Dear Ken,

Thank you for your message and your clarity. I apologise for causing unnecessary confusion by not being clear enough in what I wrote.

The discussion, as I had understood it, was about  how  to  identify and justify  the perspectives by which the relationship between  research and practice are viewed in design (Birger),  Derek, following this argued that the creation and promotion of such 'perspectives on research and practice and the relationships between them' should stand or fall on the whether they can be justified by reasoning and evidence. In turn, Jean proposed that political issues have shaped that debate on  Art and Design fields' 'perspectives on research and practice and the relationships between them' and that it  requires ontological and epistemological critique and justification before these discussions can be more fully resolved.

I had understood your reference to 'models' in light of that discussion on  'perspectives on research and practice' and the relationships between them' as being that researchers  use specific 'models of perspectives' to frame and shape the understanding of what is sound research and practice. I'd assumed you were using the term  'models' to refer to their use in the realm of 'theories of knowledge' in the different deign fields as they relate to understanding the 'perspectives on research and practice' and the relationships between them' because this was the prior topic. In this light, it appeared you were using practical examples of the use of models in design practice to illustrate the more abstract use in referring to perspectives. With hindsight, I can see that you had changed focus directly onto the use of models in design practice.

My post was limited to suggesting that it is useful to draw on work already completed in engineering design fields on developing a  workable position on 'perspectives on research and practice and the relationships between them' .  When I referred to engineering design having 50 years ago addressed the  ' same issues that ‘art and design’ is now addressing' it was intended to refer specifically to the focus on 'perspectives on research and practice and the relationships between them. I should have stated this explicitly as it is open to being interpreted more broadly as you did.

Thank you for your comments about Swinburne. Your experience there concurs with my personal experience and observations of work at other universities relating to design activity in a variety of fields. Taking a helicopter view, ontologically and epistemologically, researchers and practitioners in all design fields address the same issues using  the same suite of theory available to all : creating a design for a solution/intervention ; structural issues relating to how the world functions; aesthetics and ethics of designed solutions; methodological development etc.  as far as I can tell, meta-analyses of these issues are similar across all design fields and are what inform the creation of a sound  'perspective on research and practice and the relationships between them' as they relate to design activity in each design field.  This is the level at which similarity occurs and the work in each field can be used in other design fields.   Of course the  specific practices, methods and foci of interest  differ in each design field: they are what define the fields' differences.  The similarities at a meta-level, however, are why I suggested using the work already achieved in engineering design in relation to  creating a sound 'perspective on research and practice and the relationships between them' is helpful in 'Art and Design' and other design realms.

Warm regards and thanks,
Terry

-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: 23 October 2011 05:04
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: Models

Dear Terry,

It’s a mistake to argue for engineering design as the source of working answers to all design problems. You wrote, “For any analysis in this kind of area, look to engineering design. Engineering design has already addressed (and found working answers to) all the same issues that ‘art and design’ is now addressing.”

There are two problems in this claim. 

The first problem arises in dividing design into the two categories of “engineering design,” and “art and design.” This is an inadequate account for a far more complex field.

The second problem arises from the notion that engineering design addresses has working answers to all design problems. This is not so.

Design includes a wide range of professions that act on the world to create preferred future states. Practitioners in these professions generally solve problems for stakeholders of different kinds – clients, customers, or end-users, as well as the users of services.
Stakeholders employ designers to solve designated problems on their behalf. In addition, some designers find problems that interest them and create preferred future states by creating something new and useful, even when no stakeholder has brought them an obvious problem. Personal computing is a case in point. Because companies like Xerox could see no obvious problem to solve and therefore no profit, they did nothing with the potential advances in personal computing that companies like Apple brought to life. For the greatest part, though, people bring problems to designers seeking solutions and improvements: a bridge, a manufacturing system, a medical treatment, a corporate identification system, a tax policy, a shoe… and so on. 

The design sciences include design professions that use partly rigorous and partly heuristic means to design and to solve design problems.
Whether you use Herbert Simon’s view of the design sciences or Buckminster Fuller’s, designers work in a far wider range of partly rigorous fields and subfields than engineering design accounts for.

In many posts to this list, I have referred to engineering and engineering design as good examples of workable traditions. I value and respect the successes of engineering design. Nevertheless, engineering design cannot solve all design problems. If engineers could solve all design problems, we’d live in a different world. If engineers could do it all, there would be no need for anthropologists, standard economists, behavioral economists, psychologists, sociologists, biologists, physicians, ergonomists, physiologists and other professionals who also solve design problems.

Some professionals specialize in solving problems that engineers create by using engineering methods to solve problems that require interdisciplinary design. There are also forms of engineering that thrive by solving problems that traditional forms of engineering can’t solve. While mechanical and electrical engineers solve important problems brilliantly, they don’t seem to build better toasters, refrigerators, or consumer goods, and sometimes they don’t even build better automobiles. Many engineers who do great work on straightforward problems have a hard time dealing with the systems and logics that create products with a good human interface. Simply put, many engineers create highly functional systems that do not meet human needs.

For these reasons, I challenge the assertion that “engineering design has already addressed (and found working answers to) all the same issues that ‘art and design’ is now addressing.”

Many forms of design also fall outside the rubric of “art and design.” While many design programs are located in faculties of art and design, this is not universal. One example is close to home for me:
the Faculty of Design at Swinburne University of Technology does not include art in its offerings. We do offer research and teaching in design anthropology, neuroaffective design, product design engineering (with our engineering colleagues), strategic design, and other fields, as well as a comprehensive array of traditional design disciplines.
Evidence suggests that a design faculty without art is as creative as an art and design school. The quality of the artifacts our people produce and the awards they’ve won suggest that a design faculty without art does as well on aesthetic grounds as art and design programs do. It also demonstrates that there are effective approaches to design that are neither engineering design nor art and design.

Some of the best design faculties in the world today are neither engineering design nor art and design, though they may have links to either field or both. At Delft University of Technology, the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering is an industry-focused faculty with a powerful emphasis on great products for people, and the approach is driven by psychology and economics and not by mechanical engineering or engineering design. At Loughborough University, the Loughborough Design School brings design and technology together with human sciences, ergonomics, and safety research. In addition to the design school, Loughborough has a school of the arts for art and design, as well as five schools of engineering: aeronautical and automotive; chemical; civil and building; electronic, electrical, and systems; mechanical and manufacturing.

We agree on the value and importance of engineering design. Where I disagree is that engineering design has workable models for all design problems – and I disagree with the suggestion that art and design is the other main approach to design. There are many design fields, and research-based practice is common to several of them. The challenge we face today is ensuring that research-based practice becomes as common to design as it is to medicine and engineering.

Yours,

Ken

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61
39214 6078 | Faculty