Knowledge Base Repository
In addition to research papers, the Design Society is developing several valuable resources for those interested in the study of design. These include a repository of PhD theses, a library of case studies and transcripts of design activities, and an archive of our newsletters. Please note that these resources are accessible exclusively to Design Society members.
DESIGNING: INSIGHTS FROM WEAVING THEORIES OF COGNITION AND DESIGN THEORIES
Subrahmanian, Eswaran; Reich, Yoram; Smulders, Frido; Meijer, Sebastiaan
Type:
Year:
2011
Editor:
Culley, S.J.; Hicks, B.J.; McAloone, T.C.; Howard, T.J. & Badke-Schaub, P.
Author:
Series:
ICED
Section:
Human Behaviour in Design
Page(s):
424-436
Abstract:
This paper addresses the issue of ‘What is designing?’ from an unconventional perspective and aims to advance our understanding of what design really is. Designing has been studied from different perspectives but the underlying theoretical basis of studying the act has often been dispersed and not clear. To address these shortcomings the paper proposes a new topological structure that consists of two 3-dimensional spaces: Product-space and Social-space. The P-space is constructed by the complexity of the artifact, the number of disciplines involved and the availability of knowledge. The S-space consists of the number of disciplinary languages, number of different perspectives and the amount of openness and closeness of the social system that encapsulates the design activity. The two spaces are connected by means of theories on cognition, like: individual and distributed cognition, socio-linguistics, situated cognition, etc. Two examples serve to illustrate the proposed model and show that the act of designing involves the evolution of the artifact, social system, language and information embedded in the social and societal context.
Keywords:
