Thanks Ken, I must stress that I was not asking for extremely short statements just remarking that the existence of a recognised
shorthand label might indicated a shared purpose or inquiry.
Reading your statement I can't help distilling it down - if, by including the Herbert Simon quote, you are accepting it as a
description of designing than it seems that you are saying "The goal of design research is understanding how to design"
Now I don't buy that but I would buy "A goal of design research can be understanding how to design"
The Herbert Simonesque version is a bit limited for me since it privileges "the existing situation"
best
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: 17 February 2006 14:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Meta-inquiry of design research
Dear Chris,
Here is my short statement of design research framed in terms of meta-inquiry, the issues into which design research inquires:
"The goal of design research is understanding how to devise courses of action that will change existing situations into preferred
situations" (Friedman 2005a).
This short statement of the meta-inquiry of design derives from Herbert Simon's definition of design. To design is to "[devise]
courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones" (Simon 1982: 129). Using this definition does not
entail accepting any of Simon's specific views on the best way to do this.
The goal of research is to answer a question (Friedman 2005b). Since the challenge of design involves change from less preferred
situations to preferred situations, the meta-inquiry of design research is therefore:
"The goal of design research is understanding how to devise courses of action that will change existing situations into preferred
situations" (Friedman 2005a).
To be clear, this statement is not Herbert Simon's, but mine. The statement runs 21 words, but there are relatively few fields
that you can boil down to 4 words. It requires many more words to expand the statement to cover all possible design research
fields and the important sub-sets of inquiry that enable us to fill in information gaps that precede some of the steps toward any
larger goal.
The meta-inquiry of design research involves understanding HOW.
The meta-inquiry of design practice involves DOING IT, applying in practice what we learn from design research.
Best regards,
Ken
p.s. The proposal for a meta-inquiry here comes from my Copenhagen notes. I may have said something similar in a similar workwshop
at the Third International Conference on Design Research in Rio de Janeiro.
Reference
Friedman, Ken. 2005. "Research Writing Workshop." (Unpublished lecture notes.) Copenhagen, Denmark: Design Research Center, The
Royal Academy School of Architecture.
Friedman, Ken. 2005. "Research Writing Workshop." Master i Design 1:
Designprofessioner og Designroller Kompendium. Copenhagen, Denmark:
Design Research Center, The Royal Academy School of Architecture, 31-53.
Simon, Herbert. 1982. The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge,
Mass: MIT Press.
--
Ken Friedman
Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management
Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
+47 46.41.06.76 Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95 Tlf Privat
email: [log in to unmask]
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