Design Research Quarterly Volume 3, Issue 4
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Design Research Society DRS Digital Library Design Research Quarterly DRS Archive 1-10-2008 Design Research Quarterly Volume 3, Issue 4 Peter Storkerson Follow this and additional works at: https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/design-research-quarterly Recommended Citation Storkerson, Peter, "Design Research Quarterly Volume 3, Issue 4" (2008). Design Research Quarterly. 9. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/design-research-quarterly/9 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the DRS Archive at DRS Digital Library. It has been accepted for inclusion in Design Research Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DRS Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected]. V.3:4 October 2008 www.designresearchsociety.org Design Research Society ISSN 1752-8445 ‘Undisciplined’ Keynotes: Design Research and Academic Disciplines Alan F. Blackwell Foreign Bodies / Jewellery as Prosthesis Christoph Zellweger Table of Contents: Article: 3 Design Research and Academic Disciplines Alan F. Blackwell 9 FOREIGN BODIES / Jewellery as Prosthesis Christoph Zellweger 16 Inklings: From Mind to Page in Research David Mick Listings: 21 Current Research in Design: Tables of Contents from Leading Design Journals 30 Upcoming Events Worldwide Artemis Yagou DRQ-DRS 2 Publication information 20 DRQ subscription Foreign Bodies / Jewellery as Prosthesis: page 9 DRS Membership information 31 Election of new DRS Fellows Design Research Quarterly Publication Information Editor: Editorial Advisory Board: Dr. Peter Storkerson Prof. Ken Friedman, Chair Norwegian School of Management, Norway and Danmarks Associate Editors: Designskole, Denmark Dr. Vesna Popovic Dr. Antti Ainamo Queensland University of Technology, Australia Helsinki School of Economics, Finland Dr. Kristina Niedderer Prof. Tevfik Balcioglu Hertfordshire University, UK Izmir University of Economics, Turkey Dr. Artemis Yagou Prof. Lin-Lin Chen AKTO Art and Design, Greece National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan Prof. Nigel Cross Open University, UK Prof. Clive Dilnot Parsons The New School for Design, USA Design Research Quarterly is is a peer reviewed journal, published Dr. Troels Degn Johansson in January, April, July and October by the Design Research Society. Denmark’s Design School, Denmark Prof. Pekka Korvenmaa Design Research Quarterly and its contents are published under the University of Art and Design, University of Art and Design, Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial NoDerivs 3.0 License. Finland < http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ > Prof. Kun-Pyo Lee You are free to Share—to copy, distribute and transmit the journal or Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea journal articles. Under the following conditions: Dr. Joao Lutz 1 Attribution UniverCidade, Brazil e You must attribute work in the manner specified by the author or Prof. Sanjoy Mazumdar licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you University of California at Irvine, USA or your use of the work). Prof. Donald Norman 2 Noncommercial Nielsen Norman Group and Northwestern University, USA e You may not use any part of this journal or work in it for com- Prof. Sharon Poggenpohl mercial purposes. Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China 3 No Derivative Works Prof. M.P. Ranjan e You may not alter, transform, or build upon any part of this jour- National Institute of Design, India nal or work in it. Dr. Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders MakeTools, USA Prof. Marian Sauthoff Design Research Quarterly is archived on-line: www.drsq.org. University of Pretoria, South Africa Dr. Chris Smith We solicit your contributions: papers and articles on design research. London Metropolitan University, UK For information regarding submissions, contact Prof. Toshiharu Taura Peter Storkerson, [email protected] Kobe University, Japan Prof. Necdet Teymur Emeritus, Middle East Technical University, Turkey Design Research Quarterly 3:4 Oct. 2008 – 2 – www.designresearchsociety.org Design Research and Academic Disciplines From keynote address, 2008 DRS conference: “Undisciplined” Alan F. Blackwell Reader in Interdisciplinary Design, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory Can a person be a designer and also be disciplined? More properly, can one be a design researcher, and also a member Alan Blackwell of an academic discipline? This paper is based on an invited Alan Blackwell (UK) is Reader in Interdisciplinary Design at the address to the Design Research Society, given under the title Cambridge University Computer Laboratory, with qualifications in professional engineering, computing and experimental psychology. “On Being Undisciplined”. I have set out to analyse some of He had 12 years experience of designing industrial systems, the fundamental tensions between the social and epistemo- electronic and software products before resuming academic research logical dynamics of contemporary academic life on one hand, in 1995. He has taught design courses and supervised postgradu- ate design research students in Computing, Architecture, Psychology, and the lived experience of professionally engaged design Languages, Music and Engineering. He is a fellow of Darwin College work on the other. This has been done with a degree of Cambridge, founding director of the Crucible Network for research in rigour, including large-scale reflective design research proj- Interdisciplinary Design since 2000, and a director of the public cultural consortium Living East. His research involves the development of tech- ects, undertaken with diverse teams of disciplinary experts nologies for home automation, visual representations and end-user pro- who are well qualified to study and understand such broad gramming, based on empirical and critical research into the human and questions. However it starts with some more idiosyncratic social contexts of technology. personal and historical reflections, a privilege that is gener- ally allowed to keynote speakers, but not so often translated into print. Being ‘Undisciplined’ Today My research draws on 20 years of personal experience in believe that it is the world views of professional design and and around the city of Cambridge, both as an academic and of academic discipline that are most fundamentally opposed, as a design professional. It also draws on 20 years of earlier rather than any individual disciplinary distinction. education and design experience from far away. New Zea- The extraordinary gulf between these world views can be land is as far as one can go from Cambridge, and still be in seen on the most local of scales. Rather than a 24-hour plane a university. The University of Cambridge is 800 years old, flight passing billions of people when travelling to my family and my present department taught the first Computer Sci- in New Zealand, the whole story of the tension between de- ence graduate programme in the world since 1949. New Zea- sign and the academy can be experienced in the distance that land is one of the youngest countries in the world. In 1989 I ride my bicycle every day, in a city of fewer than 100,000 I was only the third person to graduate with a Computer people. Cambridge is built on a very compact scale – I can Science master’s in Wellington. However the drama in this ride from farmland on one side of the city to the other in 20 story is not the contrast between my lives in these geographi- minutes. I pass through the medieval centre, with narrow cally and historically remote countries, but between my lives streets, ancient chapels and many small student rooms. The in two professions: as a designer and as an academic. surrounding suburbs are largely Victorian-era high-density My professional life has encompassed a full range of de- terrace housing, then a further ring of low-cost 20th century sign, from heavy industrial automation to software and home development before the science parks and campuses on the appliances. My academic life has led me to take degrees in outskirts of town. It is the last that drew me to Cambridge, engineering, comparative religion, computer science and and finances the luxury of this reflection. Despite its tiny psychology. It is perhaps not surprising for a person who size and ancient history, Cambridge has become the most moves between countries also to undertake intellectual ex- prominent high-technology research and investment centre ploration – the life of the permanent immigrant prevents in Europe. However before investigating more closely the assimilation within any one culture, and encourages critical huge tensions that arise from the juxtaposition of medieval reflection on one’s environment. Although hesitant to offer university and high technology, I wish to consider a particu- personal views as generic, the diversity of my experience lar turning point, in the life of one prominent Victorian. appears sufficiently unusual that my struggles with disci- plinary boundaries may be of more general interest. Indeed, Being ‘Undisciplined’ in History despite the many differences on each side of the divide, I now Horace Darwin was the youngest son of the famous natu- ralist Charles. Several of Charles Darwin’s sons settled in Cambridge, where the family wealth allowed some comfort, Continued p. 4 Q Design Research Quarterly 3:4 Oct. 2008 – 3 – www.designresearchsociety.org Design research and academic disciplines, continued from p.3 to an extent that three of their houses later became Cam- for many years it followed Darwin’s observations regarding bridge Colleges. My own college,