I would like to add one point — from an outsiders perspective — on what Victor just wrote.
I have had — as people who read this may know — some continued concerns with "design research" and how that research is actually mobilized as an asset in designing (artifacts and services, though also in my case, policies). My problem lies in the validity of the claims that are being made, and used to guide designers in creating solutions to problems. But more on that another time …
However, something that designers always bring to the table (and those who are older, more experienced, and have a depth of historical insight do better) is the capacity to make analogies between a project challenge we face, and how such a challenge has been addressed (well or badly) in the past by others.
That is, history becomes more than context, though of course it is also context. It is also the data set from which new ideas can be formed in light of the challenges of the present.
Now: There are tremendous challenges to making good analogies that are applicable because there is always a challenge in generalizing from the particular, and particularizing from the general. However, designers I work with are best when they have a rich understanding of case history, and an understanding of the socio-cultural systems (i.e. discourses) that enabled or militated against certain certain solutions to a design challenge.
Sometimes designers are helpful, not because of what they can do, but simply because of what they know. And knowing what not to do is always a value-added in trying to choose what to do.
It is no small thing to be able to say, "Yeah, we've seen this before. I probably wouldn't try that solution if I were you …"
d.
_________________
Dr. Derek B. Miller
Director
The Policy Lab®
321 Columbus Ave.
Seventh Floor of the Electric Carriage House
Boston, MA 02116
United States of America
Phone
+1 617 440 4409
Twitter
@Policylabtweets
Web
www.thepolicylab.org (http://www.thepolicylab.org/)
This e-mail includes proprietary and confidential information belonging to The Policy Lab, Ltd. All rights reserved.
On Friday, August 24, 2012 at 8:10 AM, Victor Margolin wrote:
> Terry:
> In response to your post I will first of all withdraw the appellation of 'scholar' and recognize your expertise in the areas of design, research, and entrepreneur etc. as you describe it. Second, I'll start with your last paragraph and question the assumptions you make about the relation of what you call design failures and design history. To my mind, one has nothing to do with the other. No one ever said that design history was a substitute for design methodology or project reasoning. So, to get to your initial questions:
> Design history, in my opinion, does have the or a central role in design education but it has an integral role and I believe it always will and should have. What does design history contribute to the formation of a designer?
> 1: It provides a context for socializing a student into a design profession. The student learns about different appproaches to design, different desired outcomes, ways that designers have seen design in relation to their own social or political beliefs and most important the student sees that design history is made by designers working within varied sets of possibilities for designing.
> 2) Students become literate in terms of knowing what has been designed and being able to discuss design projects of the past. Students learn to think critically about designs, to evaluate them, both past and present, and to form value criteria for their own work based on assessments of what has been done in the past.
> 3) Students can find and identify work from the past that they like and that may form a basis for work they want to do themselves.
> 4) Students become literate in terms of knowing something about design and its history.
> 5) Students understand that design practice is embedded in value systems, whether their own or someone else's. Design does not happen in a vacuum and always has social consequences.
> Design history does not teach students how to design but it informs designing a a source of aesthetic and ethical value judgments. As I don't teach design, I don't know what any design teachers would use design history for instrumentally.
> Design, like most subjects, can be taught without any history but then you are training people who may know how to achieve results instrumentally but may not know how to give them value nor may they know how to build on precedents to create something in the present.
> The basic point I want to make is that if we agree that design is a cultural practice (and we may not agree on this), then the ability to work within a framework with an historical dimension is crucial. Living in history, I believe, is a cultural trait. Living ahistorically is living without a cultural reference. if you want to argue that cultural literacy is of no or little value, then I recognize your argument and will let it stand to be evaluated as such.
> Victor
>
> Victor Margolin
> Professor Emeritus of Design History
> Department of Art History
> University of Illinois, Chicago
>
>
|