Design, Metadesign and the Importance of Vision Design
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Strategic Design Research Journal, 5(2): 84-90 May-August 2012 ©2012 by Unisinos - doi: 10.4013/sdrj.2012.52.04 Design, metadesign and the importance of vision Design, metaprojeto e a importância da visão Manuela Celi [email protected] Politecnico di Milano. INDACO, School of Design. Via Durando 38/a, 20158, Milano, Italy Abstract Resumo In the European context today there are many reasons to re- No contexto europeu atualmente existe muitas razões para think and re-design didactic activities. Design education in repensar e reprojetar atividades didáticas. O ensino de design particular seems to be at the core of European Union goals: em particular parece estar no centro das metas da União Eu- (i) the EU underlines, in several recent documents1, the im- ropeia: (i) a União Europeia sublinha, em vários documentos portance of research and educating future researchers, (ii) recentes, a importância da pesquisa e a formação dos futuros there is a continuous stress and promotion of interdisciplin- pesquisadores; (ii) há um estresse contínuo na promoção de ary approaches and of internationalization to maintain and abordagens interdisciplinares e de internacionalização para improve the higher education level and strengthen its com- manter e melhorar o nível de ensino superior e reforçar a com- petitiveness. Within our institution there is an educational petitividade. Dentro de nossa instituição existe um modelo model based on the so-called Research and didactic units, educativo baseado na pesquisa e em unidades didáticas, en- between which there is a virtuous circle. Starting from the tre as quais existe um círculo virtuoso. A partir do círculo virtu- virtuous circle between research and education and the im- oso entre pesquisa e educação e a importância da criatividade portance of creativity in design activities the paper will ex- nas atividades de design o artigo vai explorar a importância plore the importance of a metacognitive approach and the de uma abordagem metacognitiva e do papel central das ati- central role of envisioning activities. vidades de previsão. Key words: design, education, reaserch, metadesign, vision, Palavras-chave: design, educação, pesquisa, metaprojeto, envisioning. visão, previsão. Design education and the European context and education strategic. As suggested in the EU working documents (European Union, 2009 p. 8) the development Inside Europe there are several initiatives in sup- of tools and support mechanisms for design-driven, user- port of design education and research in all countries centred innovation, networking and research, and collabora- with design support. The development of design educa- tion in education and training are areas of action that could tion follows different paths: some states have focused help remove some of the barriers to better use of design in on quantitative targets increasing the number of design Europe. Moreover, the need to train professionally active graduates some others have recognized as a goal the qual- designers to take better account of recent developments ity of design education. Even though, in some countries in design-driven innovation appears urgent. the average unemployment rate of design graduates is Design research is still a relatively small and recent higher than for other professions, in some other countries discipline, inadequately recognized and not properly con- as Denmark and Finland it is acknowledged that there is nected with more established areas of innovation research a lack of designers with the right expertise. This situation (European Union, 2009 p. 50). led the European community to work on design policy If we want design to be considered as a strategic ad- and to consider the powerful relation between research vantage, it is important that not only designers inside com- 1 Report from the Commission to the Council on the Council Resolution of 23 November 2007 on Modernising Universities for Europe’s competitive- ness in a global knowledge economy (October 2008) Manuela Celi panies or design academics understand the potential of represents a means of communicating results. Research design but also that the entire scientific and business com- through design has been examined by different authors, munity considers design as a key asset. To reach this target who have defined it as either practice-led research, ac- the American Design Management Institute, for example, tion research, or project-grounded research. Alain Findeli promotes design thinking among non-design executives, (2000, p. 58) in particular, regarded such forms of research providing training and research. It has been suggested that as variants of research on design with a special accent on design should be an integral part of the business school theoretical aspects, stressing the role of creativity and training, as it happens in Rothman Business School of To- claiming its independence from other disciplines: ronto, and also in engineering and architecture. In the same way, management should be an integral part of design edu- “[…] we are left with the conviction that there is indeed a cation. The need of an eclectic instruction is continuously specific “designerly way of knowing”, that this knowledge stressed and promoted by the European Union through an and its objects deserve to be investigated and that creativity interdisciplinary approach and internationalization to main- is a necessity, not only for design practice, but also for design tain and improve the higher education level and strengthen research. Also, we may be confident that, after having its competitiveness. depended on so many foreign – sometimes even exotic – academic disciplines, design is about to gain its sovereignty Relation between research and education and to contribute to general knowledge, by posing new and relevant research questions and by helping reduce The document signed in Bergen underlines the im- uncertainty and ignorance about what concerns us all: the portance of research, education to research, and promo- nature, meaning, and purpose of the relationships of human tion of interdisciplinarity, in order to maintain and improve beings with the world, especially the artificial world”. the quality of higher education and strengthen its com- petitiveness. The polytechnic culture is an expression of The relation between research and education is a a two sided medal: engineering on one side and artistic virtuous recursive cycle in which the two parts feed each architectonic on the other. It represents, maybe more than other and stimulate a continuous process of reflection as any other university culture, a fertile field of development Schön advocates (Figure 1). for design disciplines, and for the multi-disciplinary ap- proach that is part of our School of Design. Designerly ways of knowing At the core of this work, there is the conviction that design has a pervasive character and specific cognitive It is meaningful to observe that the concept of specific properties (Oxman, 1999; Cross, 2000; Downton, 2000). designerly ways of knowing arises for the first time togeth- Furthermore, in a didactic context, the role of design er with the development of new educational approaches cannot be limited to define the course contents; design in design. As clearly articulated in the journal Design Stud- should extend its role beyond its area of comfort. This ies by Nigel Cross (1982), just as other intellectual cultures means, engaging into the strategic and organizational concentrate on the underlying forms of knowledge pecu- transformation of education (Celi and Ramponi, 2009). liar to their nature, design discipline must converge on the The role of research within education is important, “designerly” ways of knowing, thinking, and acting. Design but in the design field, it is necessary to distinguish be- problems are often problems with a large number of open tween three different types of research: research in (or on) constraints-parameters whose values are left unspecified design, often carried out starting from other disciplines in the problem statement. Solving an ill-structured prob- (historical interpretation, a sociological or technological lem is partly a process of resolving these constraints (Guin- one); research for design, as in research and development don, 1990). Simon, emphasizing the role of the problem units (R&D); and research through design, where the proj- solver, wrote “There is much merit to the claim that much ect practice has a methodological role. Research through problem solving effort is directed at structuring problems, design regards didactics more closely than other forms and only a fraction of it at solving problems once they are of research: in such case, design is a research vehicle and structured” (Simon, 1984 [1973], p. 187). Figure 1. Relationship between research and education at the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano. Strategic Design Research Journal, volume 5, number 2, May-August 2012 85 Design, metadesign and the importance of vision After Schön’s work (1983), many researchers have re- references and the overlapping of areas of different design alized that design practice has its own strong and appro- experiences are the uniting elements between design pro- priate intellectual culture, and that when design research cedures, and previous theories and knowledge which to- is integrated into the design process new and unexpected gether make up the curriculum of a designer (Celi, 2005). questions emerge directly from the act of design (Zimmer- man, 2003, p.