Dear Matthias,
Please forgive the delay in my reply to your question. To answer this properly requires an article. I have set out to write such an article together with Pieter-Jan Stappers and some of the other members of the DesignX collaborative.
As I wrote earlier, this is more than old wine in new bottles. Any serious field that makes progress does so by a cumulative and patient process. This requires building on generations of work, and it often requires building on work from several disciplines and fields. In one sense, we have what people at the Helsinki Design Lab called “blazing a trail,” work that demonstrates and documents emerging practices. In another sense, we have different kinds of concept development, model making, and some theorising. These meet in empirical research and they allow us to test new ways of working in iterative practice.
The “X” in DesignX is a marker for something that doesn’t have a name and may never have one. Strategic design, transformative design, change design, systemic design, co-design, participatory design, and cross-disciplinary design meet in DesignX, along with systems thinking, complexity theory, and work from other fields.
As I wrote before, I agree with what Don Norman wrote in the follow-up paper titled “Why DesignX? The Role of Designers in Complex Problems.” You will find a copy of the paper in PDF format in the teaching documents section of my Academia page:
https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
Anyone who wishes to read the original DesignX statement will find it in Don’s LinkedIn Influencer column titled “DesignX. A New Future for Design.” This appears at:
http://tinyurl.com/designxstatement
If you wish to use a PDF version of the statement, it is available for download from the papers section of my Academia page:
https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
It will take four or five months to write a proper answer to your question. For now, I think Don has said as much as anyone can say in a short statement.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation with Tongji University Press | Launching in 2015
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
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Matthias Arvola wrote:
—snip—
We have a discussion right now on Twitter about DesignX, and it seems many think its just old wine in new bottles (me included). It seems to be a manifesto for design activism, transformative design, change design, systemic design, co- and participatory design, crossdisciplinary design. Work that has been going on for quite a few years. And now DesignX. I am just curious about whom you have written it for and why.
—snip—
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