive aid, in AEC? 

The rest of this post discusses that, by listing what AEC’s instrument — for looking at models mental and digital, with specific intent, and showing that you did — does.

As follows:

The vehicle for this, for looking with intent and showing that you did,in its currently known form of expression is the set of technical drawings.

drive-in movie projection showing with Santa Claus looking

Rob Snyder Avatar

About the author

Hi! My name is Rob Snyder, I’m on a mission to elevate digital models in AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) by developing equipment for visual close study (VCS) within them, so that they supply an adequate assist to the engine of thought we all have running as we develop models during design and as we interpret them so they can be put to use in support of necessary action, during construction for example.