Design as a Discipline

One of the prmclpal assumptions behind the launching of tlons by Bruce Archer The flrst is a short statement
th]s n e w journal zs that Design can be Identffzed as a sub]ect prepared speaally for thzs f~rst issue o f Destgn Studies by
m its own right, independent of the various areas m which Professor Archer, en tztled Whatever Became o f Design
zt *s apphed to practical effect The Ed, torzal Board zs Methodology P The second Is an extract from a lecture
therefore proposing to pubhsh a series o f papers by leading dehvered by Professor Archer at the Manchester Regional
members of the mternatlonal 'mv,s, ble college' of Design Centre for Sclence and Technology on 7 May 1976, under
Studies, whlch will a~m to estabhsh the theoretzcal bases for the t]tle The Three Rs. Thls latter paper argues not only
treating Design as a coherent dzsc~phne o f study m ~ts own that Deszgn should be regarded as a fundamental aspect o f
right educatzon (m no sense a spec]ahzed sublect) but that Deslgn
The questions or zssues that these papers are ~s (or should be) on a par with and distract from science and
expected to address include Can design be a d~sclpline zn zts the humanities
own r,ght ~ I f so, what are ]ts d~stmgulshmg features ~ (What Bruce Archer Is Professor o£ Design Research at the
are the kind o f features that d]stmgmsh any d~sc]plme ~) To Royal College o£ Art, London, where he ~s also Chairman o f
what questions should the dzsc~pline address ~tself - m both The Faculty o f Theoretical Studies, Head o f The Department
research and teaching ~ What methodology does zt use ~ What o f Deszgn Research and Head o f The Design Education Umt
results - what apphcatlons - should ]t be trying to achieve ~ He zs a member o f The Editorial Advzsory Board o f Design
To start the series we are pubhshmg two contrzbu- Studle£

Whatever became of Design Methodology?

BRUCE ARCHER

Des=gn methodology =sahve and well, and hwng under the thinking and commumcatmg, and as powerful as scientific
name of Destgn research. and scholarly methods of enqu=ry, when apphed to its own
To tell the truth, I never did hke that hybr=d kinds of problems
expression 'design methodology' My object=on was not It is wtdely accepted, I think, that design problems
only to the corrupt etymology, but also to the tmpress=on, are characterized by being all-defined An all-defined
conveyed by the term, that the student of destgn methods problem ts one =n whmh the requtrements, as g=ven, do not
was exclusively concerned with procedure For my own contain suffm=ent mformatton to enable the desCgnerto
part, the mot=ve for my entering the field (25 years ago, arrive at a means of meeting those requtrements s0mply by
God help me) was essentmlly ends-directed, not means- transforming, reducing, opttm=zmg or super=mposmg the
or=ented I was concerned to find ways of ensuring that the given reformation alone Some of the necessary further
predominantly quahtatwe conslderat=ons such as comfort mformat~on may be discoverable stmply by searching for it,
and convemence, ethms and beauty, should be as carefully some may be generateable by exper=ment, some may turn
taken into account and as doggedly defenstble under attack out to be stat0stmally variable, some may be vague or
as predominantly quant~tattve cons0derat~onssuch as unrehable, some may ar=se from capricious fortune or
strength, cost and durablhty. Moreover, ~t ts demonstrable transitory preference and some may be actually unknowable
that the assumpt=ons upon whmh even the quantitative In adder=on,once known, some of the requtrements may
cons=derat=ons are based can never be wholly value-free, turn out to be mcompattble wtth one another As it happens,
and I wanted these assumpttons to be at least acknowledged most of the problems that most people face most of the
m the design process The study of methods was thus not t~me tn everyday hfe are all-defined problems ~n these terms
an end m =tself, and was certainly not motwated by the Not surprisingly, m the course of evolut0on, human beings
desire to ehmmate or down-grade the quahtat=ve considera- have found qu=te effectwe ways of dealing wtth them It is
tions, although a lot of people interpreted ~t that way these ways of behaving, deeply rooted in human nature, that
In retrospect, I can see that I wasted an awful lot he behind des0gn methods
of ttme =n trying to bend the methods of operational The first thing to recogmse Is that 'the problem' =n
research and management techmques to des=gn purposes. a design problem, hke any other all-defined problem, is not
The earher check-hst type models of the des=gn process, the statement of requirements Nor ~s 'the solution' the
such as that pubhshed m Design magazine ~n 1963-64 under means ultimately arrwed at to meet those requtrements
the tttle Systematic Methods for Designers turned out to be 'The problem' usobscurity about the requirements, the
very helpful to qu=te a lot of designers, and hardly a week practicabd=ty of enwsageable prows=ons and/or mtsflt
goes by even today wtthout my recetvtng a request for between the requ0rements and the prows=ons 'The
cop=es. It went out of print a decade ago The later solut=on' msa requ=rement/prows~on match that contains an
mathematmal and flow-chart type models, although ~n acceptably small amount of res=dual misfit and obscurity
many respects less normatwe, were never accepted by Thus the relattonshtp between design problem and design
working designers =n qutte the same way The reason, I requtrements and design provlston hes along one axts and
think, is that mathematmal or Iog=cal models, however the relationship between design problem and design
correctly they may descr=be the flextbd=ty, mteractweness solution hes along another axws The design actlwty is
and value-laden structure of the destgn process, are commutatwe, the des=gner's attent=on oscdlatmg between
themselves the product of an ahen mode of reasoning My the emerging requtrement =deasand the developing prows~on
present behef, formed over the past sex years, ~s that there
tdeas, as he ~llum=natesobscurity on both s=desand reduces
exists a destgnerly way of think=ng and commumcattng that m~sflt between them One of the features of the early
=s both d=fferent from sc~enttfic and scholarly ways of theortes of design methods that really d=senchanted many

Vol 1, No 1,July 1979 0142-694 X/79/010017-04/$02 00 © 1979 IPC BusinessPress 17

2
practising designers was thmr d~rectlonahty and causahty cultures may be less Lsolated from one another these days,
and separat=on of analys~s from synthes~s, all of which was and may speak less shght~ngly of one another, but the ~dea
percmved by the designers as being unnatural that education ~s d~v~ded into two parts, Science and the
Another problem was that design theories were so Humamt~es, prevails The~e are many people,however, who
often commumcated ~n language that was al~en, too I do have always felt that th~s dtws~on leaves out too much Apt
not mean that the wrong k~nds of words were used I mean and craft, dance and drama, music, physical education and
that words or mathematics or sc~enttftc notation alone were sport are all valid school activities but belong to ne~the~
themselves mapproprtate I and several of my students and camp There t s a s u b s t a n t ~ a l b o d y o f o p m ~ o n , n o t o n l ~
colleagues are putting a lot of energy into examining the amongst teachers but also amongst groups outside that
proposition that the way designers (and everybody else, for profession, which holds that modern society ~s faced w~th
that matter) form ~mages ~n thmr m~nd's eye, mampulatmg problems such as the ecological problem, the enwronmentai
and evaluating ~deas before, during and after externahz~ng problem, the qualtty-of-urban-hfe problem and so on, all
them, constitutes a cognitive system comparable w~th, but of which demand of the populat=on of an affluent industrial
different from, the verbal language system Indeed, we democracy competence ~n something else besides hteracy
believe that human beings have an innate capacity for andnumeracy Let us call th~s competence 'a level of
cogmt~ve modelhng, and ~ts expression through sketching, awareness of the ~ssues m the mater~al culture', for the tmle
drawing, construction, acting out and so on, that ~s being Under present c~rcumstances, ~t ~s rather rare for a
fundamental to thought and reasomng as ~s the human child who ts academically bright to take art or craft o~
capactty for language Thus design actlwty ~s not only a home economtcs or any of the other so-called 'practical
d~stmcttve process, comparable wtth but d~fferent from subjects having a bearing on the material culture to a high
sc~ent=fic and scholarly processes, but also operates through level in the fourth, fifth or s~xth forms Unwerstttesand
a medwm, called modelling, that =s comparable w~th but professional bodtes .40 not usually accept advanced level
d~fferent from language and notation Moreover, modelling quahftcat~ons ~n these subjects as admission qualtficat~ons
in various forms, covert or externalized, constitutes the for their courses, even where the course, such as architecture
vehicle for all sorts of other acttv~t~es, not normally engineering or even, ~n some cases, art and design, ~s ~tself
assoctated w~th destgn, such as navtgatmg, surgery, dancing concerned with the mater~al culture It ~s really rather an
and even cross~ngabusyroad The des~re to understand alarming thought that most of those who make the most
thts better, and to f o l l o w through the ~mpl~cat~ons for a far-reach ~ng decisions on matters affecting the material
balanced education for everyone, has caused us to organize culture, such as business men, semor cwd servants, Ioca!
ourselves into two departments The Department of Design government officers, members of counctls and pubhc
Research looks at fundamentals and the postgraduate committees, not to mer;tton members of parhament, had
education ofdestgners The Destgn Education U m t l o o k s an education m which contact w~th the most relevanl
at the general educational ~mphcat~ons, and their ~mple- d~sc~phnes ceased at the age of thirteen
mentat~on m teaching and learnmg
Where does th~s leave design methodology?
Design methodology ~s alive and well, and hv~ng m the A T H I R D A R E A IN E D U C A T I O N
bosom o f ~ t s f a m d y destgnh~story, des~gn philosophy,
design criticism, design epistemology, design modelhng, The ~dea that there ~s a third area meducatton concerned
design measurement, design management and design w~th the making and doing aspects of human actw~ty ~s not
education W~th luck, we shall be hearing more of all these new, of course It h a s a d l s t l n g u l s h e d t r a d l t i o n g o m g b a c k
d~sc~phnes now that we have our own quarterly journal through Wdham Morris all the way to Plato When Satnt
Thomas Aquinas defined the oblects of educatton in the
thirteenth century he adopted the four Cardinal Vtrtues of
Plato (Prudence, Justice, Fortttude and Temperance) and
The Three Rs added the three Chrtstlan Vtrtues (Faith, Hope and Charity)
These have a quaint ring in modern Engltsh, but Plato's
BRUCE ARCHER wrtues, rendered into Latm by Saint Thomas Aquinas, were
taken to mean something qu~te specLfic and rather dbfferent
The world o f e d u c a t ~ o n ~ s f u l l o f a n o m a h e s Take that f r o m t h e l r modern Enghsh~nterpretat~ons To Samt Thomas
extraordmardy durable expression 'The Three Rs', for Aquinas P R U D E N T I A meant 'being reahstlc, knowing what
example It ~s very w~dely held that when all the layers of ~s practicable', J U S T I T I A meant 'being ethical, knowing
refinement and complexity are str~pped away, the heart of what ~s good', F O R T I T U D O meant 'bmng thorough,
education =s the transmission of the essential skdls of knowing what ts comprehensive', T E M P E R E N T I A meant
read~ng, w r t t t n g a n d ' n t h m e t t c Th~sexpresston ~smternally 'beLng economtc, knowtng when to leave well enough
mcons~stent, t o b e g m w~th Readmg and wr~tmg are the alone' It ~s no coincidence that ~n our own day Dr E F
passive and active s~des, respect=vely, of the language skdl, Schumacher, ~n the epdogue to his book Small ts Beautiful,
whdst arithmetic ~s the subject matter of that other sk~ll quotes the four cardinal wrtues of Plato as the bas~s for the
which, at the lower end of the school, we tend to call socially and culturally responstble use of technology in the
'number' So the express~on 'The Three Rs' only refers to modern world C e r t a m l y t h e c r a f t g u d d s , w h o b o r e a m a j o l
two ideas language and number Moreover, the word respons~blhty for the general education of the populace
'ar~thmettc' ~s m~spronounced as well as mls-spelled, g~wng following the Rena=ssance, took the vbew that a wrtuous
the ~mpress~on that the speaker takes the wew that the education meant learning to know what ~s practicable, what
ab~hty and the necessity to do sums ~s somehow culturally ~s good, what ~s comprehensive, and what ~s enough, In a
inferior If challenged, most who use theexpress~on would very broad sense It ~sa cur~oustwlst m fortunes that when
deny they intended any such btas, but aphortsms often the craft gudds lost their general educational role somewhere
betray a cultural set Exphc~tor ~mpl~eddemgrat~onof between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, tt was
Science and numeracy ~n favour of the Humantt~es and the rather narrow, specLahst, bookish un~verstt~es, academies
hteracy was certainly w~despread ~n Enghsh education up and schools whtch had been set up to tram prLests to read
to and beyond the period of the second world war, and and translate the scriptures which became the guard=ans of
was the subJeCt of CP Snow's famouscampmgnagamst what we now call generaleducat~on No wonder our
theseparat~on of 'the two cultures' in 1959 The two education system came to be dominated by the Human~t,es

18 DESIGN STUDIES
When Sir Wdham Curt=s, MP, coined the phrase 'The Three the material culture as outside h~s scope, although he would
Rs' m or about 1807, he placed an emphasis on literacy be prepared to bring a scientific philosophy to bear upon
which reflected the wrtual monopoly that the church then the study of the making and domg activities of other people
had in the running of schools I had an old great-aunt who Amongst scholars tn the Humamt~es there seems to
protested fiercely whenever the phrase 'The Three Rs' was be less agreement about the nature of their dlsc~phne, apart
mentioned She swore that Sir Wdham had got ~t all wrong from unammtty m the wew that ~t ~s qu~te d~stmct from
The Three Rs were Science. There ~s a fa0r consensus that the Humamtles are
especially concerned w~th human values and the expression
(1) Reading and wr~tmg
of the spirit of man. This justifies scholars m the Humamt~es
(2) Reckomng and flgurmg
in studying the history and philosophy of science, but not
(3) Wroughtmg and wrtghtmg
tn contributing to its content There also seems to be a
By wroughtmg she meant knowmg how thmgs are brought measure of agreement, by no means umversal, that the
about, which we m~ght now call technology By wr~ghtmg humamt~es exclude the making and domg aspects of the
she meant knowing how to do ~t, wh=ch we would now call fine, performmg and useful arts, although thmr hlstortcal,
craftsmanship From readmg and wr=tmg comes the idea cnt0cal and phdosophlcal aspects would stdl be fatr game
of hteracy, by which we generally mean more than Just the for the Humantt~es scholar It ts mterestmg to note that
abdity to read and write Bmng hterate means having the writers on the sc0ence stde frequently mention technology
abd=ty to understand, appreciate and value those ideas which and the useful arts as bemg excluded from themr purwew,
are expressed through the medium of words. From presumably because they are only just outstde the boundary
reckonmg and flgurmg comes the idea of numeracy Be=ng Wrtters on the humamt~es side frequently mention the free
numerate means bemg able to understand, appreciate and and performmg arts as bemg excluded, presumably because
value those tdeas that are expressed m the language of they, too, are only just outstde A third area in educatton
mathemat=cs It was from literacy that the rtch fabr=c of could therefore legitimately claim technology and the fine,
the Humamttes was woven. It was from numeracy that the performmg and useful arts, although not thmr sctent0fic
immense structure of Science was budt But what of knowledge base (if any) or their history, philosophy and
wroughtmg and wrlghtmg? It =s stgmflcant that modern crltictsm (if any), without treading on anyone else's grass.
English has no word, equivalent to literacy and numeracy,
meamng the abd~ty to understand, appremate and value THE NAMING OF T H E P A R T S
those =deas which are expressed through the medium of
Clearly, the ground thus left vacant by the spemflc clatms
makmg and domg. We have no word, equ=valent to Science
and the Humanmes, meamng the collected experience of of Sctence and the Humanittes extends beyond the bounds
of 'the material culture' wlthwhose pressmg problems we
the matertal culture Yet the output of the pract0cal arts
began The performmg arts are a case ~n pomt. There are
fills our museums and galler=es, equips our homes,
other areas, such as physical education, which have not
constructs our c~tles, constitutes our hab=tat been mentioned at all it would be temptmg to claim for
Anthropology and archeology, m seekmg to know
the third area tn education everythmg that the other two
and understand other cultures, set at least as much store by
have left out However, we should stick to our last, if I may
the art, buddmgs and artefacts of those cultures as they do
take my metaphor from the domg and makmg area, and
by their hterature and science. On the face of it, if the
clarify the questton of educatton tn the issues of the material
express=on of =deas through the medium of domg and
culture. Any subject which relates with man's material
making represents a distmct=ve facet of a culture, then the
culture must necessardy be anthropocentric A dtsciphne
transmtss~on of the collected experience of the domg and
makmg facet should represent a d=st=nct=ve area =n which clatms, as some kmds of smence do, to deal with
matters that would remam true whether man existed or
education
not, would be ruled out from our third area Material
culture comprises the ideas which govern the nature of
THE V A C A N T PLOT every sort of artefact produced, used and valued by man
Those ideas which take the form of sclenttflc knowledge
If there/s a th=rd area on educat0on, what d=stmgu=shes ~t would belong to Science The historical, philosophical and
from Sctence and the Humanlt0es~ What do Sc=ence and the critical tdeas would belong to the Humanities What 0s left
Humamties leave out~ It now seems generally agreed ~sthe artefacts themselves and the experience, sens~bdtty
amongst philosophers of science, that the dtst=nct0ve feature and sktll that goes mto thmr production and use. If the
of science =s not the subject matter to which the smentist human values, hopes and fears on which the express0on of
turns h~s attention, but the kind of intellectual procedure the sptr~t of man are based are shared w~th the Humamt~es,
that he brings to bear upon it Science ~s concerned w~th the striving towards them, and the mventweness that goes
the attain ment of understanding based upon observation, mto the production and use of artefacts, ~s a necessary
measurement, the formulat0on of theory and the testing of charactenst0c of our third area. Any d~sclphne falhng mto
theory by further observation or experiment. A sctent~st th~s area must therefore be asp0rat~onal tn character, and,
may study any phenomenon he chooses, but the kind of to take them clearly out of both the Science and the
understanding he may achieve will be hm=ted by the Humamt0es fields, it must be operat0onal, that ~sto say,
observat=ons he can make, the measures he can apply, the concerned wtth domg or making Under these tests, how do
theory avadable to h~m and the testab0hty of h=s findings the subjects ordmardy left out by the tradtt~onal Science/
Some sorts of phenomena may therefore be inappropriate I{mamttes dlws~on fare~ The fine arts, which m schools
for sctent~flc study, for the tome being or for ever. Some can be executed m a variety of materials such as ceramtcs
sorts of knowledge will be inaccessible to smence, for th~ and texttles as well as through the medium of pamtmg and
t=me be=ng or for ever Moreover, the scmnt~st =s concerned sculpture, clearly fall into the thtrd area In the useful arts,
w=th theory, that ~s, w=th generalizable knowledge. He is woodwork and metalwork would usually quahfy Technical
not necessarily competent or interested m the practical studies are sometimes conducted m such a way that they
apphcat=on of that knowledge, where social, econom=c, are not actually concerned wtth domg and makmg, and
aesthetic and other considerations for which he does not therefore may or may not rank as Sctence, mstead
possess any theory may need to be taken into account He S~mdarly enwronmental studies m~ght or m=ght not fall
would regard most of the making and doing actwities of mto the third area, according to their manner of treatment

Vol 1, No 1, July 1979 19

 Home economms presents a problem Taken asa We can then go on to adopt, as an equwalent to
whole, home economics ~s clearly anthropocentric, asp~ra- hteracy and numeracy, the term 'design awareness', whmh
ttonal and operational, and therefore falls centrally into thus means 'the abdlty to understand and handle those ideas
the third area In practice, however, home economics may which are expressed through the medmm of doing and
be taught in schools through the medium of mdwldual making' The question of the language m which such ~deas
sublects ranging from needlecraft taken as fine art through may be expressed ts an interestmg one The essential language
homemaking taken as useful arts to nutrmon taken as of Sctence is notatton, especially mathematmal notation
science So home economms, too, may fall into Science, The essential language of the Humanities ~s natural language,
the Humanmes or the third area, according to the manner especially written language The essential language of
of treatment adopted Design ks modelling Amodel~sarepresentatlonofsomethmg
Outside the bounds of the mater~al culture An artist's pamtmg is a representation of an idea he ts trying
altogether are the other subjects exphc~tly left out by the to explore Agesture m m~me~sarepresentatlon of some
first and second areas Amongst the performing arts, Idea Everybody engaged m t h e h a n d h n g o f ~ d e a s l n t h e
music might quahfy as anthropocentric, asp~rat~onaland fine arts, performing arts, useful arts or technology employs
operational So might drama and perhaps dance So might models or representations to capture, analyse, explore and
gymnastms, the way ~t ~s pursued these days, but probably transm~tthose~deas Just as the vocabulary and syntax of
not the other areas of physical education B u tt h l s l s g o m g natural language or of scientific notatmon can be conveyed
too fast Any number of objections can be raised and through spoken sounds, words on paper, semaphore s~gnals,
counter-arguments offered m respect of many, but perhaps Morse code or electromc digits, to smt convenience, so the
not all, the subjects I have mentioned as belonging or vocabulary and syntax of the modelhng of ideas m the
possibly belonging to an alleged third area ~n education The Design alea can be conveyed through a variety of media
point Iwantedtomake~ss~mplythls Thejustiflcatton for such as drawings, diagrams, physmal representations,
the nommatmn of a third area m education hes not In the gestures, algorithms - not to mention natural language and
ex{stence of subjects which do not fit readdy into the sc~entthcnotatlon W~th all these defimtlons in mmd,{t~s
definitions of Science and the Humanmes, but in the existence now possible to show the relahonshlps between the three
of an approach to knowledge, and of a manner of knowing, areas of human knowledge according to the d~agram m
which ~s d~stmct from those of Science and the Humanmes Fig I
Where Science ~sthe collected body of theoretical know- The repository of knowledge m Science ~s not only
ledge based upon observatton, measurement, hypothes~s the hterature of science but also the analyttcal sktlls and
and test, and the Humanmes is the collected body of the intellectual integrity of which the scientist ~sthe
interpretive knowledge based upon contemplatmn, guardian The reposttory of knowledge m the Humanmes~s
cnt~ctsm, evaluatron and d~scourse, the third area ~s the not s~mply the hterature of the humanities but also the
collected body of practical knowledge based upon d~scurs~ve skills and the spLrltual values of which the scholal
sensib~hty, invention, vahdat~on and Implementatmn ~sthe guardian In Design, the repository of knowledge i~
not only the material culture and the contents of the
museums but also the executive skdls of the doer and maker
THE NAMING OF THE WHOLE
This leaves us with the problem of finding the correct t~tle
~UMANITIES
for the third area The term 'the Arts' would be ideal, ~f the
expression had not been appropriated by, and used more or
less as a synonym for, the Humanities Plato would not have Ionguage
objected to 'Aesthetics', but that has taken on a spec=al \
and distracting meaning in modern Enghsh 'Techmcs' has [hterary arts J
\
been used, and ts m the dmtlonary, but has not proved very
popular meducattonalorcommon use Atermwh~ch has '\ ,
gamed a good deal of currency especially in secondary I ph'I°s°phy I I performmg arts J
schools ~n England and Wales, is 'Design', spelt with a b~g D
and used in a sense which goes far beyond the day-to-day
meamng whmh architects, engineers and other professional
/
j sac,el sc,enco I
\
\
free arts J
designers would assign to ~t Thus Design, m ~ts most general I \
educattonal sense, where ~t ~sequated w~th Science and the
Humanmes, is defined as the area of human experience, SCIENCE DESIGN
skdl and understanding that reflects man's concern with the
appreciation and adaption of his surroundings in the I~ght of notahon modelling
h~smatenalandsp~ntual needs In partmular, though not
exclusively, ~t relates w~th configuration, composmon,
meaning, value and purpose m man-made phenomena P~g 1

20 DESIGN STUDIES