(sorry, I am not into discourse analysis, but...)
I am very eager to advocate open space for fresh starts in design research.
I have not seen answers to my own questions about design and its role in
the universe being answered in the writings about design I have been able
to get my hands on. Either I have been looking in the wrong place or the
answers have not been written yet.
In any case, this has led me to believe that there is still a lot of space
for all of us to start from the most "stupid", but fundamental, questions,
such as "what is design" etc. - as well as others, of more specialized
nature - and pursue a path that studies this in some way that is natural to
a designer.
This activity, fueled by curiosity and maybe a need to find personally
satisfying clarity, qualifies as research to me. But of course this is just
a personal opinion.
However, I believe that it is most important for a discipline of design to
have research that takes advantage of, or even more so, relies on the
unique characteristics of design activity. Designers need research that
take their discipline forward. They can also benefit of research that looks
at it from the outside, just like writers or legislators may benefit from
such. But how to advance the state of the art and the understanding of what
a designer can be and do? I think designers have to apply their own unique
ways of working, things like intuition and personal judgement etc. and
craft their own, often personally defined ways of doing research. I think
that designers should not be required to get another degree in something
else to qualify in research in their own field. However, we do not have a
lot of examples and agreement in the field that someone starting up could
use as model and justify her effort with. A lot of pioneering work has to
be done. Pioneers always get hurt.
So, I personally think that design and research go together very well. No
dichotomy. Design research also has to be designed. It is one of those
wicked problems...
(One of the best and most useful articles about design I have read, which
introduced me to the idea of the wicked problem by Horst Rittel, is the one
by Richard Buchanan, "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking" in the book "The
Idea of Design".)
cheers, Kari-Hans Kommonen
..........
At 18:28 +0300 10.10.2000, Rosan Chow wrote:
>"Lubomir S. Popov" wrote:
>
>> The discussions on the phd-design list might go out of focus and most of
>> the participants display design (not research) thinking, but even so, this
>> list is much more research-oriented than any other design-related list.
>
>Members of the list, please spare me a moment:
>
>What Lubomir wrote (as quoted above) triggered me to ask:
>Is Design NECESSARILY dichotomous to 'Research'?
>
>Members who are into discourse analysis may help me here, probably.
>Thanks in advance.
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Kari-Hans Kommonen, Future Media Home research
Media Lab, University of Art and Design Helsinki UIAH
Hämeentie 135 C, 00560 HELSINKI, Finland
email: [log in to unmask]
tel: +358 9 7563 0563
fax: +358 9 7563 0555
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