Yes, Rosan. I agree with you. Indeed, the proposition you put forward has a
long history. It's a philosophical distinction made by many epistemologist,
probably most lucidly by A J Ayre and Polyani. The distinction between
knowing 'about' something and knowing 'how to do' something is an extremely
important one. Unfortunately, many people confuse the two. Academics who
know a great deal about design do not necessarily know how to design, but
this does not seem to prevent them from asserting their relevance to the act
of designing. My view is that such claims need to be continually questioned,
with the onus on those who claim that their knowledge 'about' design is
relevant to demonstrate its relevance to doing design.
But this is an old issue and many of us have moved on. It's contemporary
relevance is to those who belatedly want to argue for design as central to
tertiary education. To do so, they need to rehearse all these older
arguments in the academic literature. Once these ideas are 'published', they
hope, the case for design's central role in education is made.
While this is all commendable good work, and this list is one beneficial
result of this good work, it is a long way from the pointy end of my type of
design research. My research is in design practice. I'm continually
investigating, through practice, how to design things better or differently.
I'm interested in how we can make the world better by design. And I'm also
interested in sharing this practical knowledge with others through our
Institute's publication and practical training program.
I'm not persuaded, so far, that this debate about 'design knowledge' is
going to add to my kind of design knowledge, but I will continue to lurk in
hope.
--
Professor David Sless
Director
Communication Research Institute of Australia
** helping people communicate with people **
PO Box 398 Hawker
ACT 2614 Australia
Mobile: 0412 356 795
phone: +61 (0)262 598 671
fax: +61 (0)262 598 672
web: http://www.communication.org.au
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