Dear Rosan,
I think the view you present is very nice and inspiring. Please allow
me also to practice thinking-aloud and construct on the fly...I'm
sorry it got a little messy. Maybe you can help in clarifying...:
[focusing on
- essence can't be defined without judgement and context
- designerly potentials exist because the world is messy
- ... and can be realized only by applying designerly ways
- about the mission of doctoral education]
At 10:31 -0500 24.11.2001, Rosan Chow wrote:
>to me, what you described as 'designerly potentials' are not the
>cognitive functioning or the abilities of designers, or design
>methods, or design practice but rather the ESSENCES that can be
>abstracted from all of these.
A critical ingredient to always include in the ESSENCE would be
JUDGEMENT, because one - any designer - needs to determine the rest
of the essence oneself, with one's own judgement. This is important
to note, because the essence should not be seen as a static package
which can be stored on media or explained and programmed in a study
plan etc. Although the essence probably has many ingredients which
can in various circumstances (specific study programs, professional
directions, product areas,...) easily be predicted with experience
(yes, I realize that I just named judgement as a permanent essential
component), the true essence will always be necessary to define
dynamically, in context, and by the actual people.
Key to good design, from any point of view, probably is good
judgement. You need judgement in anything messy you do, in order to
prioritize and select and to navigate in space. In my view there can
never be a method for replacing the judgement - there can be methods
for aiding it but regardless of how much of the work or uncertainty
they can systematize or remove, they will always need to be completed
by a human.
And since design must deal with the real world (and can't stick to
predefined categories (which could be convenient for setting the
boundaries for concern) because the world does not respect them),
design needs to, in order to deliver and be effective, use judgement
to choose the approaches (methods, skills, collaborations, spells,
poetry,...) that best fit the situation.
When dealing with the world, you need to be prepared for anything,
and since you must begin from your unique self as the platform,
nobody can exhaustively list you the components you should
familiarize yourself with - in order to GUARANTEE that you can cope.
It is probable that you must customize any recommendations and invent
many components of your own arsenal simply to cope.
So design education should give the student a good understanding of
the world and the ways of dealing with it, and develop the ability to
judge, to invent, and to build with some materials (all of these in a
very generic sense).
Where does good judgement come from? It can develop by the way of
life you describe in 1; by dealing with the world with an ambition to
develop a ...
>disciplined (disciplined as informed, critical, rigourous, and
>sincere) set of values and beliefs which govern her actions (in
>teaching, research or professional design) that in turn realize
>values and beliefs.
... if it is COMBINED with a realistic (or practical? not sure
whether realistic is the right word here...) understanding/experience
- the development of skills, understanding of the materials, context,
society etc. A personal history and experience of INVOLVEMENT are
crucial for developing the designer's ability to judge FEASIBILITY -
one of the most critical and useful areas of judgement.
(I am no sure how far from your idea I now fared...?)
>In other words, you are not saying that doctoral education in design
>should imitate/copy designers' practice, but rather it should build
>on its (explicit or yet to be made explicit) essences. Am I reading
>you correctly?
Yes - I think so, with a few clarifications. In short form:
the essence = "designerly ways", with req. for high quality and
good judgement guiding the action; never value-neutral
or detached from context!
"designerly potentials" = application of this essence in society
I use the "designerly potentials" as a concept to point attention to
the potential design has in society, because of its special
characteristics, its specialization in dealing with
everything/anything in the world. It is still a potential, because 1)
most of the design which determines the nature of society, is not
created in processes where "designerly ways" would play a major role,
but instead in engineering, marketing, lawmaking, bureacracy,
political game etc., and because 2) design does not yet have adequate
competences of understanding the world and materials in these
corresponding areas. The good news is that there is a lot of that
potential, and the lack is becoming better and better felt and nearly
identified as well. Now the design discipline should develop a
response to that need. That's one of the most important developments
we need design research, and doctors in design for.
Doctoral education in design should not imitate/copy practice, but it
should embrace the power of the designerly ways, which of course
include the practices, in realizing its mission, instead of trying to
replace them with external, sometimes less powerful and often alien
practices. Unfortunately, it is often (usually?) forced to do so in
order to become institutionally compatible with other disciplines.
This creates the risk of rendering the highest academic level of the
discipline weak in its most relevant and original area of competence,
and, because the highest degrees will obviously become dominant
requirements for leadership positions in the institutions of the
discipline, dramatically risks the ability of the discipline to value
and maintain its essence.
How to do it right? The doctoral education should build on the
essence of design, the designerly ways, and develop ways to apply
them, and where appropriate, combine them with ways suitably adopted
from elsewhere, for research and the building of depth, insight,
vision, understanding, and methods etc. that can better realize the
designerly potential in society (= ingredients for a mission
statement). There are designerly ways of doing research which we have
not yet been able to understand, explain and authorize
institutionally, and once we do that, we release a significant power
into cultural evolution. Now, what are the values followed, will of
course determine whether that power will be positive. I'd like to see
very strong emphasis on responsibility to society at large, to be
able to discuss the influence of design and to assess what is good
and bad - to seriously challenge the illusion of value-neutrality.
It seems to me that your 'practical design philosophy' or a
'disciplined design way of being' seems to be addressing this. I feel
that it is hard to get to the point you describe in MA level studies,
so even if the ambition towards that is manifested in BA and MA
levels, it may be necessary to have How am I reading you?
kari-hans
.....
At 10:31 -0500 24.11.2001, Rosan Chow wrote:
>Dear Jonas, Kari-Hans and others
>
>This is a thinking-aloud post and I hope that I will get your
>constructive feedback.
>
>1
>Jonas: when I read your ideas on 'design thinking' (dated Nov 22,
>2001), the idea of 'practical philosophy' came to my mind. A net-pal
>once pointed out to me that the ancient Greek philosophers didn't
>just write about philosophy but also practiced it.
>
>Is a 'practical philosophy' the same as 'philosophical practice'? Is
>it what design practice can potentially become? wait...wait... wait,
>I am not seeing 'philosophy' as a field of inquiry, but 'philosophy'
>as a way, a principle, a world view, a sense of being.
>
>... this is how I imagine or wish myself becoming ... a Doctor of
>Philosophy in Design... someone who will have a disciplined
>(disciplined as informed, critical, rigourous, and sincere) set of
>values and beliefs which govern her actions (in teaching, research
>or professional design) that in turn realize values and beliefs.
>These actions will be 'design' (as a philosophy) actions?
>
>2
>Kari-Hans: is what I wrote above in any way close to the idea behind
>what you wrote on Nov 3, 2001
>
>"Design can, better than other fields, deal with the devaluation of
> categories, because of its nature as an integrative discipline.
> Designers often must deal with and take responsibility of wholes
> which require expertise from various fields, without the possibility
> to specialize themselves with those areas. They need to study and to
> talk with and employ other specialists, decide how deeply get
> involved, and finally make judgements as to how to balance various
> concerns, and carry the responsibility for the results, without a
> possibility to find proof or certainty. Thus design is often
> multidisciplinary, research oriented, innovative, pragmatic and
> realistic - all at the same time - by nature".
>
>to me, what you described as 'designerly potentials' are not the
>cognitive functioning or the abilities of designers, or design
>methods, or design practice but rather the ESSENCES that can be
>abstracted from all of these. In other words, you are not saying
>that doctoral education in design should imitate/copy designers'
>practice, but rather it should build on its (explicit or yet to be
>made explicit) essences. Am I reading you correctly?
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