Design Research Society DRS Digital Library Design Research Quarterly DRS Archive 1-1-2007 Design Research Quarterly Volume 2 Issue 1 Peter Storkerson Follow this and additional works at: https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/design-research-quarterly Recommended Citation Storkerson, Peter, "Design Research Quarterly Volume 2 Issue 1" (2007). Design Research Quarterly. 2. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/design-research-quarterly/2 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.2:1 January 2007 www.designresearchsociety.org Design Research Society ISSN 1752-8445 Paolo Astrade Wonderground 2007 Plenary: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa Perspectives on Table of Contents: 3 Forty Years of Design Research Design Nigel Cross 7 Simplicity Per Mollerup 16 Design Thinking Nigel Cross Charles Owen Forty Years of 28 Wonderground and Forward Design Research p. 3 Chris Rust 29 Seven New Fellows of the Design Research Society ICM Report: 30 BRAZIL: 7th P&D Brazilian Conference on Research and Development in Design Daniela Büchler Per Mollerup Design Conference Calendar: Simplicity p. 7 31 Upcoming Events Worldwide Artemis Yagou Call for Papers: 6 Emerging Trends in Design Research 2007 IASDR conference, Hong Kong 15 Shaping the Future? 9th International Conference on Engi- neering and Product Design Ed. Creative Makers Newcastle upon Tyne UK Domain Invention Charles Owen 32 Livenarch Contextualism in Architecture Design Thinking: Trabzon Turkey Notes on Its Analysis Synthesis Nature and Use p . 1 6 Discovery Creative Finders Domain Design Research Quarterly 1:2 Dec. 2006 – 1 – www.designresearchsociety.org From the Editor Publication Information Peter Storkerson Editor: In this second issue of Design Research Quarterly, we Dr. Peter Storkerson, Southern Illinois University, USA have three major articles on the nature of design: two ple- nary addresses from the Wonderground conference in Associate Editors: Lisbon, 2006 and one from the International Conference Dr. Vesna Popovic, Queensland University of Technology, on Design Research and Education for the Future, Korea, Australia 2005. Each of these presents a particular perspective on design thinking, processes, and goals, and each provides a Dr. Kristina Niedderer, Hertfordshire University, UK basis for discussion and debate. Dr. Artemis Yagou, AKTO Art and Design, Greece In Forty Years of Design Research Nigel Cross presents the sweep of design research in its formative decades, from Editorial Advisory Board: 1960 to the present, covering the development of systemat- Prof. Ken Friedman, Chair ic methods in design and in design as an object of study. Norwegian School of Management, Norway Charles Owen’s Design Thinking: Notes on Its Nature and Danmarks Designskole, Denmark Use presents a concise, diagrammed analysis of design thinking and of design as the obverse complement to sci- Dr. Antti Ainamo, Helsinki School of Economics, Finland entific thinking. His article also gives a taxonomy, locating Prof. Tevfik Balcioglu, Izmir University of Economics, Turkey design with respect to other fields of endeavors, scientific and practical. On that basis, he develops his list of the char- Prof. Lin-Lin Chen, National Taiwan University of Science and acteristics needed of designers and the questions that edu- Technology, Taiwan cators need to address in constructing programs that will Prof. Nigel Cross, Open University, UK cultivate those characteristics. Per Mollerup’s Simplicity returns to a familiar theme, Prof. Clive Dilnot, Parsons The New School for Design, USA and develops it in its different types, relations, and trade- Prof. Kun-Pyo Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and offs: simplicity of appearance, of use, of construction, and Technology, Korea of internal structure. But, simplicity itself is not simple, and Mollerup presents an intriguing challenge to consider: Dr. Joao Lutz, UniverCidade, Brazil ‘If simplicity is essential to design, then it is doubly vital to Prof. Sanjoy Mazumdar, University of California at Irvine, USA design research.’ We also have, from Wonderground, closing remarks by Prof. Donald Norman, Nielsen Norman Group and Northwestern Chris Rust, Chair of the Design Research Society, with its University, USA notes on presentation and on ongoing plans for the devel- Prof. Sharon Poggenpohl, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, opment of the society. China Prof. M.P. Ranjan, National Institute of Design, India Dr. Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders, MakeTools, USA Prof. Marian Sauthoff, University of Pretoria, South Africa Dr. Chris Smith, London Metropolitan University, UK Prof. Toshiharu Taura, Kobe University, Japan Prof. Necdet Teymur, Emeritus, Middle East Technical University, Turkey Design Research Quarterly is published in January, April, July and October by the Design Research Society. DRQ is archived on-line at <www.designresearchsociety.org>. Contents Copyright © 2006 by the Design Research Society. All rights reserved. ISSN 1752-8445. Design Research Quarterly 1:2 Dec. 2006 – 2 – www.designresearchsociety.org Forty Years of Design Research Nigel Cross President, Design Research Society The 40th anniversary of the founding of the Design Research Society falls in this year, 2006, and thus pro- Presidential address to the Wonderground conference, Lisbon, Portugal, vides a suitable moment to reflect on the first forty years of November 1, 2006. design research. From the very beginning, the purpose of the DRS has always been stated clearly in its aims: ‘to pro- Nigel Cross mote the study of and research into the process of design- Nigel Cross is a leading international figure in the world of design research. ing in all its many fields’. Its purpose therefore is to act as a With academic and practical backgrounds in architecture and industrial form of learned society, taking a domain independent view design, he has conducted research in computer-aided design, design meth- of the process of designing. odology, and design cognition since the nineteen-sixties. His main current The emergence of the Society lay in the success of the research is based on studies of expert and exceptional designers. He has been first ‘Conference on Design Methods’, which was held a member of the academic staff of the UK’s pioneering, multi-media Open in London in 1962 (Jones and Thornley, 1963). That con- University since 1970, where he has been responsible for, or instrumental in, ference is generally regarded as the event which marked a wide range of distance-education courses in design and technology. Books the launch of design methodology as a subject or field of by Professor Cross include Designerly Ways of Knowing (Springer, 2006), enquiry, and the ‘design methods movement’. In the UK Analysing Design Activity (co-edited with Christiaans and Dorst; Wiley, 1996) the new movement developed through further conferences and the third edition of his successful textbook on Engineering Design Methods in the 1960s – ‘The Design Method’ in Birmingham, 1965 (Wiley, 2000). Professor Cross is also Editor-in-Chief of the international journal (Gregory, 1966), and ‘Design Methods in Architecture’, in of Design Studies. In 2005 he was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Portsmouth, 1967 (Broadbent and Ward, 1969). Award of the Design Research Society. He is President of the Design Research The origins of new design methods in the 1960s lay fur- Society, and of the International Association of Societies of Design Research. ther back in the application of novel, ‘scientific’ methods to the novel and pressing problems of the 2nd World War – from which came operational research methods and man- agement decision-making techniques – and in the develop- ment of creativity techniques in the 1950s. (The latter was partly, in the USA, in response to the launch of the first sat- ellite, the Soviet Union’s ‘Sputnik’, which seemed to con- vince American scientists and engineers that they lacked creativity.) The 1960s also saw the beginnings of computer programs for problem solving. The first design methods or methodology books appeared – Asimow (1962), Alexander (1964), Archer (1965), Jones (1970) – and the first creativity books – Gordon (1961), Osborn (1963). A statement by Bruce Archer (1965) encapsulated what was going on: The most fundamental challenge to conventional ideas on design has been the growing advocacy of systematic methods of problem solving, borrowed from computer techniques and management theory, for the assessment of design problems and the development of design solutions. And Herbert Simon (1969) established the founda- tions for ‘a science of design’, which would be ‘a body of intellectually tough, analytic, partly formalizable, partly Continued Q Design Research Quarterly 1:2 Dec. 2006 – 3 – www.designresearchsociety.org Forty Years of Design Research. cont. empirical, teachable doctrine about the design process.’ In tive’, participatory process in which designers are partners some senses, there was a desire to ‘scientise’ design in the with the problem ‘owners’ (clients, customers, users, the 1960s. community). However, this approach seemed to be more However, the 1970s became notable for the rejection of relevant to architecture and planning than engineering design methodology by many, including some of the early and industrial design, and meanwhile these