Session3: resp to Galle, Morelli
Philosophy of Design and PBL
Dear Per
You raise a good question. You are perhaps already aware that the term
"design philosophy" is used to describe an overarching theme a designer
takes up or follows, or an idea that undergirds the design, or one that
unifies the design. Often these are musings of practitioners, especially
when they become famous and people ask them to elaborate on the design and
sometimes these are ideas the designers claim to follow. Example is "Form
follows function" popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright but probably having its
origins with Sullivan. Another is Mies van der Rohe's "Less is more".
The points raised by you are distinct, I think. These are probably
thoughts by philosophers regarding design. Or questions that philosophers
might ask about design.
The UCI SOD proposal addresses this in a few ways, but not under the
heading of POD. The Doctoral studies in design will engage some of these
questions about design. The philosophical component might come form a
variety of sources, such as philosophy, critical theory, social sciences,
sciences, art and engineering. Each of these disciplines has components
that deal with philosophy, and perhaps even ontology, epistemology,
assumptions about the world. Some also takes up questions of
phenomenology, hermeneutics, to name a few. Although this was not directly
discussed, I hope that there will be consideration of Eastern Philosophy as
well as Western Philosophy, examination of how different people have seen
artifacts, their thing-ness, presence, or their spirit, and questions about
what role does human understanding play in the perception of these
artifacts. Earlier I raised some questions about some of these by bringing
up concepts from the East. The time old questions of whether humans are
masters of the world or simply a part of a large collection of creatures
makes a difference to the way designers design. Some of these questions
will hopefully be taken up in several of the layers of the lasagna.
Whether these need to be taken up at the undergraduate and professional
levels is a question you have not taken up. There is no easy answer. One
would like to include some of these, but is there space or time in the
curriculum? And would undergraduates engage these questions?
Your questions stand contrast to the proposal for Problem Based Learning
(PBL). On the one hand, PBL can help to engage students and enable their
participation in their education. I am having difficulty in figuring out
whether design education is inherently problem based? I am leaning toward
a positive response here. On the other hand, your question is a direct
critique of PBL, or if you wish to see it the other way, PBL is a direct
critique of POD. To what extent does PBL get into POD? Should all of
design education be PBL based, or is there a place for both. Here it is
useful to contemplate the distinction between graduate and undergraduate
education I made above.
I am very interested in learning about local views of design, space and
artifacts. Concepts such as ma, oku, I-kata, gen fukei (Japan), chi and
sha (China), mandala, or vastupurusha mandala (India), and though not quite
equivalent, haram (Iran) provide ways of understanding POD in a different
(non-Western) localized way. Add to that the PODs embedded in treatises
and approaches such as Vastu Shastra, Feng Shui, Phong Thui, and
others. Elsewhere, I have argued that a fuller understanding of cities in
the East can be obtained if we cast aside our external lenses and learn
from the local people their view (cf. Journal of Asian Urban Studies 2002
3(3):37-49). Whether these are developed by philosophers or local people,
they provide glimpses into design philosophy that could be very important
at least when designing in other countries.
Earlier, someone raised the question of Buddhist philosophy and talked of
Nagarjuna the relationship of things. Though often Buddhist philosophy is
seen as stripped of its religious origin, there is a religious connection
there. And what of Hindu philosophy or Jewish philosophy? Does this
factor into philosophy? We have written about designs and artifacts in
homes of several religions. I am currently reviewing a paper on artifacts
in the Arab American Muslim home. How do people collect these
artifacts? What design features lead to their acceptance or rejection?
Choice of designs and artifacts and designs lead to another question. Is
design neutral on these matters? Can philosophical contemplations be
devoid of culture and world view? Historically homogenous Scandinavian
countries, but some other European ones as well, are now increasingly
facing questions of epistemology of design from cultural (and religious)
perspectives. From my point of view, the responses do not show much
understanding of these matters. But, perhaps you know more about this than
I do.
In short, I see the palette of Philosophy of Design much larger than the
largeness revealed by the few questions posed by Galle.
Sanjoy
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