Dear Ken and colleagues,
<Many important books in design research have been cited in threads on
this list. The past year alone has seen citations to Henry Petroski,
Dick Buchanan, Pirkko Anttila, Victor Margolin, John Warfield, Chris
Nippert-Eng, Klaus Krippendorff, Herbert Simon, Rachel Cooper, Donald
Norman, Edward Tufte, Margaret Bruce, Per Mollerup, Louis
Bucciarelli, Birgit Jevnaker, John Chris Jones, Vladimir Hubka, Ernst
Eder, John Heskett. Pelle Ehn, Nigel Cross, Erik Stolterman, Richard
Coyne, Buckminster Fuller, Harold Nelson every time I think the
list is long enough, I think of another name that seems indispensable.>
<Judicious praise requires perspective. It is a mistake to praise the
work of excellent new scholars by claiming that their work lays the
foundations of a missing literature.>
I am referrimg to these two paragraphs above of your post yesterday.
With indeed due respect and acknowledgment for the invaluable contribution of
all these authors, with their "seminal texts", to the shaping of the field of
Design, there is however, in my opinion, an aspect that pleads for a foremost
interest to the intellectual work of graduates from various Design schools.
We (yes, I am one of them!) are indeed the only ones who, since the last
three decades, in class rooms and studios, have served as guinea pigs for
most of the above authors' theories. We have (and many students still are!)
endured the tedious and premonitory search by our professors, the majority of
them not "Design" trained; yet, it is true, they are the "corner stones" of
the profession. In our turn now, we Design graduates are in a position to
carry on the job, but this time with a specially "trained" focus on what is
still to be widely ascertained as "Design studies".
I therefore maintain that Theses and Dissertations by graduates in Design are
valuable "references" in that they are a focused efforts to specifically
address the dynamic nexus between the human agent, the living environment and
the artifacts (material and immaterial). To my present knowledge, it is
Michel Jullien (cited in my yesterday post) and his friends, in Paris, who
first outlined the theoretical and empirical exploration of this nexus that I
(with a few others) propose as the subject matter of Design and Design
Research. By the way, as a direct response to the initiator of this thread,
the "Design Nexus" study is far different from studies aimed at merely
knowing "consumers" in a "market" ("marketing research") in order to
devise "marketable" artifacts...
It is true, present Design graduates' groping can not, as such, constitute a
foundation for an academic "discipline" in the traditional and well
established sense. It is true also, on the other hand, that Design graduates'
intellectual efforts can also be referential and inspirational in the sense
that, for a new, holistic and integrated object of study such as the "Design
nexus" above, there is not yet a focused academic tradition to refer to. We
all precisely are in the process of building this tradition, and therefore
any input should be deemed valuable per its face value, until it is proven
otherwise after careful scrutiny... by our more experienced professors and
mentors. Out of the mass of graduates production, it is hoped, more
focused "seminal" [RE]search threads will emerge.
Thus, in addition to non-trained designers' views and guidance, Design
graduates' work (pupils outrunning their masters!) exclusively on the above
mentioned "Design nexus" will more directly contribute to building
specifications for Design concepts that practitioners in Design will more
easily embody into USABLE - instead of only "marketable" - material and
immaterial structures.
Regards.
François-X. N.I.NSENGA
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