I have been following the discussion about Theories of Design with great
interest. It may be a little late to join in the discussion but I hope to
be able to add some information of interest.

As an architect engaged in both practice and research over the years I have
an interest in design theory from the perspective of my own field. And
surely there has been an interesting development in architectural design
theory over the years. However, I think that theory within my own field as
well as other design disciplines has had lacking support from philosophy.
As far as I know, professional philosophers have not shown as much interest
in the philosophy of technology as in the philosophy of science. According
to my understanding, a generic theory of design would be part of a
philosophy of technology, and therefore could use the support of a more
developed generic philosophical framework.

Therefore it was a great pleasure when I almost 15 years ago learned to
know Mario Bunge's "Treatise on Basic Philosophy" (Reidel). What especially
interested me at the time was systems theory since I, during my thesis
work, was searching for generic concepts that could be useful for a
designer in order to describe the built environment as an object for
design. At the time, systems theory had for long been a candidate for
providing a generic framework for the design disciplines, but never really
succeded. Bunge's contribution in this respect was to integrate the systems
concept with his philosophy, as a central concept in ontology. Since the
"Treatise" encompasses semantics, ontology and epistemology, the systems
concept is therefore put in a place where it has natural relations to other
generic concepts like meaning, property and knowledge.

I think it would be rewarding to see Bunge's Treatise, especially his
section on the philosophy of technology (vol 7:II), as a contribution to,
or framework for, a generic theory of design. According to Bunge,
technology may be conceived as "the scientific study of the artificial" or
if preferred "the field of knowledge concerned with designing artifacts and
planning their realization, operation, adjustment, maintenance, and
monitoring, in the light of scientific knowledge". Bunge critisizes
traditional engineering to be "focused on the artifact, overlooking
environmental and social constraints". He advocates a "systemic" approach
to technological design and planning and reminds that "a) every artifact is
a system to be embedded in a natural and social environment, and to be
operated by members of a social organisation, and b) a design or plan is
defective if it overlooks any of the three features of any system: its
composition, environment or structure (both internal and external)".

Commenting on Simon's vision in The Sciences of the Artificial, Bunge
states that "given the large variety of design problems, it is doubtful
that a unified 'science of design', capable of tackling any design problem
- as imagined by Simon (1977), could ever be built". Neither could there be
a 'general design method' which would enable one to "execute designs in a
rule-directed manner and without any substantive knowledge". The reason is
that "every design problem requires specialized knowledge as well as
creative imagination".

Lately, in my own work, I have used Bunge's Treatise to develop a
theoretical framework both for the Swedish building classification system
BSAB 96, and for my research in information systems for product modelling
and design.

I hope with this to have raised some interest in Bunge's work.

Anders Ekholm

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Dr Anders Ekholm
Projekteringsmetodik (Computer-Aided Architectural Design)
Inst. Byggande och Arkitektur (Department of Construction and Architecture)
Lunds Tekniska Högskola, Lunds Universitet (Lund Institute of Technology,
Lund University)

Adress: LTH-A, Box 118, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Url: http://www.caad.lth.se/staff/Anders/
Tel: +46 (0)46 222 41 63 Mob: +46 (0)70 652 41 63 Fax: +46 (0)46 138358
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