Research through DESIGN through research-a problem statement and a …

Design Philosophy Papers, 2015

Parsons school of Design, The new school, new york 1. 'In the future design will be very important, designers less so' Two hundred years ago a Design Research Society conference was not possible. Indeed, Design, as we know it, as a professional activity, did not exist. One hundred years ago we could have had debates on design-in 1914 there was a famous debate between Gropius and Van der Velde at the German Werkbund (in effect on art versus industry, some things do not change much)-but at that date the idea of design research was all but impossible and indeed the Design profession itself, as we know it was still incipient. The concepts of high-level design education and of design research waited for another half-century. The point I am making here is obvious-almost, but not quite, for to point to the historical emergence of design as profession is to remind us what we continually tend to forget, namely that if design is what we think of today as (in effect) an anthropological capacity-without which we could not be fully human (in the words of the late British design historian John Heskett, 'a unique characteristic of what defines us as human beings on a par with literature and music') it is also specifically, in the form that it takes as capacity, a historical phenomenon. In other words, if design, again to quote Heskett, allows us, or helps us, 'to create a world of artifice to meet our needs and give meaning to our lives, ' and thus (ideally if not always in practice) 'beneficially reshape the world of artifice we have created and inhabit, ' it does so always under particular historical conditions. Design is never outside of history: it occurs; in the context of forces and circumstances; in the play that is set in motion between a relation of forces and the potential (shi) which is implied by that situation, and can be made to play in one's favor. Hegel argued that philosophy is always its own time reflected in thought. Design partakes on something of the same condition. It is always at once beholden to and reflective of, its

Kybernetes, 2007

Purpose-The paper seeks to make a substantial contribution to the still controversial question of design foundations. Design/methodology/approach-A generic hypercyclic design process model is derived from basic notions of evolution and learning in different domains of knowing (and turns out to be not very different from existing ones). The second-order cybernetics and evolutionary thinking provide theoretical support. Findings-The paper presents a model of designerly knowledge production, which has the potential to serve as a genuine design research paradigm. It does not abandon the scientific or the hermeneutic or the arts & crafts paradigm but concludes that they have to be embedded into a design paradigm. "Design paradigm" means that "objects" are not essential, but are created in communication and language. Research limitations/implications-Foundations cannot be found in the axiomatic statements of the formal sciences, nor in the empirical approaches of the natural sciences, nor in the hermeneutic techniques of the humanities. Designing explores and creates the new; it deals with the fit of artefacts and their human, social and natural contexts. Therefore foundations for design (if they exist at all) have to be based on the generative character of designing, which can be seen as the very activity which made and still makes primates into humans. Practical implications-The hypercyclic model provides a cybernetic foundation (or rather substantiation) for design, which-at the same time-serves as a framework for design and design research practice. As long as the dynamic model is in action, i.e. stabilized in communication, it provides foundations; once it stops, they dissolve. The fluid circular phenomena of discourse and communication provide the only "eternal" essence of design. Originality/value-"Design objects" as well as "theory objects" are transient materializations or eigenvalues in these circular processes. Designing objects and designing theories are equivalent. "Problems" and "solutions" as well as "foundations" are objects of this kind. This contributes to a conceptual integration of the acting and reflecting disciplines.

Design´s ultimate purpose may be the "quality of life". Modernist design claimed to meet people´s needs by means of 19th century scientific approaches, sometimes even using simplified and misinterpreted concepts of purpose-oriented evolution, leading to ideological positions as the notorious "form follows function" (Michl 2001-02). This "belief in science" still applied to main parts of the Design Methods Movement of the 1960s. And it still applies to major parts of the current "Design Research Movement" (DRM, my own term, W.J.), which started in the 1980s.

The relatively young field of research known as 'the philosophy of design' is briefly presented, by asking on behalf of the reader what the philosophy of design is about, and what its use may be. 'We all have our philosophies, whether or not we are aware of this fact, and our philosophies are not worth very much. But the impact of our philosophies upon our actions and our lives is often devastating. This makes it necessary to try to improve our philosophies by criticism. This is the only apology for the continued existence of philosophy which I am able to offer' (Popper, 1974, p. 33). We see design reflected in countless artefacts with which we furnish and sustain our environment and even our bodies; no doubt design shapes our lives just as much as science and technology – or even more so. But what shapes design? Design may be seen, presumably, as significantly depending on technological and scientific knowledge, but it cannot be understood in terms of science and technology alone. Developing a satisfactory understanding of the nature and workings of design itself calls for serious philosophical work (Galle, 2000); the field of which we name 'the philosophy of design'. Being the result of, as I hope you'll agree in the end, a happy union of philosophy and design research, the philosophy of design is a child of mature parents. Yet as a field it is young enough itself to need a few words of introduction to those outside its immediate vicinity (for a discussion of the origins of the field, see http://www.cephad.org > literature > emergence). So 'the philosophy of design' may not have a familiar ring to you, and it is only fair if you wonder (1) what this field is all about, and (2) what it is supposed to be good for. I shall address these two questions in turn, and in so doing take you on a quick guided tour into the subject. The first question will be considered at a rather general level. I shall present a small sample of research questions for illustration, but this is not a 'survey paper' of the kind that outlines the entire

2013

Design, again, finds itself in the midst of a crisis from a number of different perspectives, including professional, cultural, technological, and economic forces. The present crisis, however, is not new. Almost 20 years ago, design's crisis of identity was highlighted in Adam Richardson's paper, "The Death of the Designer," in which he reminded us that design's crisis had been around since the days of the Italian Radical Design Movement of the 1960s. 1 In addition, at about the same time, Dan Friedman, in his book Radical Modernism, argued from a historical perspective that design is in crisis and is searching for a new sense of balance and vision in a period of historic transformation. 2 Throughout the book, Friedman emphasizes the responsibility of designers to avoid overspecialization and to see their work as an important creative aspect of a larger cultural context.

2009

Abstract: As a discipline evolves, research practices mature and begin to define the field they support. The field of design is currently undergoing this type of evolution. Design researchers are undertaking new forms of research, articulating methods and processes, and in some cases, building new theories of and about design.

Nordic Design Research Conference, 2011

Sciences have certainly done their best to blow the whistle, warning for an escalating climate disaster. And today seemingly powerful leaders also start to talk boldly about the present need of profound and radical changes. Still, too little seems to change in the directions proposed and if it changes at all, these changes seem to be far too small, far too inconsistent and far too slow to meet the requirements specified by the scientific community. Why is this so? And what could design and design research possible do about it? This explorative paper gives an outline of the matters underpinning two initiatives (D-side and Shaping Futures) taken at the Institute of design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) in Norway. It is an illustration on the importance of utilizing design competences in what sometimes is labelled Discursive Design by merging different design methods with Foresight and Radical Innovation. The intention with the paper is to call out for a long overdue debate about-and actions that urgently needs to be taken towards the seemingly pretentious, but still designerly, vision of a different, prosperous and 'better' future world.

The past, of course, is a foreign country with different values and practices. When the Design Research Society (DRS) was born in 1966, things were very different from now. It grew out of the Design Methods Movement (DMM) which itself was a product of post war optimism and belief in science-based progress. This paper is in four parts, describing-1. The postwar optimism of the 1950s 2. The DMM and its role in the formation of the DRS. 3. The end of optimism and the replacement of belief in scientific progress by a suspicion of science and a search for alternatives. 4. An alternative approach in which biology is shown to be a better model than physics when attempting to make design 'scientific'. This involves a generalised Darwinism with different kinds of memes as imperfect replicators.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

The boundaries and contours of design sciences continue to undergo definition and refinement. In many ways, the sciences of design defy disciplinary characterization. They demand multiple epistemologies, theoretical orientations (e.g. construction, analysis or intervention) and value considerations. As our understanding of this emerging field of study grows, we become aware that the sciences of design require a systemic perspective that spans disciplinary boundaries. The Doctoral Consortium at the Design Science Research Conference in Information Sciences and Technology (DESRIST) was an important milepost in their evolution. It provided a forum where students and leading researchers in the design sciences challenged one another to tackle topics and concerns that are similar across different disciplines. This paper reports on the consortium outcomes and insights from mentors who took part in it. We develop a set of observations to guide the evolution of the sciences of design. It is our intent that the observations will be beneficial, not only for IS researchers, but also for colleagues in allied disciplines who are already contributing to shaping the sciences of design.

2018

With this volume we present 24 contributions to the philosophy of design. Design is an emerging topic in philosophy and not yet one on which work is shaped by a common set of questions or by an academically entrenched discipline of philosophy of design. We therefore consider it an effort in itself that we can present 24 contributions. Throughout the years we have approached in our careers design from our separate disciplinary perspectives and probed whether design was becoming a more general topic of philosophical re ection. One of us (Pieter) is working in a philosophy department and analyzed design as part of a larger project within the philosophy of technology. This has led to a predecessor volume on the philosophy of design (Vermaas et al. 2008), analyses of design (Houkes and Vermaas 2010), joint work with design researchers on the structure of design (e.g., Vermaas and Dorst 2007), and to the creation of the Design Research Foundations book series, in which this volume has appeared. The second of us (Stéphane) is working in a design department and a design research center. He analyzed design from a phenomenological perspective and contributed to developing the knowledge of design in France. These efforts led to a monograph about how design affects, structures, and frames experience (Vial 2010) and to the founding of the French- speaking journal Sciences du Design edited by Stéphane. Our separate work may be taken as proof that design has found its way to philosophy, yet when teaming up we discovered a more substantial interest.