Hi John

thanks for your post and the discussions that it has triggered. i have a few
thoughts. but before them, i would like to acknowledge the senior players in
Design Methodology and ask you to tolerate my think-aloud comments:

1
i once asked john chris jones if there was any woman in the "Conference on
Design Methods" in 1962, his answer was regrettably no. so i am impressed by
john's proposal. it is the closest to feminist ideas that i have come cross in
Design Methodology. having said that, as many of us know, emancipatory approach
to designing has been taken up in the 60s/70s in Scandinavia in the field of
computer human interaction. (maybe our friend Pelle Ehn would so kindly add his
voice to this discussion). i wonder if connections can be made between John's
proposals and (let's say) Pelle's work or with Victor Margolin's 'social model
for design'.

2
with deep respect and appreciation for the work that has been achieved in Design
Methodology, i state that Design Methodolgy needs to move (or evolve) toward
Philosophy of Design. and i must add that it has already been moving to this
direction, as the special issue on philosophy in 'Design Studies' attests. so i
will only have this to say:

if we look at the system (or structure) of inquiry in the social sciences, there
are epistemology, theoretical perspectives, methodologies and tools/techniques.
in Design Methdology, there seems to be missing the first two domains. so i am
excited that john's design methodology is connected with evolutionary systems
thinking. having said that, i feel that a philosophy of design needs to go
beyond epistemology.

as many of you have taught me, designing is making or making real. in other
words designing, as Tony Fry has said, is in the domain of ontology. that means,
a philosophy of design is a philosophy of being. and to me, that is a philosophy
of morals.

maybe?

best regards, rosan



John Broadbent wrote:

> Hi Rosan,
>
> I have just been spending time reading up on participatory action
> research(PAR) from an evolutionary systems perspective. This is seen as
> an 'emancipatory' methodology, and has been widely used as such in the
> developing world to sensitise and organise the oppressed to respond to
> their circumstances. I am yet to find out whether the approach is a
> sustainable one. Emancipation from an oppressive situation is fine, but
> it takes place in a wider environment with layered and diverse forms of
> oppression - in some ways it is like 'jumping out of the frying pan into
> the fire'. So, can we make sense of this wider environment to the
> extent that our immediate actions take place within a wider framework of
> understanding? The answer, as I see it, is yes but only partially.
> Perhaps the extent of our understanding can be increased by a stronger
> appreciation, and application, of the evolutionary patterns which many
> intuitively see in the world around them. While these comments derive
> immediately from my readings of PAR, I have long held that they also
> have much wider relevance to all the design activities of humans.
>
> I hold the view that design methodologies based on evolutionary systems
> thinking have the potential to let us function more effectively in the
> totality of our complex environments, rather than small parts of it. It
> is part of the move from reductionism to holism(systemism) which many
> others in the newsgroup have discussed before. I believe that this
> thinking is now moving out of its ivory towers into practice, although I
> feel we can but dimly perceive the potential it can offer us. That is
> what 'fifth generation methodologies' are about.
>
> For those still perplexed, I hope to have my paper 'An evolutionary view
> of participatory action research' written before month's end, and would
> be very happy to share it with those interested.
>
> Best wishes,
> John
>
> Rosan Chow wrote:
>
> > dear john and others
> >
> > thanks for your post. i think your work is important and when taken
> > seriously and 'applied' carefully (far much more than what I have
> > done), it can really be a robust framework for design practice.
> > however, i have a concern thus a comment.
> >
> > one of the serious criticisms that i often heard of 'design
> > methodology' is that it is an academic activity, disconnected from
> > design practice. if we are the fifth generation of design reseachers,
> > how might we do better?
> >
> > best regards, rosan.
> >
> >
>
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