Dear Arjun,
You raise the issue of the academic/practice divide in design:
*The professional practice of design did not evolve into an academic
discipline. They are two different things. A PhD in design doesn’t a
designer make. Rather, designers are made in studio—that crucible core to
virtually all professional design programs.The difference in these pathways
isn’t a a matter of level of advancement or evolution, but of purpose. The
academic inquiry of/into design may have evolved from studying things to
studying humanity, but the practice of design has never been about studying
anything. Studying—the work of inquiry, the work of academic disciplines—is
work aimed at acquiring knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge is vital, but
the practice of design is not aimed at the acquisition of knowledge. It is
a practice of shaping. It is aimed at creation—at stewarding the emergence
of something new and valuable into the world.*
While I agree — up to a point — with the essence of what you describe
above, I would nevertheless like to suggest that design is also a form of
enquiry. A design project might not be aimed at acquiring knowledge for its
own sake, but it results in something new (a material or immaterial
artefact) and the process of generating this new thing generates new
knowledge as well (and ‘evidence’ for best practices?)
To design is an act of enquiry into the material world, and the studio is
(also) a place of study, research, training, and learning.
A possible way to bridge the gap you identify between academia and practice
could be to identify what kind of knowledge results from designing and what
tools (e.g. drawing) and procedures are used to gather this knowledge; and
can this knowledge be clearly identified, systematised and transferred?
At this point the discussion turns from evidence-based design to research
through design (even though I find RTD a somewhat redundant expression
since design already implies research). This subject has been discussed on
this list before; Ken Friedman has persuasively argued that academic
research requires a specific set of necessary and sufficient conditions to
be considered research; I suspect that it is possible for a design project
to maintain its fundamental characteristics and still meet the requirements
to be considered research.
But I’m not ready to thoroughly argue that case (yet).
On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 7:04 AM, Gjoko Muratovski <[log in to unmask]
> wrote:
> Dear Klaus,
>
> Yes, I am fully aware of the etymological meaning and the long history of
> design. That is why I said 'contemporary history' - so I can keep the story
> short :)
>
> I understand the points that you are making and I just want to clarify
> that I am not proposing that everyone should drop whatever they are doing
> and start using evidence-based design. There are many other ways that
> people can study and practice design and it's great to have such diversity.
> There are many times when we all learn from each other, simply because we
> do have different perspectives to offer. And, for the record, I am not only
> interested in evidence-based design. I also do lots of work in the field of
> material and consumer culture. For example, I have another book - 'Consumer
> Culture: Selected Essays' coming out in March (published by Intellect Books
> and the University of Chicago Press). All of the work that I do in this
> area is purely theoretical and it's a more of a social criticism than
> anything else. So, do have broad interests and I do like to keep an open
> mind.
>
> My point about evidence-based design was same like Don's - there are
> particular projects that call for this type of approach.
>
> Gjoko
>
>
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--
*João Ferreira*
00351 967089437
0031 0619808750
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