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.
Breakthrough technologies: principle feasibility debates
Hein, Andreas Makoto; Jankovic, Marija; Condat, Hélčne
Type:
Year:
2017
Editor:
Anja Maier, Stanko Škec, Harrison Kim, Michael Kokkolaras, Josef Oehmen, Georges Fadel, Filippo Salustri, Mike Van der Loos
Author:
Series:
ICED
Institution:
1: CentraleSupélec, Université Paris Saclay, France; 2: Initiative for Interstellar Studies, United Kingdom
Section:
Design Processes, Design Organisation and Management
Page(s):
477-486
Abstract:
Designing new technologies involves creating something that did not exist before. In particular, designing technologies with a low degree of maturity usually involves an assessment of its feasibility or infeasibility. Assessing the feasibility of a technology is of vital importance in many domains such as technology management and policy. Despite its importance, few publications actually deal with the fundamentals of technological feasibility such as feasibility proofs or proposing different feasibility categories. This paper addresses this gap by reviewing the existing literature on the feasibility of low-maturity technologies, proposes a framework for assessing feasibility issues, and reconstructs past and ongoing feasibility debates of four exemplary technologies. For the four technologies analysed, we conclude that sufficient expected performance is a key feasibility criteria to all cases, whereas physical effects and working principles were issues for more speculative technologies. For future work, we propose the further development of feasibility categories for different technologies of different degrees of maturity.
Keywords:
