Rosan said:

  " what is missing in the proposal (for me), as mentioned by David 
(Sless), and
hinted in the messages of Keith (Russell), Harold (Nelson) and now 
Pradeep,
(if i read them correctly) is (an) intellectual driver(s)."

  "...incidentally, this design community has been looking for, and 
attempting to
construct the core of design knowledge, be it as 'letness',
'communication/interaction', 'service', 'swamps', 'placement', 
'evolution'.
these are the fulcums around which we can turn, spin, and dance
meaningfully. without which, movements are incoherent."

Dr. Charles Burnette said
" Currently, theories of
design are largely art historically minded theories of style and
design methods are narrow recapitulations of how things have been
done before, with small opportunistic shifts to include information
from human factors, ethnography, business practices, new media etc. I
believe that a new school should have a strong commitment to the
development of the underlying discipline of the field as well as
giving attention to all the areas of application that Sanjoy so
rightly noted."

Wolfgang Jona said
"I agree that design, at the level of an academic discipline, lacks a 
fulcrum, an intellectual driver. I would say it is the lack of a 
clearly defined function and a unique systemic code, which prevents 
design from being / becoming a discipline as, for example, medicine. 
Design(ers) can use many different entry-points to the network, but 
what seems to be essential is to try to re-connect as many elements as 
necessary in order to re-create a new artificial complex "whole" in the 
design process. Which means, trying to integrate the "solution" into 
the "whole of life" (John Chris Jones) again."

As one of the people who raised the question of 'intellectual drivers' 
and 'letness' as a possible foundation for design, I feel compelled to 
reflect on some of the above. But I do so uneasily. I have walked away 
from the constraints of university politics and economics on a number 
of occasions, so I am in a weak  position to offer advice to those 
planning a new venture and who are prepared to stay in that type of 
environment and try to make it work. Of course, I continue my 
engagement with the academy, as my title and affiliations attest, but I 
do so as a relative outsider with no major economic dependence on 
income from that source, and no strong desire to embrace its modes or 
manners. Even if that changed, it would only do so for a brief period 
relative to my overall career, so I would still be a relative outsider. 
I speak, therefore, from outside, as an occasional visitor. This is not 
a credible position from which to offer advice. But what an outsider 
sees might be worth reflecting on.

 From this position I see an undignified scramble for 'bums on seats' 
and research funding, with the questions of intellectual substance 
trailing behind in an 'also ran' position. The question of 
'intellectual drivers' is a second order question that can be dealt 
with once the proposal has been approved. What I see gives me no 
pleasure. I also see a kind of sustaining fantasy. Design as saviour of 
the world. A 'whole of life' fantasy. Notions of customer focused 
design, environmental sustainability, and aesthetic harmony, are 
recited like mantras. I think Rob Curedale hit it on the head when he 
suggested that we may be training many designers for jobs that don't 
exist, and, I would add, with unrealisable expectations. Will the 
proposal that we are discussing in this conference change that? I would 
like to think so, and I certainly wish it well, but I cannot quite see 
it.

 From where I see design, I see no grand vision. I think we are the 
travelling tinkers of our time. We fix things—sometimes quite large 
things—and we sometimes leave them working and looking better than when 
they were handed to us for repair. We sometimes make new things to fill 
a need, much as a tinker makes a walking stick to help someone with a 
gamy leg. We create prostheses, sometimes very effective and beautiful 
ones, which are much admired, but prostheses for all that.

Is what we do important? Yes, I think it is, and I do believe that we 
bring something unique into human endeavours, possibly vital and 
essentially different to other types of endeavours.

Do we have to understand what it is we do in order to do it, or do it 
better? Do we need the 'fulcrum'? I'm not sure, but I think we should 
reflect on what we do because it is in the nature of civilised people 
to do so. Universities have been one of the places where we have gone 
to reflect, or to find people who do. Will universities continue to be 
those places? I'm not optimistic. We may have to totally rethink the 
nature of a reflective environment in the future. In the meantime, 
there is another pot to mend and another crutch to build.

David

-- 
Professor David Sless
BA MSc FRSA
Co-Chair Information Design Association
Senior Research Fellow Coventry University
Director
Communication Research Institute of Australia
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