Ken's defence of design history provides an additional insight that helps
unpack other aspects of the relationship between design education and
design history courses.
Looking through the list of publications Ken referred to, I realised how
many had been lumped under Design History when their disciplinary focus was
elsewhere. The result is a bit like studying the engineering design of
Ferrari in terms of what colour the cars were painted, or trying to
understand the paintings in the Louvre by studying the mechanics of how
well they are hung.
An example is Petrofski's work on design failures. The disciplinary homes of
Petroski's analyses seem mostly to be 'Organisational Design' and
'Cognition' (more accurately cognitive delusions perhaps) and reading them
requires drawing on theories and concepts of Organisational Systems Design,
Psychology and, to a lesser extent, Engineering - rather than Design
History. Applying the same kind of disciplinary categorisation also suggests
the work of Gordon, Pacey, and Don Norman would all benefit design
students more by being studied via courses and disciplinary perspectives
other than Design History. Taking a quick look through the essays in the
classic 'Man-made Futures: Readings in Society, Technology and Design' by
Nigel Cross, David Elliott and Robin Roy offers the same insights (Wow
that's a field with an acronym issue).
Another aspect of this 'category' issue is the opposite. Having Design
History analyses of complex interactions in historical phenomena involving
multiple feedback loops by which designed outputs interact in ways that
create *dynamic* outcomes in history would be really useful for advancing
the field of design. An example is the analyses described in Figs 1-36 in
http://www.oeaw.ac.at/byzanz/repository/Preiser_WorkingPapersIV_ComplexCrisi
s.pdf . These kinds of Design History analyses seem, however, to be sparse.
This ability to explain the historical behaviour of situations with complex
feedback loops would likely be a worthwhile contribution from Design
History to Design education. I'd welcome examples.
Best wishes,
Terence
==
Dr Terence Love
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
[log in to unmask]
+61 (0)4 3497 5848
==
Ken wrote>>
Arnold Pacey's (1992) history on the relation between technology, artifacts,
and the societies that emerged around them. One of the great works of design
history from the perspective of artifacts and how they work is J. E. Gordon
(2003 [1978]) Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down. Gordon's (2006
[1968]) book on strong materials is equally rich in examples, though it
leans more toward the basic science, as fits one of the founders of
materials science. Henry Petroski has published a range of books that fund
as design history (1994b), the history of designing (1992, 1994a), and
examinations of design and design process richly illustrated by historical
exemplars (1996, 2004, 2008, 2012).
And then, there is that great book of examples of how things work and fail
to work by Don Norman (2002 [1988]), whose long notes are always worth
reading.
|