Design will never be a science. But will it be possible the constitution
of a Designology?
This is, mostly, a contribution to the very precise post by John
Broadbent, about the crossroads for design research.
A science of Design, Designology must have its universe: Design.
If we pick a certified science like Biology, the universe is clear: all
life forms. And, since we are in the Earth, we can define that universe as
the biosphere. So we can state, at the moment, that there is a
designosphere (and objects that, ocasionaly, gets out from it like Mars
probes). The artificialosphere contains the designosphere like the
biosphere contains the zoosphere. So we can state that the constituents of
the designosphere are those wich are manifestations of a design process.
This may seem a circular thoutght but we'll get out of it.
A certified science needs, also, an object. And the object of biology is
knowing how life works. Biology studies objects wich are present in the
biosphere in order to know how life works.
So the study of objects from the artificialosphere, if submited to the
principle of "how design works", will define a designoshere.
So the designosphere may be defined as the number of objects wich can be
studied to know how Design works. This is equivalent to say that the
universe of Designology are the features present in objects that can be
related to the process of Design.
A certified science needs a certified methodology. There must be something
that separates the work of a farmer from the work of a biologist. The
farmer will use technics and technologies and hints and feelings to obtain
results. The biologist will use quantifiable experimental methods to
obtain explanations. This explanations must be subjected to peer review
and tested to be scientificaly accepted.The farmer will be measured by the
success of his production. Farmers will use biology's knowledge
transformed in technics but they will never admit that their success is
due to that fact. They will refer to previous knowledge, hard work, hints
and intuition and "art" as the reasons for their success.
As a former Designer (architect)I couldn't recall the inumerous science
information I've used. I recall the pleasure of coming to what I founded
to be the best solution for a riddle. I've allways atributed that
to "artistic" ability. As a design researcher (a designologist),I'm very
concerned with came up with explanations that can be useful to those that
will engage in design processes. The accuracy of methods is much more
demanding since knowing, in an extent that we are able to explain, is more
difficult than just show (build, produce, etc). Having this conscience
leads to multidisciplinary aproaches not because the various disciplines
results are usefull but because we must understand and aply methods for
explanations. This is only possible by working in depth with people from
the other scientific disciplines.As designers, we just pick up results,
formated knowledge, that could be helpfull to solve the design riddle.
Life allways moves in mysterious ways and finds its way regardless of
Biology like Design will move regardless of designology.
So, why promote a "Designology"?
The answer is simple. Someone must set the discrete basis in wich
intuition and art will work seting the final decisions.The ideal place for
this is University since we can find the "other guys" to work with and
since we have inprisioned people (students) to explain things and able to
take avantage of what they learn.
Another answer, more complicated, is that a designology will help to mend
the fracture between arts and sciences carateristc to modern men. But that
is matter for another story.
Best from Lisbon
Eduardo
|