introduzione
Design is constantly changing; hence, attempts to construct design
theories are challenging. Nonetheless, there is a long tradition of
reflection on the act of designing that considers the nature of design
knowledge and how it is applied. Among the first to write about this
subject were Nigel Cross and Donald Schön, both of whose work
has continued to be a touchstone for further reflection. In 1992,
Adrian Snodgrass and Richard Coyne introduced in this journal the
idea of design as a hermeneutic practice, characterizing it as an open
and interpretive activity. Now twenty years later, Marcus Jahnke
responds to Coyne and Snodgrass’ earlier article by addressing the
hermeneutic theory of French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, which he
argues will strengthen the hermeneutic perspective on design
practice by shifting the emphasis from interpreting what already
exists to what he calls “the poetic practice of creating new
meaning.” Schön’s seminal book The Reflective Practitioner remains
a touchstone for Jahnke, and he seeks to amplify Schön’s studies of
designing by introducing Ricoeur’s notion of the hermeneutic spiral,
which he believes will help researchers to understand how
designers process the many complex elements that make up an open
design project.
Claudia Mareis’ article is also concerned with design
philosophy, especially the concept of tacit knowledge that was
introduced by Michael Polanyi, the Hungarian-British scientist,
economist, and philosopher. Besides Polanyi, Donald Schön is a
point of reference as well as is Pierre Bourdieu and his concept of
habitus. Mareis acknowledges the inclusion of tacit knowledge in
many theories of designing but argues that it is not a natural
phenomenon; Piuttosto, it arises from a sociocultural context and new
methods of design research are required to understand it.
Whereas Jahnke and Mareis consider design from the point
of view of theory, Anthony Crabbe is concerned with how design
operates in a specific milieu, the developing world. Through three
case studies, he shows that design situations in developing countries
are multifaceted and argues that successful interventions require
the careful consideration of many factors that are not necessarily
obvious. Tension may arise between the well-meaning intentions of
aid agencies and the disadvantaged people in whose communities
they seek to be effective. Crabbe highlights three different kinds of
design projects and shows how they relate to the principles of the
Natural Step, a strategy for successful aid assistance.
© 2012 Istituto di Tecnologia del Massachussetts
Problemi di progettazione: Volume 28, Numero 2 Primavera 2012
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Crabbe addresses the issue of how tensions can arise between
the local and the global around specific projects, while Christine
Guth considers the globalization through the circulation of a singular
Immagine, the print called “Under the Wave of Kanagawa” by the
Japanese ukiyo-e printmaker, Hokusai. Guth demonstrates how the
wave image takes on multiple meanings as it moves around the
mondo. Its compelling visual qualities, she states, have been readily
adapted to different contexts from museums to companies that make
skateboards and sneakers. The point about globalization that both
Crabbe and Guth address in complimentary ways is that there may
be varied responses to a situation or a commodity. In their own
ways, both authors contribute to the ongoing discussion of how
different groups of people produce meaning in a globalized world.
Elizabeth Guffy’s article on Jim Crow signs in the segregated
South introduces a previously hidden yet highly significant topic to
design history—the systems of public signs that marked the
segregated spaces, whether bus waiting rooms, drinking fountains,
or toilets, for whites and blacks. Today we think of public signage as
universal and assume that everyone has the same rights to make use
of public space; but while the American South remained segregated
for years after the Emancipation Proclamation, signs designating
segregated public spaces denoted entirely separate wayfinding
strategies whose misunderstanding might have dire consequences.
Design history is addressed in different ways by several other
authors in this issue. Stéphane Laurent, a French design historian,
laments the slow development of awareness in France of design as
a subject of public discourse. He cites as one cause, the long-standing
distinction between major and minor arts, concluding that design in
France still has to overcome the historic stigma of belonging to the
latter category.
In her review of the most recent Design History Society
conference in Barcelona, where the theme was “Design Activism and
Social Change,” Grace Lees-Maffei reflects on the difference between
design activism and design reform. She reviews a number of the
papers that were presented at the conference as well as Henk
Oosterling’s keynote speech and seminal texts by Alastair Fuad-Luke
and Tony Fry in order to consider the key question of how activism
and reform differ. In her conclusion, she emphasizes the way that
design has changed, even in the past twenty years, noting that today
many practitioners as well as design historians and theorists feel
compelled to embrace design activism as a way to combat the
overwhelming problems that we all face.
Jonathan Mekinda’s review of Katerina Ruedi Ray’s Bauhaus
Dream-House continues the engagement with history by showing
how the author has adopted a revisionist approach to Bauhaus
studies by focusing on the school as an institution rather than on the
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Problemi di progettazione: Volume 28, Numero 2 Primavera 2012
things that were made there. By coincidence, Bertrand Goldberg,
whose exhibition Maura Lucking reviews here, was one of the few
American students to study at the Bauhaus.
Returning to the opening theme of this editorial, the idea that
design is constantly changing, Carl DiSalvo reviews an edited
volume, Digital Blur: Creative Practices at the Boundaries of Architecture,
Design and Art that brings together papers from a symposium on
interdisciplinarity that was held in Edinburgh. Presentations by
practitioners are combined with several essays that both document
disciplinary practice and argue that disciplinarity should end.
Rebecca Dalvesco points to new directions in design in her review
of the Hyperlinks exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, in which
the exploration of transdisciplinary design methodologies was a
central theme.
What the range of articles and reviews in this issue of the
journal shows is that design reflection moves simultaneously in
various directions, seeking on the one hand to nail down principles
that might be widely relevant and on the other to account for the
constantly changing configurations of activity that mirror a world
that itself is in a constant state of flux.
Bruce Brown
Richard Buchanan
Dennis Doordan
Vittorio Margolin
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Problemi di progettazione: Volume 28, Numero 2 Primavera 2012
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