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PHD-DESIGN  2003

PHD-DESIGN 2003

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Subject:

closing remarks - design scholarship

From:

Harold Nelson <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Harold Nelson <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 12:38:29 -0800

Content-Type:

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Reply

Reply

I would like to thank Ken and the UCI Committee members for their gift
of this conference. It has been a very rewarding experience. I will
limit my final comments to two points that I think are not repetitive
of comments already posted by others. I have assumed that the
conference was meant to be a review of work in progress and not a
gallery showing so my points are meant to be suggestions for
consideration as the design process continues to unfold and not a
critique of what has been done up to this point.

My first point is that I am interested in how the 'intent' of the new
program will be more fully made explicit. Intent concerns the 'aim' and
not the 'targets'. A rich and intriguing basis for the new program was
elegantly made in both the Executive Summary and in the full report.
The stated outcomes or purposes—"to become an international leader in
this field"—and the four areas of specialization are examples of
targets which are difficult to fully appreciate or evaluate without a
greater explication of intention. For example the four forms of
scholarship presented by Ernest Boyer (1990, Scholarship Reconsidered:
Priorities of the Professoriate):

        Scholarship of Discovery (I would modify as 'inquiry')
        Scholarship of Teaching
        Scholarship of Integration
        Scholarship of Application

can be framed as forms of strategic intent in the design of any
academic program but particularly so for a new design school. I say
'particularly so' because a bench-mark design program should be a
composition of all four rather than a distillation of one or two. The
categorization of universities as either 'research' or 'teaching' is an
example of a reductive approach to scholarship that is exemplary of the
disciplinary academic traditions but not necessarily of a design
tradition. Design scholarship can be treated as an 'emergent quality'
of the composition of multiple forms of scholarship.

My second point is that I would advocate adding a fifth form of
scholarship that I think is particularly appropriate for a new school
of design and that is the 'Scholarship of Service'. Service, as a form
of interrelationship, is an inescapable aspect of good design. Design
is not something that is done by design experts or professionals as a
detached or solitary activity—the sound of one hand clapping. Design is
something done by skilled designers in interrelationship with others
(clients, stake-holders, decision makers, stock holders, users,
surrogates etc.). Design, as a form of interrelationship animated by
social agency, may include but is not the same as 'interdisciplinary'
group process. I would suggest that the 'intention' of design ought to
be, in addition to those named above, to serve.

Service, as an aim or intention of design, creates mutual relationships
between different types of experts such as instrumental experts
(professional designers) and deontic experts (clients, stake-holders
etc.). Expertise is distributed throughout the different design roles
and does not reside in one role e.g. technical expert. During the
Second World war, a London newspaper identified Albert Speer (the Nazi
architect and organizational designer) as an example of a type of
person more dangerous to human well being than the Hitlers of the
world. He was the archetypal expert technician who takes responsibility
and accountable for the 'how' but avows clean hands in relationship to
the 'why'. Being good at 'doing design' is necessary but does not
guarantee 'good' design as an outcome. The threatening or destructive
consequences of the activities of highly skilled instrumental experts
continues to be felt in today's world. In design, character counts as
much as technical skill and reasoning ability.

My final comment is that design has been and continues to be a
significant factor in the evolution of human societies through the
co-creation of the experienced world. The design of a new design school
at UCI is a significant event in the ongoing genesis of this tradition.
Thank you again for this opportunity to be part of such an important
event.

Harold



Harold G. Nelson, Ph.D., M. Arch.
President; Advanced Design Institute
www.advanceddesign.org
Past-President; International Society for Systems Science
www.isss.org
Affiliated faculty, Engineering, U. Wash.

new book—The Design Way: http://BooksToRead.com/etp/nelsonad.pdf

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