Research through DESIGN through research - a problem statement and a conceptual sketch (original) (raw)
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DEMYSTIFYING " DESIGN RESEARCH "
In the fields of design, ranging from the arts to technology and computer engineering, the phrase "design research" has numerous uses and meanings. There are many ways (indeed, perhaps an infinite number of ways) that such research can be performed, and many ways that design can manifest "research." This paper compares and contrasts variant approaches to design research practice, as described in recent literature on design, to discuss how design and research both benefit from a holistic understanding of the design research landscape. While practicing designers tend to know exactly what they mean when describing their activities as "research," more rigorously oriented academic or technical researchers are easily confused by the vagaries of design. Moreover, designers do not necessarily take the functional "research value" of traditional research approaches for granted, since despite the theoretical and empirical rigor of these methods they may not actionably address real human needs in meaningful ways.
Demystifying "Design Research": Design is Not Research, Research is Design
In the fields of design, ranging from the arts to technology and computer engineering, the phrase "design research" has numerous uses and meanings. There are many ways (indeed, perhaps an infinite number of ways) that such research can be performed, and many ways that design can manifest "research." This paper compares and contrasts variant approaches to design research practice, as described in recent literature on design, to discuss how design and research both benefit from a holistic understanding of the design research landscape. While practicing designers tend to know exactly what they mean when describing their activities as "research," more rigorously oriented academic or technical researchers are easily confused by the vagaries of design. Moreover, designers do not necessarily take the functional "research value" of traditional research approaches for granted, since despite the theoretical and empirical rigor of these methods they may not actionably address real human needs in meaningful ways.
Design as Research: Positions, Arguments, Perspectives
2016
Design research is currently going through a remarkable upward trend. Since fundamental systematic efforts towards a scientific foundation of design began with the design methods movement in the 1960s, one has been able to observe design research taking shape as a practice-based research model in the course of numerous educational reforms at art schools and universities up through today. In this model, research object and method seem to merge seamlessly. In fact, primarily a practice-based research through design is preferred, one that also involves-aside from a complex new definition and negotiation of research actors and methods-a distinct discourse of the praxeological. 1 This brings practice-based design research closer, at least superficially, to more recent approaches in social and cultural sciences that have devoted themselves to the research of practice theory against the backdrop of the so-called 'practice turn'. Comparable to these approaches, the practice-based design research is also profoundly concerned with the reciprocal relationship of practice and theory construction as well as seeks new ways of understanding knowledge production in research, in the mode of design-practical action. However, design research also arises from a discourse tradition that differs in conceptual terms from the genesis of other practice-theoretical approaches. Thus, the question arises as to how practice-based design research is informed by fundamental postulates and premises in the cultural and social sciences that generally form the basis of the approaches of practice theory. This question will be explored here in a simultaneously theoretical and historical discussion that localises practice-based design research.
Perspectives on design research
2010
THE AIM OF THE BOOK History shows that humans are capable of designing remarkable things: bridges, skyscrapers, dams, cities, the Internet and, less glamorously, sewers and transport systems spring to mind immediately. There are also more subtly extraordinary achievements, including bureaucracies, organizations, IT-systems and processes that allow people to work better together. All of these innovations involve, and are driven by, research. Yet a clear definition of the relationship between design and research is elusive. It is certainly not linear. • Research for design (research-based design). • Research into design (research analysing how design works). • Research through design (design-based research)-which also include design through research.
Design Research and its Meaning to the Methodological Development of the Discipline
De Gruyter eBooks, 2007
Design Research and its Meaning to the Methodological Development of the Discipline 1 Title and hypothesis I will take the title as suggested by the editors and reflect upon the relation between "design research" and "the methodological development of the discipline". Both concepts are not sufficiently clarified. "Design Research" (Archer 1981) "… is systematic enquiry whose goal is knowledge of, or in, the embodiment of configuration, composition, structure, purpose, value and meaning in manmade things and systems." Cross (1999: 6) suggests that: "design research would therefore fall into three main categories, based on people, process and products:-design epistemology-study of designerly ways of knowing-design praxiology-study of the practices and processes of design-design phenomenology-study of the form and configuration of artifacts." And he emphasizes (1999: 7): "... that we do not have to turn design into an imitation of science, nor do we have to treat design as a mysterious, ineffable art. ... ... we must avoid totally swamping our research with different cultures imported either from science or art. ..." He calls this "designerly ways of knowing", claiming that design is a genuine way of knowledge production, different from science and art, which may lead to the "Sciences of the Artificial" (Simon 1969). So, since there is no substantial progress in defining design research, I will follow the concept of about / for / through, which-by means of "through" offers the semantic category of a designerly mode of knowledge production. Regarding the "Methodological Development of the Discipline" one may ask: Towards which goal? Towards autonomous designerly ways of knowledge production? This, again, points to the concept of "research through design" (RTD). Before the further discussion of this concept (chapters 3, 4), here my hypothesis: RTD provides the epistemological concepts for the development of a genuine design research paradigm, which is a condition for methodological development. 2 Towards an own paradigm No doubt: there is progress in research about design as well as for design. But this does not essentially contribute to the development of design as a knowledge creating discipline. The challenge lies in the further clarification of RTD. What kind of process model, guiding research through design, might be able to provide something like "foundations"? Design Research Fallman (for HCI) Research-oriented Design Design is driven by research within a larger design process Aiming at the real, by means of judgment and intuition, judged by the Client Design-oriented Research Research is driven by design within a larger research process Aiming at the true, by means of Analysis and logic, judged by academic peers Jonas (for design) Research through design Covering the whole situation / process building design as an institution for humancentred innovation and supporting design as a discipline Design through research Focussing on isolated questions producing knowledge for / about (?) design
Beginning again. The task of design research
Joelho Revista de Cultura Arquitectonica, 2013
Among architects and educators today the proposal for design research is generally understood as follows: the design of buildings is not only a professional practice but also a form of inquiry, a member of the growing family of research disciplines at work in the world today. The older siblings are well known, the highly regarded research fields in the natural sciences: physics, chemistry, and biology, for example. In the next generation are the social sciences: economics, political science, and sociology. Also related are the fields in which the basic sciences are applied: medicine, engineering, and information technology. This last group is more akin to architecture, for these academic disciplines are also professions. The problem with architecture is that it has also family ties to disciplines beyond the sciences, to painting, sculpture, urban design, and landscape architecture, even literature and poetry. Furthermore, artistic practices are not only non-scientific, they are purp...
Design Research Now, 2007
Why oxymoron? An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms. The word oxymoron is of Greek origin. It combines the word oxy (=sharp) and moron (=dull, stupid, foolish). Thus, oxymoron not only names a contradiction in terms, it is an oxymoron as well. Oxymorons may be used for achieving rhetorical effects, as in working vacation and uninvited guest. They may also result from conceptual sloppiness, as in extremely average, original copy, or same difference. Oxymorons may remain unnoticed when the meanings of the contradictory parts are not distinguished, as in spendthrift, virtual reality, and Artificial Intelligence. Typically, contradictions of this kind are resolved by taking one term as the inferior attribute of a superior concept. For example, unbiased opinion is a kind of opinion, accurate estimate is a kind of estimate, and the reply "no comment" is not taken as a comment. Oxymorons are not mere linguistic oddities. Words are far from neutral bystanders of what happens in the world. They can shape their users' perceptions and direct their actions. For this very reason, and to enhance its academic respectability, the design community has begun to adopt vocabularies from the more established disciplines, without noticing, I suggest, the implicit importation of paradigms that are essentially alien to it. One aim of this essay is to show that design research is an oxymoron whose contradictions, because they are not obvious to everyone, can lead its naïve users into thinking of it as a kind of research similar to what reputable scientists do. Comments Comments Postprint version.
Design Research: An In-depth Look Investigative Essay
Design, of things with meaning, of artifacts of value, those that persist. Manmade matters, they are not orphaned, but born of need, values, humanity's interaction with its natural and built environment, and its interplay with cultures -"Vernacular Design". 1 Design is the aftermath of knowledge, experience, practice, and science -"High Design". 2 It's a natural human ability to solve problems that entails designing processes. If we have learnt something from history, it is that every relic related to the humankind's progression was a process of planned interactions and thoughts and then reflections; layers of human embodiments that are a consequence of need and purpose. We, the human-beings, are the masters of mental artistry and its manifestation; what Tim Ingold calls it "The Building Perspective". 3 We are the authors of our artifacts and their visualization, their processes, techniques, mechanisms, materials, resources and aims, before even being materialized. For years, it was an enigma to unravel the workings of the master's brain in regards to the design process, to analyze it and then utilize it for the benefit of the collective; this what later came to be Design Research.