(Who is) the Man of the Our
Off ran Dingo Yellow-Dog Dingo
always hungry, grinning like a
coal-scuttle ran after Kangaroo.
Off went the proud Kangaroo on his
four little legs like a bunny.
This, O Beloved of mine, ends
the first part of the tale!
-Rudyard Kipling
We all share much in common in
our approach to design, and can
profit by learning from each other
and integrating our approaches.
-Dick Taylor
First of all, I would like to thank Ken and David for the opportunity to
participate in this unusual conference. The idea of mixing an organized
conference into a running and unmoderated list is a sparkle of inspiration
I donıt know who got the idea but there should be enough praise for both of
you to share.
Secondly, I would like to thank Richard Taylor for his opening comments,
and, most certainly, for the ³Proposal for a School of Design at the
University of California, Irvine. The proposal is a radical statement and
ought to be discussed and digested by all institutions of design education
and research. And it is most appropriate that the report is celebrated in
this conference. It merits the attention. This is not to say that all
schools should be like the UCIıs SD in all or any aspect, necessarily, but a
statement of such cogency puts a demand on everybody to built platforms and
arguments of equal strength.
As Head of Research at Danmarks Designskole (DDS), I have been working for a
year and a half, establishing concepts of research, laying out research
policies and recruiting faculty. Currently, I am writing a research and
recruitment plan for the next four years, trying in the process to describe
a research equivalent for artistic practice in design, that will allow DDS
to maintain an artistic profile without getting sucked into the much common
mix-up of art and research.
A central issue in this is, as Dick Taylor points out, is the question of
terminology and having a background in the humanities my PhD was in
Comp. Lit. such questions awake the Duracell rabbit in me. The one that
gets me reaching for my gun is not design. The reference escapes me, but I
know Ken Friedman et al. have compiled a list consisting of either 600 or
6.000 fields of design. The exact number is less significant than the fact
that design, as a field, is much, much broader than what any school can host
and the derived consequence: that design is a porte manteau word that
belongs to everybody. This is a good thing since it gives every design
school and every designer the chance and responsibility to define what s/he
means by design. No need to agree on definitions here let the 60.000 or
600.000 flowers bloom.
Where terminology is important not to say essential, in my view is when
it comes to research. At DDS, for instance, discussions on research in
design date back to at least 1973. What is scary is not so much that Nixon
was in the White House, Gravityıs Rainbow was fresh on the shelves, and I
used a pacifier, but rather that 30 years were allowed to pass without the
emergence of research or robust research methods. DDS is not special in this
respect. In an international perspective there seems to be surprisingly
little difference whether design schools are arts and craft based or whether
they are part of technical universities with otherwise robust research
traditions.
Why design has been so successful in resisting change is a mystery design,
usually, prides itself of being a factor of change, an avant-garde activity,
not a conservative force. Anyway, I think this has to do with the
conservatism of professional pride. If education consists mainly of training
students to master a craft, disciplines solidify in stead of seeking shared
methods and knowledge. And, what is worse, they tend to insist on their own
right to define their profession in every aspect even when it comes to
defining theory and concepts of research.
Searching the web-pages even of the good design research institutions
worldwide, one finds very few faculty with a background from outside design.
This seems to be true even in the Proposal for a School of Design at the
University of California, Irvine, and if I should raise any questions it
would be this: why not build research by appointing, say, half of the
faculty from other disciplines anthropologists, economists, a physician,
an art historian, a philosopher, who knows, you might find a German
philologist or a PhD in theoretical physics surprisingly useful. Allowing
experienced researchers to work full-time with design issues in stead of
inviting them in as lecturers and visiting professors will place
interdisciplinary research methodology right in the middle of an emergent
design research discipline. The pride designers take in their own
professions should result in an equal respect for the professionalism of
other disciplines. Even if the research methods of, say, anthropology seem
relatively easy to master, the continuous development and refining of
methodology is a part of real research within the social sciences. Without
proper research training the application of these methods will not put
design science at the cutting edge.
Likewise, I bet the one year IIT crash course in ID could teach even me the
basics of design but it would hardly make me a full-fledged designer. The
question is, of course, who is the man of the our? Who, or what, defines the
borders of design science? What makes you a design researcher, your original
background or the research plan you work under? If we stick to a limited
number of the 6.000.000 or 60.000.000 disciplines of design, the challenge
of building research from within will continue to prove difficult.
It is true that the common concepts and methods of research are currently
changing. This, I suppose, has always been the case. Moving methods is an
essential part of basic research. But the situation, in what John Ziman has
labeled a dynamic steady state, has implications beyond the usual
questioning of concepts and methods. The lack of continuous growth in means
for research pushes funding from basic towards applied research. At a first
glance, this would appear to be a privileged situation for the science of
design, design research being applied research in most cases. And the
potential is great. Today, already, any medium-size research project at
least outside of the humanities is very likely to include a PhD in
computer science. As research professionalizes and the pressure on grants
becomes even more desperate, it is very likely that large-size projects in
the future will include PhDs in design.
However, in the traditional research disciplines the shift to a new mode of
research is a step in a long progression. Building the discipline of design
research on applied research alone is risky. And since we can hardly leave
the task to universities whose research funding depends on external grants
alone, basic research should be a major focus in state universities. So, in
a way, its back to you, Arnold.
I hope the UCIıs SD will get the funding it needs. Even though there is a
chance that you will be stealing some of the best staff from the rest of us,
I wish the SD will be up and running soon. Itıs OK to lose a little faculty
if you gain a serious and splendid new ally in a world of voodoo, wild
occurrences and weird objects all labeled design research
Best regards,
Thomas Schĝdt Rasmussen
References:
Ken Friedman (2003): Review of the Proposal for a School of Design at the
University of California, Irvine. November 2002, in DESIGN RESEARCH NEWS
Volume 8 Number 6, June 2003
Rudyard Kipling (1902): Just So Stories. London: Penguin Books
John Ziman (1994): Prometheus Bound Science in a dynamic steady state.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.
