Dear Mitch,
Thank you for your post. I enjoyed reading it.,
As I've said before, its pragmatically much clearer and easier to define design as a process of making a 'design' I.e. as in a 'design' is a specification for making or doing something (usually by others). This works much better in theory terms and in terms of defining the boundaries of Design as a discipline or field than trying to define design as a verb.
Ken seriously objects to this and I can also understand why in terms of the history of development of the term, Design from its origins in the 14th century, but less so from its use in the Middle East and Afghanistan in the Middle Ages by Sufis.
However, putting the history aside, defining design as an activity, as in making a 'design' that is a specification of something, really resolves almost all of the problems around the boundaries of design as a discipline as well as most theory problems in design theory - for that I think it is worth considering.
In politics, defining design activity as 'making a design' makes things much easier. Do politicians create the 'design' for policy or do they simply provide inputs for someone else to create a 'design' for a policy. I suggest the latter.
And, as an side, designing policy was part of the design education in Engineering Design at Lancaster University in the 1970s...
Best regards,
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 Mitchell Sipus
Sent: Friday, 3 February 2017 11:37 PM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Are politicians designers?
Ali,
You make a valid point on the disciplinary boundaries of design given the diffusion of design into very different territories such as politics. I understand why politics appears new territory... but with a little analysis, it also appears to be old territory.
I think we can agree that some kind of design process exists within all acts to implement political will. The Council of Westaphalia that established our modern global system of nation states was a design exercise. Later, in the Council of Berlin, these nation states then made a drawing of a new African state system, drawing borders that are retrospectively arbitrary, but at the time appeared rational in the eyes of the participating stakeholders (European colonialists). Marginalized populations who have sought revision to these borders to reflect ethnic concentrations <http://www.africafederation.net/Natural_Borders.htm> through acts of war, could be debated as pursuing a design process (now that would be a very interesting thread...). More recently, the nation building of Afghanistan is largest and most expensive design experiment in history. My friend and colleague Jan Willem Peterson recently received the Dutch Design Award for his extensive design research concerning Dutch participation in the Afghan reconstruction <http://dutchdesigndaily.com/complete-overview/uruzgans-legacy/>, it is impressive and excellent. This work was paid for by the Dutch military in an effort to better understand how to better design stability and statehood. I gotta say, when I first met him in Kabul, I was highly skeptical he could do what he sought out to do... and he nailed it.
Now recognizing that politics has long been integrated with design - why has it remained absent in design education? That is a bigger question. If we look at the multi-sided coin of politcal science history, it should be noted that the separation of political science and economics is a fairly recent deviation. Rather, a more holistic notion is political economy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy>, to study the dialectical interactions of politics and capitalism. Taking a Marxist perspective, the discipline of design is a social consequence of dialectical materialism. It is always a byproduct of human values within political economy and modes of material production.
Situated within the space of capitalism and production, design education has long aligned the practice of design with business needs, technology trends, and cultural expression. Yet for reasons I do no know (who does?), it has long ignored the political side of the coin. There are plenty of political acts and actors in design... but was there a foundations program anywhere in 1975 that taught students about dialectical materialism or neoliberal economics? t We see this in some programs today, but this is considered rather new and experimental. Yet notably this argument does not reflect all of the design spectrum - whereas urban planning is deeply engaged with the politics, but at the sacrifice of the material, products, and craft-driven problem solving.
So to wrap up in attending to your question - will design lose something by more deeply engaging politics? No. Not at all. Design has been there all along, but in an awkward fashion. The result is two levels of responsibility for us: we need to further diffuse design among those who are political so they can do it less badly (negating our general role), and also provide opportunities within education for designers to specialize within political sectors. Doctoral education could be a good place for this kind of specialization, but the 'how' is murky. One could state that this is merely the research problem to be pursued, or that the design process will yield the outcome, but if the stakes are high - as in the case of many political issues - this point of view is high risk among current
stakeholders. So then what?
Maybe we should ask "Deep Blue".
- Mitch
On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 5:44 AM, Johann van der Merwe < [log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Now then, Ken
> Can I still not compare you to Deep Blue (regarding deep memory)?
> Johann
>
> On 2 February 2017 at 23:50, Ken Friedman
> <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Dear Mauricio,
> >
> > Politicians become designers when they are elected. Once elected or
> > appointed as legislators, executives, members of the judiciary, or
> members
> > of the civil service, they are designers in the sense that Herbert
> > Simon defines design: “Everyone designs who devises courses of
> > action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.”
> >
> > Klaus Krippendorff points to the real challenge. When elected
> > politicians design, they design for complex multiple constituencies.
> > This is not the simple case of designing a preferred situation where
> > the designer works
> for
> > a single client. It involves designing toward ethical ends and good
> > outcomes for all stakeholders. The entire problem of the lobby
> > system or the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower
> > warned about in his farewell address is that small groups of the
> > wealthy and powerful
> gain
> > control over the process of design for public good, turning it
> > instead to private ends.
> >
> > There are, nevertheless, many examples of successful design for
> > public good. Organizations such as Policy Lab work on massive design
> > projects
> for
> > the UN. The World Bank now works with design. When we speak of
> politicians
> > as designers, we must also speak of those who design on behalf of
> political
> > leaders with agency distributed among the politicians and those whom
> > they employ and charge with execution.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Dr. Johann van der Merwe
> Independent Design Researcher
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD
> studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at
> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
