Victor Margolin asked: “Is anyone familiar with the book or article
in which Herbert Read laid out the three types of research related to
art that Christopher Frayling references in his RCA paper on design
research?”


Dear Victor,

Herbert Read didn’t lay out three types of research. He proposed only
two issues, and he did not propose them for research, but rather for
teaching – teaching through art and teaching to art.” This appears
in Read’s (1944, 1974) book Education through Art.

This continuing confusion is an artifact of the ambiguous definition of
design research that Christopher Frayling (1993) proposed in a paper
suggesting three models of design research: research into design,
research by design, and research for design. Frayling was unclear about
what “research by design” actually means and he seems never to have
defined the term in an operational way. 

In a 1997 discussion (UK Council 1997: 21), Frayling notes that his
proposal was “distantly derived from Herbert Read’s famous teaching
through art and teaching to art.” This leads to serious conceptual
problems.

Read’s (1944, 1974) distinctions deal with education and with
pedagogy rather than research. The failure to distinguish between
pedagogy and research is a weak point in Frayling’s argument for the
concept of research by design. This weak point is part of the endless
debates on the notion of the practice-based Ph.D. It also creates
confusion for those who now believe that practice is research. 

Frayling’s proposal seems to be have been an effort to establish
possible new research categories. As an inquiry or probe, this was a
worthy effort. The problem arises among those who mistake an
intellectual probe with a statement of fact. To suggest that such a
category is possible does not mean that it exists, nor that it has
merit. Beyond this arises the problem of what “research by design”
might mean. If the category of research by design is valid –it may be,
and it may not – the fact that there is such a category tells us
nothing of its contents.

There is necessarily a rich relationship between the practice of any
profession and the research approaches and methods that support and
inform the profession. I had the opportunity to hear Ikujiro Nonaka
speak recently in Helsinki, and the way he linked practice and research,
theory and engagement was quite refreshing. The problem we face is that
rather than accept an overlap of reasonable but sometimes fuzzy fields
of inquiry, research, and practice, people have been making a model that
doesn’t seem to work well, endlessly citing and repeating Frayling’s
triad. The fact that the triad came up early in the conversation means
that it has been quoted again and again, giving rise to a Matthew
effect.

Frayling did not make appropriate use of Read’s distinctions. In
adapting the surface structure of Read’s terms, he failed to realize a
distinction that is implicit in Read’s project. This is the fact that
we educate professional practitioners though the direct practice of an
art. 

This involves socialization and modeling in guild training. It is the
basis of apprenticeship (Friedman 1997: 55, 61-65; Byrne, and Sands
2002). 

In many situations, education and learning proceed by practicing an art
or craft. One can also learn the art and craft of research by practicing
research. Nevertheless, one does not undertake research simply by
practicing the art or craft to which the research field is linked. 

Best regards,

Ken

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
Dean, Faculty of Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia


References

Byrne, Bryan, and Ed Sands. 2002. “Designing Collaborative Corporate
Cultures.” In Creating Breakthrough Ideas, Bryan Byrne and Susan E.
Squires, editors. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. [In
press.]

Frayling, Christopher. 1993. Research in Art and Design. RCA Research
Papers, vol. 1, no. 1. London: Royal College of Art.

Friedman, Ken. 1992. Strategic design taxonomy. Oslo: Oslo Business
School.

Friedman, Ken. 1996. What Designers Need to Know for the Twenty-first
Century. Norwegian Industrial Design Society. Lecture delivered at the
Institute for Industrial Design, Oslo. 

Friedman, Ken. 1997. “Design Science and Design Education.” In The
Challenge of Complexity. Peter McGrory, ed. Helsinki: University of Art
and Design Helsinki, 54-72.

Read, Herbert. 1944. Education through Art. London: Faber and Faber.

Read, Herbert. 1974. Education through Art. Third revised edition. New
York: Pantheon Books.

UK Council for Graduate Education. 1997. Practice-Based Doctorates in
the Creative and Performing Arts and Design Workshop. Coventry: UK
Council for Graduate Education.