Dear Tim,

Are you Ken in disguise? How did I get myself into this fix, discussing
PhDs? (Please do not answer).

Thank you for your challenge and I hope you do not think it discourteous if
I do not give you the attention you deserve.

Yes, designer-philosophers, and/or philosopher-designers, would be within
the category of design research. A PhD for design researchers, who are
designers, is the focus of the practice-based PhD, incidentally a term I do
not like. I prefer designerly PhD, but await to see if La Clusaz, etc. come
up with a better one, if it needs a special term at all. 

Watching television is not design but new design principles might result
from a brief embodying a research question concerning it.

As for the use of video, or multimedia or whatever, for documenting
experiments, it may be that other researchers than design researchers could
use media used in design to improve their research documentation, CD ROMS
for a start instead of big black tomes.

I have always maintained mainstream design practice is not research. An
architect designing yet another loft extension is not doing research.
Perhaps s/he might get a D.Des for demonstrating excellence.  One who comes
up with new design principles upon which loft type things could be designed
is another matter, and may be the subject of a designerly PhD, in my present
view. I might be convinced otherwise one day, but have not been yet. I am a
stubborn Yorkshireman.

Examples of this kind of design research might include work in speculative
top secret 'cushy numbers' of car companies hidden in the Swiss Alps, or
mobile phone companies in the Fjords, or some design courses, or
architectural competitions, where wacky concepts challenge the frontiers. 

The pre-conference discussions have probably fulfilled their function and I
suggest the La Clusaz Conference itself, and the others, have the role to
provide some answers, some examples of practice-based PhDs, and category
definitions, you are seeking in the detail you request. So forgive me for
ducking out of marshalling all the answers to this particular universe.

You ask, 'When you say "... I have to get on with some proper work now" do
you mean that you don't consider this discussion proper work?  If not, what
is it for you? 

With respect, a pain in the bum at the moment, as I'm very busy with
examining, etc. but thanks for your attention to my wotsits.

Regards,

Alec

___________________________________________________

Alec Robertson
Faculty of Art & Design
De Montfort University
The Gateway
Leicester, LE1 9BH, UK.

Tel; +44(0)116 257 7544      Fax: +44(0)116 257 7574


-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Smithers [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 17 May 2000 02:01
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: Response to twelve points from Ken Friedman ...


Dear Alec,

Thank you for your reply.

If you agree with my points, as you say you do, do you then accept the
argument they are a part of, for why doing PhD research is not the same
as designing?  I don't see how you can agree with my points and not
with this argument, but you seem not to, given what you then go on to
say.

Your point, that you say I and others have missed, (phrased as a
question) is when is designing also doing (PhD) research?  I don't
think I did miss this.  What I attempted to argue was that designing is
never the same as doing PhD research.  So, assuming the argument is
correct, the answer to your question is NEVER: designing is never the
same as, equivalent to, or some other way of doing PhD research.  They
are fundamentally different kinds of processes.

You say

    "Where you draw the line, if you must, as to where the design
     process begins and ends may well influence the category."

Well, yes, I do think we must draw the line, through I agree that where
we draw it will influence what is within and what is outwith the
category we call designing.  Ken has done this for what we call doing
PhD research.  If we do not draw the line around designing, then
anything can properly be called designing---watching television, included.

But perhaps I am still missing something here, so let me see if I can
understand, in my terms, what you say about designer philosophers and
the generation of new principles of design.

By designer philosophers I take it that we are talking about design
researchers, right?  People who work on trying to understand designing in
some way, or some aspect of designing in some way, or some particular
kind of designing in some way. Since not all design researchers are
designers (as well as researchers), we need to add the further condition
that we are here talking about design researchers who can also
do designing.

We are to then understand that these design researchers formulate a
design brief, that they then do some designing in response to, so as to
"answer a research question" through the designing.  Furthermore, we
are to understand, if I follow you, that answering this research
question, by designing something that satisfies the brief, can result
in the discovery of new principles, including design principles.  So,
presumably the brief, formulated by the design researcher, somehow
embodies the question to be investigated.

This would be like saying that the thesis developed by a PhD student
(the statement who's truth is to be investigated in doing some PhD
research, not the manuscript at the end, which we also call the thesis)
is somehow formulated as a design brief.  If I have got this about
right so far, then what you are saying is that the truth of the thesis
is established by designing something that satisfies the brief that
embodies it. Right?

What we really do need here is an example of this being done.  So,
please Alec, could you supply us with one that can make more concrete
what you are proposing.  I still don't really believe that effective
investigation of the truth of a thesis---that Shakespear wrote all his
plays from the middle out to the end, and then out to the beginning,
for example---can be done by embodying the thesis in a design brief and
then designing something that satisfies the brief.  But perhaps, my
example here is not the right kind? So what would be a good example?

But let me suppose, for the moment, that designing something to satisfy
a brief, that somehow embodies a thesis whose truth is to be
investigated, is an effective way of investigating the validity of the
thesis, and thus establishing a new principle, perhaps.  Well, then in
order to show to the examiners (and the rest of us) that the designing
really has been an effective way of investigating the original thesis,
the designing PhD researcher would surely need to present the thesis,
including how it was developed and why investigating it was worthwhile,
to present how this thesis was reformulated as a design brief such that
satisfying it by designing something would constitute a validity test
of the original thesis, and to also present the new principle or
principles that have been established by doing this designing, how they
relate and compare to any already existing principle in the relevant
field of study, and how they might be further applied to solve other
interesting problems.

All this would need explicit presentation and explanation, it seems to
me. Or are you also wanting to say that all this would somehow be self
evident in the designing activity itself, or even just in the outcomes
of the designing?  This would be like saying that all  PhD researchers
need to present is a video of the experiment they conducted, and no
more, or of the literature study and analysis they carried out, and no
more, for example.

Neither of these,  of course, would earn a PhD, and nor should it, for
the reasons Ken has presented. So why should presenting the designing,
or even just the outcomes of some designing, warrant the award of a PhD
research degree just because the researcher formulated the design brief
so as to embody some thesis to be investigated, assuming that this can
really be done?  We still need the arguments, illustrations, and
examples, from your side. This, I realise, would take quite a lot of
time and effort to marshall and to present, but I think it would help
the discussion a lot.  It might also go some way to responding to Beryl
Graham's challenge.

Best regards,

Tim
CEIT
Donostia / San Sebastián
[log in to unmask]

P.S. When you say "... I have to get on with some proper work now" do
you mean that you don't consider this discussion proper work?  If
not, what is it for you?


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