Figure 54: Modern theories of design (1970-2005)

 

content

Designers treat as real what exists only in an imagined future

Drawings need to be supplemented by models, mock-ups and prototypes

Drawings can open a zone of emergent possibilities

„To design is to invent“

Philosophy of Design

Functionalism vs product sematics vs. systems theory

Radical constructivism

Steps of the design process

Many approaches to design theory

Characteristics of construction - design

 

 

 

Designers treat as real what exists only in an imagined future

 

J. Christopher Jones (1970, 4, 6, 15) defines designing „as the initiation of change in man-made things“.

Designing differs from art, science or mathematics with respect to timing. Designers „are forever bound to treat as real that which exists only in an imagined future and have to specify ways in which the foreseen thing can be made to exist“ (1970, 10-11). Inspired by the then prevalent craze of creativity an d systems thinking he proposes to see designing  s a three-stage process:

·        divergence,

·        transformation and

·        convergence (1970, 63-69, 81-82).

 

Jones presents 35 methods of strategies and of exploring design situations and problem structure, as well of searching for ideas and evaluation.

 

 

Drawings need to be supplemented by models, mock-ups and prototypes

 

Ken Baynes and Francis Pugh (1978, 14-15, 21) give a basic typology of engineering drawings:

·        Designer’s drawings (frequently found in notebooks)

·        Project drawings (according to accepted rules and conventions)

·        Production drawings (they conform to a sequence starting with a general arrangement drawing and covering every detail of the product to be manufactured)

·        Presentation and maintainance drawings (made of the product after it had been finished)

·        Technical illustrations (for technical or popularising books).

The authors point out that drawings have always been supplemented by other forms of design development: models, mock-ups and full-size prototypes.

 

 

Drawings can open a zone of emergent possibilities

 

For Reese V. Jenkins (1987) „design process is at the core of technical creativity“. However „it occurs within a contex of prevailing visions, values, attitudes, concepts and institutions“ and is predominantly goaloriented.

Jenkins focus is on Thomas Alva Edison’s development of the phonograph and shows the fundamental role of drawing in the invention and development of mass produced objects. Of course, „there is no, one unique design for the broadly defined goal but a number of possible designs or solutions“. Drawings can open a zone of emergent possibilities.

 

 

„To design is to invent“

 

In 1992 Eugene S. Ferguson made an admirable and well illustrated attempt to clarify the nature and significance of „nonverbal thought“ in engineering. He states: „To design is to invent“ (12). He cites the philosopher Carl Mitcham: „Invention causes things to come into existence from ideas, makes world conform to thought; whereas science, by deriving ideas from observation, makes thought conform to existence“ (13).

Ferguson adds:

„All successful designs rest solidly on specific precedents“ (15). „The strength of engineering lies in the depth of its foundations. The hundred generations of conscientious artisans who built those foundations preserved the technical knowledge they had learned from their forebears, refined it, added to it, and passed it on to posterity“ (60).

 

Therefore designing means learning by trying.

„Engineers learn a great deal during the process of design as they strive to clarify the visions in their minds and seek ways to bring indistinct elements into focus“ (3).

 

„Engineer’s drawings, whether made with pencils and pens on a drawing board or with an electronic cursor on a computer screen, share important characteristics with the drawings and paintings of artists. Both the engineer and the artist start with a blank page. Each will transfer to it the vision in his mind’s eye. The choices made by artists as they construct their pictures may appear to be quite arbitrary ... The engineer’s goal of producing a drwawing of a device – a machine or a structure or system – may seem to rule out most if not all arbitrary choices. Yet engineering design is surprisingly open-ended. A goal may be reached by many, many different paths, some of which are better than others but none of which is in all respects the one best way“ (21).

 

Ferguson (1992, 102-105, 66, 153) mentions the use of 3D-models as early as 1390 by Hugh Herland, master carpenter to King Richard II, in designing the timber roof structure of Westminster Hall.

In 1418 twenty or more models were submitted by competitors for the job of building the great dome of the Florence cathedral. When Brunelleschi was chosen to plan and supervise the construction, he proceeded to build a larger model, perhaps 15 feet  across. In addidtion he designed and modeled a lot of cranes for the construction of the dome and the lantern on top.

In 1585 when Pope Sixtus V decided to move the Vatican obelisk he appointed a commission to reviwe the several hundred proposals put forward by contenders for the job. The successful contender, the Swiss Domenico Fontana, used an elaborate model to demostrate how he intended to lift and move the unwieldy monolith.

 

 

Philosophy of Design

 

In a posthumous edition of articles of the Czech philosopher Vilém Flusser [1993] we find a “philosophy of design”. Flusser sees designers as creators of worlds and planners of virtual cultures.

„Reality is that which is properly, efficiently and scientifically computed into forms; and the unreal (the dreamlike, the illusory) is that which is shoddily computed.“

 

 

Functionalism vs product sematics vs. systems theory

 

Wolfgang Jonas [1994] distingushes two extreme theories of design: functionalism and product semantics.

 

Functionalism goes back to the statement of Louis Henry Sullivan: „form follows function“ (1896); product semantics originated in the 1970s in the realm of Marxist critique of „commodity fetishism“.

Jonas himself proposes a systems theoretic approach - a „system model of a design theory“ - as a framework for textual theories. In Jonas’ model the function of design is catalyzing the production-consumption dynamics.

 

 

Radical constructivism

 

End of the 1990s Cordula Meier and Thomas Rurik tried to develop a design theory on the basis of the radical constructivism. Due to the early death of Rurik the attempt [Cordula Meier 2001] failed.

 

 

Steps of the design process

 

Christian Labonte (2001, 211-213) describes the modern design process of automobil design. „Designers of vehicles develop product scenarios influenced by trends and tendencies which reach the consciousness of people until the future. They discover and uncover the so far hidden – it reaches the surface.“

·        The design process itself starts with sketches on paper and with the computer.

·        The results can be transformed in a data model (Computer Aided Design).

·        The 3D-data are used as input for a milling machine to produce a material model, first in the scale 1:4 later in the finetuning 1:1.

·        The shaped blank need manual rework, the surface can be coated by real materials.

·        The modification data can be returned in the CAD-System.

·        Both the data and the model can be used for tests of aerodynamics as well for presentation in virtual environments.

 

 

Many approaches to design theory

 

Bernhard E. Bürdek (2005; first edition 1991) distinguishes not very systematic the following approaches to design theory:

·        Information aestehtics

·        Critical theory

·        Enlarged functionalism

·        Disciplinary design theory

·        Information function of the product

·        Communicative function of the product

·        Formal aesthectic functions

·        Ecological approach

·        Sign functions

·        Symbol functions

·        Product sematics.