Hi Terry,
Thanks for your reaction.
Buchanan argued that design categories such as graphic design, industrial design, architecture should be reinterpreted by places of invention that include signs, objects, actions, and thought. All designers move among these places of inventions. Placements are diverse changing patterns without boundaries. Placements orient design thinking but, instead of frameworks, help to create new possibilities.
He argued that placements explain intuitive and non-linear thinking in design. “[W]hen a designer's conceptual placements become categories of thinking, the result can be mannered imitations of an earlier invention that are no longer relevant to the discovery of specific possibilities in a new situation”. (p.13). He also said that the “doctrine of placements” needs further study.
I am not sure how placements could be the basis for developing design theory because a placement is actually opposite to a framework. My question is how to do design research if we incorporate the “doctrine of placements”. I understand that one of the aims of research is coming up with frameworks/models/theories/principles. Thus, is it possible a design theory since the practice is based on placements? I do not have an answer for that. I might have some misunderstanding of Buchanan’s ideas.
Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked Problems in Design Thinking. Design Issues , 8 (2), 5-21.
G. Mauricio Mejía
http://mejia.disenovisual.com
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