Yes, dear Terry!
In addition to profesionalization, acountability, and training, there also
is (I would say even more importantly) the image we ourselves portray in
public that, in my view, is too reductive and not at all to our advantage.
Especially, while negotiating with our direct and indirect commissioners to
give shape to the artifactual environment. As long as we, designers, (in
general, with a few exceptions) keep confining ourselves within the group of
"creative" members of society (artists and crafts/studio people), we simply
are no longer entitled to dealing with that thick complexity that surround
us all. We can no longer pretend to generate 'boundedly rational choices'
leading to 's*atisficing* decisions' (dixit Simon) or solutions.
Even in your example of heating a room, the situation is not that simple.
Indeed, beyond mere mechanical or electronical manipulation of the appliance
- outcome of providing heat in a 'simple feedback loop' - and prior to
invoke ( in my judicial metaphor, I prefer 'summon to appear' ) the entire
world to heating a room, the situation you evoke is so complex when all
(human and non human), directly and indirectly concerned are considered in
their potential, various and multiple feedback loops. And what about the
outcomes of heating on animals that may be in the room, how are they
affected by low, medium, or high heat? On young children and elderly people?
On plants? On a trendy wall paper? On a highly sensitive computer? On the
varnish on the floor and on furniture or the paint on walls? On the bill to
be paid? Heat in which room? When? In a hospital? Or in a restaurant? And I
don't leave aside the outcomes resulting from heating the room, on the long
run, on copper wire, on walling material, isolation, thermostat sensors
knobs, heat diffusers, etc., etc.
All this hints to another 'obvious - but 'complicated', and hence rarely
tackled - solution pathway' through complexity: to learn how to set - and
deal with - boundaries among all those concerned with any given situation.
Among the few - the list can be extended to most pertinent limits - examples
given above, at which range of priority each will be 'rationally' set on the
scale of providing heat to a particular place?
We are here very far from mere 'creativity', caftsmanship, and
droughtsmanship. By the way, please don't get me wrong, these aptitudes and
skills are very important and absolutely necessary. But each for a
corresponding purpose, and at respective specific stages in the disigning
process. Complexity often breeds confusion. And confusion, in my view, is
the plague that our profession suffers most.
Thus, very far from simplistic or simplified (narrowly modeled) design
situations, or far from those situations perceived as complicated or those
labeled 'chaotic' and 'unknown', I believe there is a need for a 'science'
rather. I would even make it more precise: a need for a transdisciplinary
science of the artifactual world!
Francois
Montreal
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