Bonjour Jacques!

Right on, "our lexicon is a starting point".
The lexicon issue related to what we do has been a major concern for me,
since when, in the early 70s, I switched from an Anglophone design milieu
to a Francophone one, and from a rather fine art/artisan set up to a
University more or less integrated program. And up to know, I am still
bothered by the double confusion.

Even in the Francophone milieu, the clarity of the French term,
'conception' is often obscured by the vague (i.e. multiple nuances), and
yet trendy English word, 'design'. And in the Anglophone context, this last
term connotes more of fine arts/artisan, while 'conception', in French, is
more related to University level of elaboration/testing/proving of
concepts.

True, those involved in both milieux, Francophone and Anglophone and their
world cultural extensions, they undoubtedly are all concerned with "making"
things. Traditionally, however, they differ when the Anglophones are more
prone to 'making' without prior much elaborated concepts, while the
Francophone will indulge more into concept elaboration with little related
'making' to somehow substantiate those elaborations.

Obviously, nowadays and in a more and more complex world culture, there is
a need for a well balanced and clear notion of what we do as a profession,
a profession anchored on clear 'concepts' expressed into 'sensible spatial
models'. This, in order to claim more credibility, relevance, and
exclusivity.

Perhaps, indeed we should even drop the worldwide used, and yet culturally
biased term, 'design'; and eventually replaced it with a term or terms
expressing more accurately and more expressively what we all, Anglophones,
Francophones, and all others, wish to be doing: rigorously thinking and
making iteratively.

Salutations cordiales!

Francois
Kigali




On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Jacques Giard <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
​(...)​

>  The challenge, however, is in communication. The university has its way
> of doing things; so does design. To be effective, we therefore need to find
> a point where we can reconcile our differences. As minor as it first
> appears to be, our lexicon is a starting point.
> ​(...)​
>
>
>


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