As an observer of students' thinking development (i.e., their ability to
think inclusively and systemically about design problems), may I offer
two
thoughts:
On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 10:22 PM, Ranjan MP <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
"For me, Rosans' call for "Projection before Analysis" somehow rings
true
since it corresponds with much of my experiences as a practicing
designer
and as a design teacher who has watched his students grapple with
extremely
difficult and complex design challenges here in India over the past 40
years
of my experience. Dreams and impractical visions dealing with possible
solutions for seemingly intractable problems in India provide the
initial
motivations."
I have come across an article (I am in the country side so don't have
the
references with me) which I suggested the Business Studies in Design
lecturer use as an example of entrepreneurship. It concerns a farmer in
England (a
natural 'designer'?) who had a real problem with calves either orphaned
or
rejected by their mothers, hence a feeding problem: so many hands, so
many
hours in the day, so many mouths (literally) to feed. Solution? Design
and
make a mechanical cow mother. Practical problems: farmer not a designer,
and
not a business man - but the main ingredients for a solution were
already
present in the problem space, i.e., many calves to feed. The farmer
enlisted
the help of a friend who knew about metal and welding, and as a team a
real-enough looking (to the calf) mother cow was designed and
manufactured -
giving not only milk on demand, but heated to the right temperature!
"This is akin to design led entrepreneurship" - is exactly what this
example
is about, and the kind of 'problem solving' which our students in Africa
also understand. Many of the 4th year students in Industrial Design are
entrepreneurial-minded, and come up with real life solutions in this way
that are 'market-ready'.
"The second aspect that I sympathise with is Rosan's act of summarising
her
readings from the seminal texts of Rittel and Nelson and attributing
this to
the spirit of the author and not the specific quotes by the author as an
argument for or against an idea as if it has been proposed by that
author."
I have to support Rosan and Prof Ranjan in this - since my own thesis is
that a theory for design is not the traditional theory for method (i.e.,
a
theory of knowledge) but a theory for thinking (i.e., a theory of
knowing).
I would recommend that people read this article by Bruno Latour and Adam
Lowe:
www.bruno-*latour*.fr/articles/article/108-ADAM-FACSIMILES-AL-BL.pdf<http://www.bruno-latour.fr/articles/article/108-ADAM-FACSIMILES-AL-BL.pdf>
... which explains how the aura (authenticity) of the original (text)
can be
migrated, as it were, to the "copy" which in fact becomes the new
"original"
- so it is with ideas that are sparked by the writings of e.g., Rittel
et
al., I can reference the original authors, and even quote a few lines of
just a few words, but they may have a tenuous link to my new idea, and
yet I
have to acknowlegde who inspired that idea, and in all honesty, for me
at
that moment, my reading of the "original" does link strongly enough with
the
first author to claim that their work contained the material from which
my
idea grew (I will then be writing more about what the material made me
think
of and not what I imagine the author was thinking) ... even if a number
of
other influences came in between ... an author does not own the
possibilities inherent in the text for the reader, a text that must be
interpreted creatively and not read as if the aura of the original must
not
be breached.
I am of course not talking about work that is practical-based, i.e.,
formulaic.
Johann
Johann van der Merwe
HOD: Research, History & Theory of Design
Faculty of Informatics and Design
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
South Africa
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