hey Johann, much appreciated! Just a one-liner to let you know that your
reply is saved in my "to-read list" but I won't be able to give it my full
attention for a bit.
Thanks again!
G:
Gabriele Ferri
www.gabrieleferri.com
On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 6:19 PM, Johann van der Merwe <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Gabriele (long post)
> I was struck by your mention of "weak interdisciplinarity", and offer the
> following:
>
> "... a recent AIGA research project highlights a number of trends for the
> future of both design education and design practice (Davis, 2008), the gist
> of the report being corroborated by the Design for Future Needs (ICSID,
> 2001) project, run by European designers in collaboration with the business
> establishment, on behalf of the European Commission, while the ICSID/Danish
> Designers (2008) research project concentrated on design‟s vital role in
> society and the impact this should have on education:
>
> • Design is being described as a „weak‟ discipline because it has to deal
> with increasingly complex real-world challenges, which means design is seen
> as interpretative instead of prescriptive, forming a social discourse about
> reality in which hard facts are subordinate to perception and experience.
> • Design is in need of new sources and a new basis of knowledge that will
> act as a new foundation for meeting the needs of users of the future,
> necessitating new techniques and practices that can responsibly and
> sustainably deal with emerging issues.
> • Being a „weak‟ discipline (cf. „weak‟ nuclear forces, below), design
> operates on the strengths of a many-method platform while taking account of
> new and hybrid technologies; each new project for social interaction uses
> this new platform to blend such methods as are locally suitable, resulting
> in multiple future visions applicable globally.
> • This approach leads to underscoring the importance of community,
> impossible without regarding the people we design for as co-designers in
> some form of collaborative and participatory process; design methods are
> now user-centred and dialogue-driven, fostering understanding between
> diverse groups.
> • With the original meaning of the word „design‟ changing from form-giving
> to design-as-planning we can look at the value-added potential of design as
> an innovation tool"
>
>
> "I compare the „weak‟ design hypothesis to the weak nuclear forces that
> form one of the four known fundamental forces in nature. The nuclei of all
> the atoms in your body, or the chair you sit on, should be tearing
> themselves apart, since all the protons are positively charged and are thus
> repulsive. That this does not happen is due to the strong nuclear forces,
> which are always attractive and thus counter the repulsion of the protons;
> they act very much like the foundational assumptions (above) that keep sets
> of beliefs whole in an unquestioning manner. On the other hand, the atoms
> in your body or the chair should not have existed in the first place, since
> their nuclei consist of protons and neutrons in roughly 50/50 proportions,
> and yet the Big Bang produced mostly hydrogen and helium atoms with only
> proton nuclei, leading to the question, where did the neutrons come from?
> “The answer is that there is another nuclear force, the weak nuclear force,
> which is capable of transforming neutrons into protons and vice-versa”
> (Crowell, 2007:57, 60). A „weak‟ force, like a weak design discipline or
> theory, transforms what it acts upon." (the above from my thesis)
>
> Your question "Is interdisciplinarity in design a continuum where some
> relationships are
> more interdisciplinary than others" is a very interesting one that needs
> debate. I would guess that all design teams operate along a continuum
> between "all design" and "all other disciplines" ... 🙂
>
> Johann
>
> On 7 February 2017 at 11:59, Gabriele Ferri <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Lois and all,
> >
> > I was saving this for a longer email as soon as I have time (gasp), but
> > I'll give a preview.
> > At the research center I work at HvA, we bring together urban planners
> and
> > game designers to do RtD on playful interactions at a "urban scale".
> >
> > One might argue that both urban planners and game designers are, indeed,
> > designers. Actually, that was our operating assumption until awhile ago.
> > But a number of workshops so far seem to suggest that the processes,
> > methodologies, mindset, expectations etc are so different that practicing
> > urban planners/architects and game designers need a facilitator to
> > effectively cooperate on a design challenge. At one point, I had the
> > impression of observing two dialects in the process of evolving into
> > different languages.
> >
> > Does this kind of cooperation count as some sort of "weak
> > interdisciplinarity" in design? ("weak" isn't a value judgement here, but
> > is actually the interesting bit)
> > Is interdisciplinarity in design a continuum where some relationships are
> > more interdisciplinary than others?
> >
> > These are just questions I'm pondering, but I haven't had the time yet to
> > do my due diligence of lit review. Thanks in advance for references,
> > insights and feedback
> >
> > Gabriele Ferri, Ph.D.
> > Design researcher // Play & Civic Media - Amsterdam University of Applied
> > Sciences
> > www.gabrieleferri.com
> >
> > >On 6 February 2017 at 20:02, Lois Frankel <
> [log in to unmask]>
> > > >wrote:
> > > >
> > > >>
> > > >>Š..This leads to my next question: what are the fields we
> > > >>designers/design
> > > >> researchers work with? Not just the fields obviously related to
> > design,
> > > >> like anthropology, psychology, and business, but other fields that
> you
> > > >>may
> > > >> be working with. Is there a catalogue of the kinds of
> > interdisciplinary
> > > >> research that involves designers? Are there some fields that
> designers
> > > >>work
> > > >> more frequently with or even more productively with than others?
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> Lois
> > >
> >
> >
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>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Johann van der Merwe
> Independent Design Researcher
>
>
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