Dear Rosan

I am interested in this distinction because it aids an exploration into
what sort of epistemic  norms and regulative principles fit an
architectonic culture of inquiry. Such norms and principles are clear
in the case of science as a tectonic process  (including design science
thanks to the work of Herbert Simon's distinction between natural
science and the sciences of the artificial). Research is science in
action resulting in scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is
formed to fit into a common scientific archive. Many professional
schools in universities have been designed as part of the scientific
culture: design science, management science, political science,
engineering science, information science etc. These are very successful
designs within the tradition of scientific research.

My interest is in the design of academic programs based on the
tradition of design inquiry; what should the epistemic norms and
regulative principles be in order to create design knowledge? There is
some interest in pursuing this design challenge among traditional
professional fields and emerging new ones. For example Case Western's
Weatherhead School of Management hosted a workshop a couple of years
ago titled Designing as Managing. The subsequent book by the same
title, published in 2004 by Stanford University Press and edited by
Richard Boland and Fred Collopy, contains an interesting insight by
Boland (the Dean of Weatherhead). He states that; " management practice
and education have allowed a limited and narrow vocabulary of decision
making to drive an expansive and embracing vocabulary of design out of
circulation. In our focus on teaching students advanced techniques for
choices among alternatives, our attention for strengthening their
design skill for shaping new alternatives has withered."

In other words he thinks MBA programs focused on management science
have missed developing an essential necessity for professional practice
in their students. Boland and others want to discover more about design
inquiry and how it would affect professional education in the area of
organizational design. The challenge is to discern the nature of design
inquiry and to develop academic programs equivalent to programs based
on scientific inquiry.  For me this is an important challenge for all
professional fields including but not limited to those defined formally
as design programs.

Harold





On Jan 15, 2005, at 1:58 PM, Rosan Chow wrote:

> Dear Harold
>
> i thought it was very brave of you to bring up 'design knowledge'. i
> have
> this  feeling that this phrase 'design knowledge' is not a popular
> pick-up
> line any more. anyway,
>
> as you must know, in design research, we have at least 40 years or if
> you
> like starting from the bauhaus, 80 years of history of trying to
> articulate design by differentiating it from science (or arts). i have
> spent a little time thinking about this. and i have a question for you
> if
> that is ok:
>
> what does talking of design as an architectonic process and science as
> a
> tectonic process offer that other previous articulations do not?
>
> with full respect,
> rosan
>
>
>
>
> Harold Nelson wrote:
>
>> Dear Oliver
>>
>> The definitions I use are:
>>
>> Architectonic is a process evoking or responding to an emergent
>> ordering system (for example a design, a composition, a parti etc.).
>>
>> Tectonic is a process of accretion of individual elements associated
>> by
>> protocols of relationships resulting in functional assemblies (for
>> example the world wide web).
>>
>> Harold
>
> Dear list
>
> Listening in on the reports from Ph.D students, in conjunction with the
> news that Washington State University's Doctor of Design program is now
> accepting students and that UC Irvine's proposed new design program has
> been changed to a proposal for a more modest interdisciplinary
> experiment, has resurfaced a question for me concerning the nature of
> design knowledge and other forms of knowledge (scientific, ethical
> etc.). For example the generation of scientific knowledge (e.g. design
> science) seems to be primarily the product of a tectonic process while
> design knowledge is a product of an architectonic process (designing of
> course requires the integration of both types of knowledge ( in
> addition to others)). The question for me is a second order inquiry
> into how one produces and/or integrates these two types of knowledge
> within formal academic design programs if such programs are not
> designed with that intention in mind in the first place. This also
> relates to the question of the difference between design scholarship
> and other forms of scholarship if any.
>
> Harold
>