My name is Mike Clark. I am one of the authors of the UCI School of Design
proposal, and I am scheduled to start off the discussion for Session # 5 on
Dec. 5. Given the growing thread on Design Studies in this conference,
however, I thought I would try to answer some of the questions that have
been posed about that topic.
I came to the design project at UC Irvine via my role as head of academic
planning for our campus, but I was especially drawn to the topic of Design
Studies from my background in the field of literary theory, a special
strength of my department, English and Comparative Literature, and of the
whole School of Humanities at UCI, including the Dept. of Art History.
Dick Taylor’s characterization of Design Studies as related to art history
is a shorthand we have been using at UCI. It is probably misleading because
the phrase itself obscures the strong interest in theory that characterizes
Art History and most other work in humanities at UCI.
We certainly intended to include a historical approach to design as part of
Design Studies, but our broader objective included much of what Charlotte
Lee mentioned in her comment on this topic.
In particular, we hoped to engage students in reflection on the concepts and
discourse of design as they inform design practice and more scholarly or
philosophical attempts to articulate a “science” of design as Ken Freidman
and others have begun to use the phrase. That would certainly include a
metadiscourse of design, study of various paradigms operative now and in the
past, and a sociology (or archeology) of design knowledge as a craft,
professional practice, and academic discipline. Based on interest expressed
by some colleagues at UCI in the fields of game theory and decision theory
(another strength of our campus), we imagine Design Studies would also
include what Ms. Lee describes so well as the study of “the people,
processes, and organizations that are involved in product planning and
production as well as those organizations involved with design policies. The
study of design practice belongs to the realm of social action that has
traditionally been studied by sociologist, anthropologists, psychologists,
and other social scientists.”
On the issue of degrees as raised by Keith Russell and Carma Gorman: The
decision not to propose a Ph.D. for Design Studies from the beginning of the
School was strictly pragmatic. Doctoral level education is extremely
expensive, as we all know, as are Masters-level programs compared to
undergraduate majors. We thought we should emphasize graduate programs in
those areas that had at least some chance of securing extramural funding for
graduate support. There was no intention to preclude the development of a
Ph.D. in Design Studies at some point in the future, and we certainly did
not intend to imply that Design Studies was somehow less serious an academic
field than the other three areas.
Mike Clark
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