A New Designer Paradigm: The Role of the Discipline in Transformative Time (original) (raw)
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The reconfiguration of the historical and cultural conditions of modernity in which design emerged as a field of studies and practices, demands a renewed approach to discussions about its nature, perspectives and possibilities outside the epistemological discussions that have taken up hundreds of hours of effort and pages of published work by the community of researchers involved. From this perspective, concepts such as “border design” or “new designs” are currently being considered, resulting in an expansion of the universe of design or design as a universe.
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Several factors have contributed to the expansion of the projectual focus of Design over time. Initially focused on the design of physical products, its scope is evolving toward a systemic perspective. The main design challenge in contemporary times is precisely to develop and/or support the development of solutions to highly complex issues that require a broad vision of the project, jointly and sustainably involving products, services and communication. It is in this context that the interpretive richness and visionary skills, inherent characteristics of this discipline, can contribute to the development of a plurality of solutions and future scenarios. This paper aims to conduct a reflection on approaches and tools that support the development of transversal relations and the role of the designer in system level. Possibilities of expanding the purview of the designer stand out through the strengthening of their role as boost agents of sustainable innovations (design for sustainability) and of projects related to local resources value (design applied to the territory value design system, design in the value chain, service design). In this context, the importance in the development of competencies related to the systemic view is emphasized, as well as to the symbolic analysis and to the establishment of crosscutting relationships with other disciplines and social actors.
The Concept of the Design Discipline
Dialectic, 2017
In their previous work, the authors have demonstrated that the discipline of design has been su perseded by a condition where conventionally set design disciplines have dissolved. 1 2 3 In this age where design is typified by fluid, evolving patterns of practice that regularly traverse, transcend and transfigure historical disciplinary and conceptual boundaries, the authors have argued that globalization and the proliferation of the digital has resulted in connections that are no longer 'amid,' cannot be measured 'across,' nor encompass a 'whole' system. In short, this 'disciplinary turn' has generated an 'other' dimension-an alternative disciplinarity. 4 Moreover, this reliance on the 'exhausted' historic disciplines has become obsolete as the boundaries of our understand ing have been superseded by a boundless space / time that we call 'alterplinarity.' 5 The fragmenta tion of distinct disciplines has shifted creative practice from being 'disciplinebased' to 'issue or projectbased.' 6 Consequently, this paper presents a manifesto for the future design discipline that emphasizes disposing carefully of what you know, teaching what you do not know whilst al ways taking design seriously, protecting us from what we want, objecting to sustaining everything, designing without reproach, ensuring that objects are invisible but designed with care and within history whilst exploring design as an idea rather than an ideal.
Design and innovation as co‐creating and co‐becoming with the future
Design Management Journal 14(1), 4–14, 2019
Our world has changed radically over the last decades. Almost every domain of our lives is affected by these disruptions in technology, in our economy, culture, education, as well as social lives. We are living in an environment that is characterized by high levels of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (“VUCA world “). These changes bring about completely new challenges on an individual, organizational, as well as global level. While classical approaches to design and innovation are based on the assumption that we can “solve” these challenges by applying techniques and methods of “problem solving”, of (social) collaboration, co-creation, or co-design, this paper challenges this “classical” understanding of “together” and “co-“. We will develop and take a closer look at three forms of “together”/”co-“ investigating the relationship between the designer/innovator, his/her material and environment, the involved stakeholders and their being embedded in ecosystems, as well as the future he/she is designing for: (i) Being/working together and collaborating with others (socio-epistemic dimension), (ii) being together, interacting and corresponding with the material/world (co-becoming dimension), and (iii) being together and co-developing with the future as “learning from the future as it emerges”. It will be shown how these forms of together are related to design and innovation and we will develop implications concerning new skills and mindsets. Keywords: design, innovation, co-becoming, learning from the future as it emerges, future skills and mindsets.
Design, one piece of the puzzle: A conceptual and practical perspective on transdisciplinary design
Proceedings of DRS, 2022
Transdisciplinary research is claimed to be essential in tackling today’s com- plex societal challenges. Transdisciplinarity includes collaboration and integration across academic disciplines, non-academic ways of knowing, and the ‘real world’ of citizens, professionals and other stakeholders. Design can contribute to transdiscipli- narity by framing complex challenges, integrating knowledge towards synthesizing so- lutions, and providing participatory practices to engage with the real world. However, for design to be successful in transdisciplinary research contexts, a better understand- ing of transdisciplinarity and design is required. In this paper I present a conceptual and practical perspective on transdisciplinary design. I show how design relates to three different conceptions of transdisciplinarity: a multi-level disciplinary practice, a participatory practice, and a practice focused on complexity and social learning. Fur- thermore, I propose a set of transdisciplinary competences that enhance designers’ ability to contribute to tackling complex societal challenges, including epistemic intel- ligence, worldview awareness, power literacy and reflexive and dialogic skills.
Redesigning design; an invitation to a responsible future
1995
This essay proposes new contours for design as a profession in a world whose industrial products have become more and more language-like and incommensurate discourses compete with one another for hegemony-the design discourse being merely one of many. It takes design to be constituted (that is, defined with)in processes of languaging. It calls on us to recognize and act in the awareness of how our discursive practices identify us as the experts we are, create the objects of our concerns, and provide us with a vocabulary to communicate or coordinate our actions relative to each other. 1 The motivation for this essay stems from the far too common experience that whenever designers do work with their counterparts from the so-called 'harder' disciplines, professionals who can argue with statistics, with experimental findings, with calculations or from positions of administrative authority, they most often lose out. Examples are abound. 2 I conclude from them that, first, designers often are preoccupied with products when what matters is how their ideas occur in talk, in clear presentations, in hard evidence, and in compelling arguments. It is communication that makes a difference and gets results. Second, design is foremost conceptual and creative of future conditions. Dwelling on existing facts often inhibits and is generally less important than the ability to bring a multiplicity of people to recognize the benefits of collaborating in the realization of new ideas. Designers are bound to fail when they do not act on the premise that their conceptualizations must make sense to those that matter. Third, the success of famous designers is based primarily on carefully nourished publicity, personal connections, or longtime working relationships with clients. The visual qualities and functionalities in terms of which 1 The insight that we humans, whether as ordinary people, as professionals or as scientists of one kind or another, are living in language is the starting point of several philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Richard Rorty. I can not review their ground and must go on here. 2 The version of this essay which was presented to the conference included five examples, among them Robert Blaich's account of how Philips' well known Roller Radio almost didn't come to be. See Robert Blaich (1990), Forms of Design, pp. d1-d14 in Seppo Väkevä (Ed.
Perspectives on the changing role of the designer: Now and to the future
John Heskett once said that the history of design can be seen as a process of layering. As designers continually add new dimensions to the discipline by adapting and responding to changing economic, social and environmental circumstances, so too must education. The aim of this paper is not to suggest how design education should change, but inform the design community where designers have been taking design today. This paper will profile current PhD research on contemporary roles of the designer as identified in the Dott 07 (Designs of the Time) initiative. It will also propose that we can identify many other roles of the designer, through mapping a current movement known as designing for social good.
Towards a new disciplinary framework for contemporary creative design practice
CoDesign, 2009
This paper argues for a consistent and new design-specific disciplinary framework that will provide a better understanding of emergent design practice. Design today is characterised by a blurring of traditional design domains and design activities that are backed by other subject specialist areas such as computing, electronics or bioengineering. In order to understand and facilitate collaborative working, a consistent disciplinary framework is required. Furthermore, in understanding complex disciplinary influences this framework provides a method of delineating and analysing emergent practice. To derive the framework this paper explores the existing literature on disciplinary terms. Contemporary creative design practice is then analysed via this taxonomy. To this end, the paper argues that through consistent use of the terms, 'multidisciplinary design', 'crossdisciplinary design', 'interdisciplinary design' and 'transdisciplinary design', distinctions can be made within the increasingly complex domain of contemporary design practice.
The present paper elaborates on the notions of discipline and transdisciplinary design to unfold perspectives in design research. A review of the literature and of hints from the observation and empirical studies based on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary design environments have brought insights into the influence of design. The present contribution proposes an inductive Three Spaces Model of the influence of design across and beyond its discipline. Design has characteristics that constitute different dynamic spaces of influence, namely: transdisciplinary, partly shared and particular. Design host disciplines overlap in shared spaces and particular influence is visible in kernel approaches and resulting artefacts. Invariants of design specific or non-design specific nature have a transdisciplinary influence. Designers, researchers and educators ought to identify such characteristics in order to be able to manage these actions and cope gainfully with the social process of design research, education and practice.