introduzione - Ricerca sull'intelligenza artificiale specializzata al MIT

introduzione

Understanding, rather than simply marking the conclusion of a
process of inquiry, is often the initial stage of the next step in the
search for knowledge. Now that we know X (whatever X might be),
what is it that we actually know? What questions does understand-
ing provoke as well as answer? Hence, one of the standard features
of good scholarship is a sub-section in an article or report labeled
something like Further Topics for Discussion, or Next Steps or simply,
Implications. This issue is rich with implications and provocations.
Mahyar Arefi deploys the concept of consilience to explain how
seemingly unrelated strands of knowledge converge to provide
intellectual coherence for the discipline of urban design. Katja
Thoring, Roland Mueller, Pieter Desmet, and Petra Badke-Schaub
report on their effort to develop, in their words: “… a unified model
of design knowledge that merges traditional knowledge manage-
ment with the peculiarities of design knowledge. Peter Gall Krogh
and Ilpo Koskinen examine the chain of thinking and doing that
leads from original project briefs to final designs through their dis-
cussion of four different epistemological traditions. Citing the work
of the philosopher Anne-Françoise Schmid, the authors argue it is
impossible to frame design practice within a single epistemological
tradition. “We hope [the authors write] to expand tolerance in
design research and to diminish practices and perspectives that
police what is right and what is wrong” Peter Phillips and Anima
Abbas-Nazari review My Naturewatch, a program designed to fos-
ter public engagement with nature through DIY technologies. IL
successes and failures they describe offer insights into design ef-
forts aimed at promoting “active engagement” in local community
settings. Seminal achievements in data visualization between 1847
E 1876 are at the center of Ellen Mazur Thomson’s account devel-
opments in nineteenth century color printing. Jeremy Myerson
contributes an insightful review of Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler’s
book Open Plan: A Design History of the American Office. This issue
also includes a visual essay and cover design by Anamarija Korolji
and Leo Tai. Post-Atmosphere explores the relationship between or-
ganisms and environments and deconstructs the relationship be-
tween outer surfaces and inner structures through an act of surreal
imagination: a digital exhibition staged on an extraterrestrial world.

https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_e_00677

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Unlike a themed special issue, the articles collected in this
issue stand alone; each possesses its own merits and makes its own
distinctive contribution to different facets of design knowledge and
practice. Yet when concepts like “consilience,” “unified models,"
and “contextual epistemology” are brought together, as they are
here, they produce an intellectual resonance worth noting. Increas-
ingly, design scholars—although their subjects, metodi, and con-
clusions vary greatly—share a similar insight. They caution us that
old models of understanding, based on traditional disciplinary
frameworks, are no longer adequate to the task of articulating a leg-
ible and useful portrait of complexity. This does not mean that the
quest for a comprehensive, unified model of knowledge capable of
shaping our understanding of design is futile. It does mean that the
way we understand what will constitute a unified model of design
knowledge, a model that can accommodate a diversity of perspec-
tives and experiences, is evolving in light of new scholarship. To the
extent that the design community is able to explain what it is we
know and how we know it, and more importantly, to suggest how
what we know offers important insights into how to understand
and intervene in complex natural and human-directed systems, Esso
is equipped to make significant contributions to the wellbeing of
diverse communities. As it has since its inception, Design Issues
remains committed to providing a forum for this effort.