Hi Francois,
Thanks for your continuing interest. I'm happy to know you are alive!
You know how some languages make it easier to think about some aspects of life more easily than other languages do?
One way to think of mathematics is as a language that enables one to think about incredibly complex and abstract things very easily - or for practical real situations, to be able to address many more complicated and complex aspects of them much more easily than by normal language and thinking.
I'm not talking about the kind of maths taught at school, but something very different.
It's not absolutely necessary to write everything in mathematical expressions and symbols.
It is possible to write exactly the same in normal language. The problem is that what is simple and easy to think using mathematical language becomes quite difficult to think and write about when expressed in everyday language.
Here is a design research paper about some complex aspects of how power shapes design and how to resist it effectively (the same approach would work about gender and other forms of oppression). For the research, the ideas were developed mathematically but in the paper were expressed wholly in English without the mathematical language.
http://www.love.com.au/docs/2007/TL&TC-digecosys.pdf
A second aspect of this paper is it describes an approach to addressing three particular classes of 'wicked problem'.
Maybe a more interesting way of looking at the same is
http://www.love.com.au/docs/2007/ANZSYS07-5-Ashby.pdf
Another paper was a mathematical approach developed with a PhD student in high fashion knitwear design. The mathematics is from the original 'Design Theory' i.e that of the field of mathematical combinatorics.
The paper is: Yang, S and Love, T. (2009) Designing Shape-shifting of Knitwear by Stitch Shaping Combinatorics: A simple mathematical approach to developing knitwear silhouettes efficaciously. IASDR Conference 2009: Design / Rigor & Relevance, Seoul: International Association of Societies of Design Research and the Korean Society for Design [pdf 185Kb]
http://www.love.com.au/docs/2009/SY&TL-IASDR.pdf
Another paper used mathematics from non-linear control theory as applied to identifying the limits of ability of designers and users to understand complex design situations. A secondary aspect of the paper was the use of mathematical set theory to identify that there exists a conceptual gap in design research relating to design methodology and design guidelines (this is much the same idea Don has also referred to in a keynote).
The paper is Love, T. (2010). Design Guideline Gap and 2 Feedback Loop Limitation: Two issues in Design and Emotion theory, research and practice. In J. Gregory, K. Sato & P. Desmet (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th Design and Emotion Conference 2010 Blatantly Blues. Chicago: Institute of Design and Design and Emotion Society
http://www.love.com.au/docs/2010/Des-guide-gap-2feedbackloop.pdf
Another is some mathematics and design research applied together (similar to the above paper) expressing not only the limitations of designers perceptions but also the delusions that occur that give all of us (designers or not) the illusion that we do not have such limitations to our understanding and creativity. The paper is: Love, T. (2010). Can you feel it? Yes we can! Human Limitations in Design Theory (invited plenary). Paper presented at the CEPHAD 2010 conference.
http://www.love.com.au/docs/2010/CEPHAD-feeling-delusion.pdf
The benefits of using mathematics seems to be that one can go into more complex aspects of design research more easily. Currently, I'm working on the design of crime prevention through environmental design strategies and new cyber-crime prevention approaches. Mathematical approaches seem to offer the same benefits in these areas, i.e new theories in complex areas and identifying weaknesses in existing theories.
I'm hoping this answers your question a little more at least...
I'm happy to apply it to flowers if you feel it might be of any benefit :-)
Warm regards and many thanks.
Keep safe,
Terry
==
Dr Terence Love
FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI, MAISA
Director
Design Out Crime & CPTED Centre
Perth, Western Australia
[log in to unmask]
www.designoutcrime.org
+61 (0)4 3497 5848
==
ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Francois Nsenga
Sent: Thursday, 2 February 2017 3:17 PM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: A question about the history of Design Research
Terry,
Just a reminder:
You say below: "it would be helpful if that kind of advanced Maths was taught more in design schools.... "
I am still very much interested to learn how to introduce maths in Design teaching curricula.
Years ago you told me it would take you more time to elaborate than what what you can spare now. Please, whenever an opportunity arises, just drop me a hint.
Warm regards,
Francois
On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 3:22 AM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Don,
>
> Thinking a little more on the history of design research and design
> research methods....
>
> Of course, long before Engineering Design and Art and Design
> developed, was Design Theory in Mathematics and its research methods
> stretching back to Pythagoras and before. Mathematics of course was
> the earliest user of the term 'Design Theory' of any design field and
> still provides a tremendous basis for thinking about difficult design situations.
> The Arab scientists of the Middle Ages were especially strong on
> research to build design theory.
>
> As I've said before it would be helpful if that kind of advanced Maths
> was taught more in design schools.... :-)
>
> In art and design and engineering design it was the basis of Gestalt
> and, Function/Attribute methods, Morphological analysis and other
> design methods.
>
> For more info see for example http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~
> pjc/design/resources.html
>
> Cheers,
> Terry
>
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