Dear Chuk,
You are absolutely right when recalling that, in times of turbulent change, like any other living organism, institutions do also bustle about in building up a self identity as required by new situations.
In addition to examples cited in your post below, another case worth reporting is that of the Faculte de l'Amenagement at l'Universite de Montreal.
In a personal conversation just a few months before his recent passing away, I asked the late Dean Guy Desbarats about the conceptual origins of the name of the Faculty he founded during the reshuffling days in late 60s. He told me how he battled to impose his francophone vision of the field of "design" (the first francophone teaching institution in North America), against all those who, in those days, didn't bother investing much energy in thinking. (It seems - Re Jacques Giard's post on 01/04/2007 - till today, many among our colleagues aren't yet prepared to such an intellectual investment! Alas!).
In the anglo-saxon tradition, the conceptual vagueness under the vehicular term "design" does not seem to bother many... as long as the work of "designing" (??) is done! In the francophone perspective, Dean Desbarats coined instead the word "aménagement", by which he meant to convey the foundational notion of our profession, that of giving form to space, in every one of all the imaginable embodiments.
So, just like any other living organism, sub-field in "Design" and corresponding academic as well as practice institutions may all bear distinct names, and there may be as many names (thus far over 500, according to Ken and Terry?) as needed. Merely cultural and strategic features.
The most crucial issue confronting us now rather is, in my view, first to agree among ourselves on what precisely we do when "designing". For my part and in total accord with Dean Guy Desbarats, I submit that either conceptually or practically, we all do nothing else than just embodying space, in any given material or immaterial content. That is what you call an "open discipline of 'design'"
If the above suggested concept is accepted and adhered to, then a second stage for a professional group inevitably engaged in a "transformative practice" (Re the book I reviewed in Design Research Newsletter, November 2006) would be to strive, through all means available (including "design" research, and a wide range of names, if strategically justified) to make it known and accepted as valuable our contribution to the betterment of society.
Best wishes to every one!
Francois
Montreal
-----Message d'origine-----
De : PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] De la part de Charles Burnette
Envoyé : Sunday, January 07, 2007 3:44 PM
À : [log in to unmask]
Objet : Re: Beyond Definitions, was Industrial Design
> Ken, Nicola, and others
>
> It is notable that schools have migrated toward names that capture their sense
of changing mission and understanding of what is possible in the future; for
example, The School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania has become the School of Design; The Museum School of Industrial Arts (1876-1988) has become the University of the Arts in which industrial design struggles for identity as a discipline in the College of Art and Design.
>As others have noted, names such as industrial design cue perceptual categories and ways of interpreting them. They carry many entailments. Professions also work to identity and promote what they do even to the point of segregating themselves into self protecting niche cultures with a non inclusive world view in which one must conform to the cultural norms or become licensed by the state in order to belong. Where risks are high and competence must be assured, as in architecture and engineering, this makes some sense but when the state also controls what gets built through codes and peer review, such licensing is no longer really needed. I believe that everyone should be known simply as designers and have to prove the worthiness of their designs against standards of performance rather than codes of practice and bureaucracies that restrict innovation. How an open discipline of "design" could come about remains to be seen.
>Best regards,
>Chuck
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