Dear All,

In my view, it makes little sense to separate a "design research" 
circle from other
circles of inquiry.

When we speak of design research, Terry notes -- as I do -- that 
design research
embraces something on the order of 640 fields and subfields, 
disciplines and sub-
disciplines involving the process of design or studying the process 
of design. (Design is a verb in this sense. Some special subfields 
also study different aspects
of designed artifacts.)

One of the challenges of the notion of a "design research circle" is 
that we here on
PhD-Design constitute a relatively small sub-set of design research, mostly
clustered around art and design schools. In contrast, Harold comes 
out of systems
thinking as well as architecture and Erik works in informatics and 
HCI. (For that matter, I also design organizations and information 
services of different kinds.)

Harold and Erik write their book with a rich grasp of many areas -- philosophy,
engineering, systems, interaction. I can't speak for them, but I can 
say that their
book does not limit the view of design thinking or the design way to 
any specific
circles. They are open to a rich range processes crossing many fields.

We often argue that design is a key issue for the twenty-first 
century because the
design process offers important ways to conceptualize, develop, shape 
and manage
the key issues that affect us as human beings in a large planetary environment.

If this is so -- and I believe it is -- it is so because design 
covers many areas of
inquiry and professional practice. These are not limited to "design" circles or
"design research circles."  This is not the same thing as saying "everything is
design," and it is not the argument that everything follows from 
design. Rather,
it is because design process encompasses a wide range of many different but
related forms of professional process and professional practice -- at least 640
of them in the growing count that Terry and I are developing.

In speaking of design process ("designing"), therefore, we speak of many more
fields of professional design activity, design thinking, and design 
process than
we see represented on this list. In saying this, therefore, I have no 
problem with
the idea that we may discuss design thinking from fields that we do 
not typically
identify as design research.

Aristotle was a design thinker in at least some of his work, and so, 
for that matter,
was Peter Drucker. W. Edwards Deming worked on nearly nothing else. Bucky
Fuller, often overlooked here, and dozens more qualify.

I see no reason to limit ourselves to some predetermined group of thinkers,
certainly not to a list of 1200 or so subscribers who fields encompass only a
fraction of the 640.

I can't see that Terry or anyone else here is asking us to draw on 
"other" resources.
These are OUR resources from the perspective of different approaches to our
field.

Yours,

Ken


On Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:23:32 +0100, Rosan Chow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Dear Terry
>
>I agree with you with a qualification. How about reading critically 
>works coming out from the Design Research circle, first and outmost? 
>I  suspect some might feel that I am again trying to build a cozy 
>bubble. But I find it too disproportional that Design Researchers 
>refer so much more often to other rescources than to engage 
>ourselves in reading/examining one another's works. Others have 
>mentioned this problem before.
>
>Ranjan mentioned "The Design Way". I have read the book and mixed 
>reviews on the book, including yours. How about you taking us into a 
>discussion session? ...especially since Harold and Erik are right 
>here and a good number of people have read the book too, i am sure.
>
>Rosan
>

Terence Love wrote:

"The idea of 'situation' then presents much the same epistemological 
characteristics as 'system' (a concept, has bounds, has properties in 
different arenas - physical, mental, conceptual, emotional etc, has 
relationships with concepts that represent sub-situations within it 
and situations in which it is subsumed ). There are well established 
philosophical and theory literatures on this topic in the area of 
systems theory. Floods work, Mingers', Sterman - many others. Similar 
well established discussions are in the AI literature. Its something 
we don't have to reinvent the theory - simply read more widely about 
work that others have already done and dusted.."

-- 

Ken Friedman
Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language
Norwegian School of Management

Design Research Center
Denmark's Design School

email: [log in to unmask]