Dear Eduardo
Well said, and I do agree with you or the approach that you have taken in
your argument here. Design is about the particular and the context is all
important while it does contribute to the understanding of the general when
one looks at many instances of these particular contexts.
Design is a general human capability but it is also a well established
profession that can be subject of education processes and institutions.
However we are now expanding the role of design so that its reach goes well
beyond the creation and refinement of the material artefact to the creation
and refinement of social businesses as we discussed in Milan.
I had an opportunity recently to expand on some of these thoughts at a
keynote at Nanjing, China at a conference on Usability.
<http://www.upachina.org/>
Sorry no formal paper as yet, but my visual presentation for my hour long
talk can be downloaded from here, but I will post a note on my blog a bit
later when I have the time to do so..
<https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/go5qp8> (downoad 10 mb pdf) Here I used our
"research into Indian handicrafts" as a platform to argue that social
interfaces for public services in Asia would need to look at culture and
local manifestations for success and quality of service that would be
expected in future offerings from digital tools and services of the future.
I expanded on this talk at my next conference in Hyderabad this week and I
took this theme forward with an Indian audience and delivered a modified
talk to a group of IT UX professionals with the huge opportunities that
digital layering is offering us now that most public interfaces can be
digitally interfaced, for example out Indian stock market is almost fully
dematerialised and now offers new possibilities that never existed before.
<https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/vj1r3x> (download pdf file 6 mb size)
These proposed design strategies are based on insights gained from research
here in India and not on "proven facts" as in a science based research
offering either from the field or from a lab. This kind of research is
perhaps different, and not easily accepted or even understood as valid
research. I know this since we find it very difficult to get funding or
formal support in this kind of work. The base document that I used as my
resource is the book Handmade in India that we produced as a research
effort here in India with the intention of offering a platform for the
building of a creative economy in the future with the identified skills and
local resources as a basis for national development policies. This book is
now available online here as a series of pages at the COHANDS website. <
http://www.cohands.in/handmadepages/book0.asp> However the full book is also
available from my website as a pdf file but a very big file from this link
here.
<https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/f8p6p4> (download pdf file 337 mb size) This
research is an outcome of numerous designer forrays into the crafts sector
in India and the need for a comprehensive document to support future use of
this very rich resource that is a cultural and social resource along with
the technical and material knowledge that is part of the traditional wisdom
held within these traditional crafts across our 500+ clusters all over
India. This is the first stage of a four stage strategy that we have
proposed for India.
Now is this design research? Is this research through design? Is this
research for design? One thing we do know is that is done by designers in
search of a way to solve a very complex situation of poverty and employment
in a rapidly changing world. We have more examples like this one in our
previous work in the bamboo sector, My 1986 book on the bamboo crafts was
based on the same assumptions and we now have many layers of iterations to
take this knowledge to meaningful applications as part of our design
strategy for the region.
<https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/7tc6w3> (download pdf file 35 mb size - book
on Bamboo and Cane Crafts of Northeast India - 1986 & 2004)
Not all design efforts create such book type products but we have done these
as an intermediate step in our continuing effort to create useful knowledge
and strategies that could be used by many partners in the larger mission of
develoment here in India. I am not sure if these examples help in this
particular argument but we do believe that this is design research and we
have been doing this for ages if you look at the 800 plus crafts study
documents that are lying unpublished in the NID library (now called the
Knowledge Managemant Centre - KMC) Some of these are listed in the book
handmade in India as part of our annotated bibliography at the back of the
book but here the textile documents have been left out unfortunately.
By the way I retire from NID at the end of this month having crossed my 60th
birthday earlier this month while traveling in the Far East.
With warm regards
M P Ranjan
from my Mac at home on the NID campus
23 November 2010 at 12.35 am IST
-------------------------------------------------------------
*Prof M P Ranjan*
Faculty of Design
Head, Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID (CFBI-NID)
National Institute of Design
Paldi
Ahmedabad 380 007 India
Tel: (off) 91 79 26623692 ext 1090
Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054
Fax: 91 79 26605242
email: [log in to unmask]
web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp
web domain: http://www.ranjanmp.in
blog: <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com>
education blog: <http://www.design-concepts-and-concerns.blogspot.com>
education blog: http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------------------------
On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 11:07 PM, Eduardo Corte Real <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Ken
>
> Here we go again to the inhospitable but yet rich region where we disagree.
> Most of your arguments against research by design lie in an old prejudice
> that, in a simplified manner, comes to this: drawing is a practical activity
> whereas reading is an intellectual activity. By not understanding that
> drawing - meaning sketching, depicting, testing - is the intellectual way of
> dealing with form – understanding and creating it – is not only deviant
> relatively to the core of what Design is – both historically as socialized –
> but blinding relatively to the main processes of producing knowledge while
> designing. Research THROUGH Design (not BY) and research FOR Design (not BY)
> as Frayling had described them may be poorly described or frailly –
> couldn’t’ resist the alliteration – presented, but they are a strong
> proposition. To me, the most crucial proposition that we face as educators
> and researchers in this field. (Let us let aside the fact that RCA is a very
> successful institution doing research according to the Triad) . I would dare
> to say that if we fail – as a generation – to produce a coherent process of
> research through/for design – we would have failed to give Design the
> dignity of doctoral level. In fact, what we have been doing with non
> practice based doctorates are PhDs in Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology,
> History, Information Sciences, Communication Sciences etc, and some of these
> combined, having Design as an object or a subject. This gives credit to the
> base sciences that we use to conduct research into Design as Frayling
> defined it and not to a Design Science. Arriving here let me quote you:
> “This weak point is part of the endless debates on the notion of the
> practice-based Ph.D. It also creates confusion for those who now believe
> that practice is research.”I would say that it creates confusion for those
> who believe that there is no research in practice. And here is our call, two
> folded: a) identify the activities labelled as “practical” which are not
> “practical” but intellectual and knowledge producing and b)instil research
> procedures in the “practice” where needed to produce knowledge. On this –
> and Muscat wine – we must agree: the purpose of research is the advancement
> of knowledge. And – I’m not sure if we can agree on this, maybe I’m being
> too Anglo-Saxon – the purpose of an activity defines what the activity is.
> Consequently, a “practice-based” PhD in which, for instance, a new artefact
> is produced must be measured in terms of the advancement in knowledge. I see
> no difficulty in accepting that Design is always contextual and that the
> research about a context leading to new designs based on the increase on
> knowledge resulting from that research can be a doctoral research. For
> instance, the recent exchange of arguments between Terence Love and Clive
> Dilnot about the fundaments of Ethics and Design triggered in result of a
> question by a third year student called Toon is a good example of this.
> Designers as design researchers can, no longer, ignore this tension between
> two visions on Ethics. I would say that only if you are ultimately
> “researching through design” you will fatally arrive to this contextual
> fabric. Why? Because, if you are researching through/for design, you will
> question fatally – hopefully academically - your actions and its
> consequences. Maybe we could take a look on this matter to a brief thread in
> April 2010 “Ethics of Speculative Design” that seems to report a whish for
> breakthrough in the advancement of knowledge in this field. In order to
> close this post I would like to go back to my statement about our failure as
> a generation on bringing forth research through/for design.I speak here
> about Design as a social accepted activity, a subject taught in Higher
> Education and a self organised Profession or group of professions with a
> History – and not a human capacity or a designation for multiple activities
> within multiple disciplines. For this I must call your attention also for
> what design means not in its original language – English - but how and why
> it was adopted in many other languages. Having this in mind I suggest that
> our goal is to educate a Philosophy Doctor in Design that should be a
> “Designer as a Design Researcher” like a Medicine Doctor with a PhD in
> Medicine is a Physician as a Medicine Researcher.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Eduardo Corte-Real
>
> Dr Arch, Professor, scientific board pres. IADE-Lisbon
>
>
> PS: In time Terence Love gave a good account of types of research related
> to a taxonomy based in the “problem of the research question”. All four seem
> able to be conducted through/for design.
>
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