Thank you Richard for sharing your experience and ideas, and also for giving us all the opportunity to see the great weight of detail in
your project.  I envy the freedom you have in starting from scratch, not least because my university is currently trying to achieve
something similar by bringing together several existing schools and programmes with the all the difficulties of history and habit that you
point to.

 

As a member of a traditional school of art and design that found itself in a university by a complex and politically prescribed route, I
recognise the intellectual challenges that Richard and others have pointed to, but it will not surprise anybody to find that my perspective
is a little different (complementary I hope).

 

I share Richard’s observation that the many kinds of designing have great similarities and much common ground, and we have much to gain from
exploring these.  I certainly regard this as an important part of my own work.  However this concern with common ground and the challenge of
developing it does carry the danger of ignoring those things that distinguish the different fields of study concerned.  This was evident to
me in Richard’s statement:

 

“I view this situation as one in which design is now crossing a major threshold from craft to (dare I say it?) science or engineering.”

 

Firstly I am worried by the inclusion of “engineering” since it is also one of the disciplines that Richard rightly points to as having made
the same journey ahead of us.  I suggest that the non-engineering design disciplines are valuable precisely because they offer something
different from and complementary to engineering.

 

“Science” is a different matter of course and many have proposed a new “science of design” which is what I read into the UCI agenda.  Ken
Friedman has argued that a science of design would be a new synthesis of methods and ideas appropriate to the field and not merely a
redirecting of the efforts of the social and natural sciences and I am very happy with that.  However Richard pays some attention to Herbert
Simon who is frequently cited in this context so, to balance that, I would draw attention to Victor Margolin’s (1998) critique of Herbert
Simon’s idea of a science of design.  Margolin characterised Simon as disdainful of design’s “cookbook” methods and reliance on judgement
and experience, suggesting that this was a measure of Simon’s location in engineering and over-concern with the idea of systematising
(mechanising?) design process.

 

I don’t see anything wrong with designers taking an atomistic approach to specific problems that arise in their work but I would be worried
if we saw that as the primary route for shaping or understanding the work of designing.  For me the thing that most characterises effective
designing is an ability to identify connections and ideas arising from complex situations and work with them in their complex whole form.  I
regard this as important, not only in seeking an understanding of designing but also as an indication of where designers might themselves
make a contribution to knowledge.

 

Thomas Rasmussen described his situation which is an approach to research for design taken by a number of universities, particularly where
the migration to university status is managed by an agenda framed outside the design school.  I hope he won’t mind me describing him as a
“hired gun” when I suggest that the over-reliance on such hired guns is a danger, equal to the risk in suggesting that designers can make
the transition unaided.  My school, being largely free of any external vision of how we might develop a research culture, has taken a rather
different approach in seeking to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and, while this is difficult and imperfect, it has allowed us to start
to identify a role for designers in the knowledge-creation community that is quite different from the general perception in these
discussions.

 

Our view is that those things that differentiate designing from the established sciences make it interesting and valuable in a
multi-disciplinary world, including the role of craft in framing and examining ideas.  Sometimes we seem surrounded by people who imagine
that they can uproot designing from the culture that has sustained it thus far (arguably with a great deal of success), reshape it to match
their own pre-occupations and yet still retain its value and vigour.

 

So I hope that UCI can balance Thomas’ suggestion of hiring more guns in from other disciplines with my view that we need to support
designers in working out their own way forward, and along the way ask what designers can provide that other disciplines need. Michael
Polanyi (1958) asserted the importance of the leap of the imagination that allows scientists to identify and approach new problems in their
work and it seems that the conventions of science often mask that vital part of their work.  At present designers have no problem with
putting such leaps, and the skills needed to realise them at the forefront of their thinking. I hope we can use this focus to help mobilise
the creative potential of all the disciplines engaged with shaping the artificial rather than emphasising a more dismal, and less central
dimension of the study of design.

 

I could say more, especially about the need for people with a practitioner’s insight to nurture the development of young designers (do we
need people to pump in theory or people to support individual exploration?) but I’ll leave that for another day.

 

Margolin, V. (1998) “History, theory, and criticism in doctoral design education”, Doctoral Education in Design: Proceedings of the Ohio
Conference 8-11 October 1998

Polanyi, M. (1958) “Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy” London, Routledge, p123

 

Best wishes from Sheffield,

Chris Rust

*****************************************

Professor Chris Rust

Art and Design Research Centre,

Sheffield Hallam University, UK

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