Hi Klaus,
Good to hear from you. How are you going?
As you know, I reviewed several hundred definitions of design and design
process and found a very wide variety in how people used the terms. I also
provided some analysis on the advantages and disadvantages of different
approaches to defining 'design'. These are published in my book 'Social,
Ethical and Environmental Factors in Engineering Design Theory: A
Post-positivist Approach available from Praxis Education
(www.praxiseducation.com ) and now in its 2nd edition.
Some approaches to defining design are better than others. Some are so broad
as to define design as almost anything (and hence define nothing), and some
are so tight that they exclude many areas that are already well established
as design activities. Some confuse the design with the thing that is
manufactured. There are many problems.
I first came across the definition of 'a design' as having a 'primary role
as part of a legal agreement' at La Clusaz where John Gero presented it on
the second day. You were there if I remember right?
Mulling it over later, I realised that this view is useful, powerful and
clarifying for design research, design theory and design practice - although
as an alternative approach, the thought of it seems to upset some design
theorists who are wedded to more traditional definitions of design, most of
which I'd found didn't appear to stand up to critical review.
The usefulness and power of centralising the legal role of 'a design' is
that it offers a bunch of really useful ways of separating som eof the muddy
concepts of design theory. It offers a great way to distinguish design from
art; to separate out design activity from creativity in general; to
separate engineering design from engineering analysis, to separate
communication, cognition, intuition and creativity in design; and tpo
address a host of other issues.
It also, incidentally, offers the basis for distinguishing between the
ideas of design and innovation.
Thoughts?
Best wishes,
Terry
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Dr. Terence Love
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-----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 Klaus
Krippendorff
Sent: Friday, 23 May 2008 1:49 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Design - Innovation
terry,
so you see the designer as a draftsman or specification writer working
within a legal contract. and for you good design is one that complies with
legal expectations and bad design that violates legal expectation. since
this is a novel way to define design, do i understand you right?
klaus
-----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 Terence
Love
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 11:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FW: Design - Innovation
Hi Lars,
One very simple yet powerfully useful distinction is that 'a design' is a
component of a legal contract describing the detail of part of an agreed
arrangement. A design specifies how something is to be done. The activity of
designing, design practice, is simply producing 'designs' that have this
legal role. That is also the primary difference betrween 'good' designs and
'bad' designs. They provide a response to a brief that will stand up to
legal scrutiny as a component of a contract.
Best regards,
Terry
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