RCA Report on the nature of design with a capital D

• central concern is “the conception and realization of new things”
• it encompasses the appreciation of “material culture” and the application of “the arts of planning, inventing, making and doing.”
• at its core is the ‘language’ of ‘modelling’; it is possible to develop students’ aptitudes in this ‘language’, equivalent to aptitudes in the ‘language’ of the sciences – numeracy – and the ‘language’ of humanities – literacy
• design has its own distinct ‘things to know, ways of knowing them, and ways of finding out about them’

Education in any of these ‘cultures’ entails the following three aspects:

• the transmission of knowledge about a phenomenon of study
• a training in the appropriate methods of enquiry
• an initiation into the belief systems and values of the ‘culture’

If we contrast the sciences, the humanities, and design under each aspect, we may become clearer of what we mean by design, and what is particular to it.
the phenomenon of study in each culture is:

• in the sciences: the natural world
• in the humanities: human experience
• in design: the man-made world

the appropriate methods in each culture are:

• in the sciences: controlled experiment, classification, analysis
• in the humanities: analogy, metaphor, criticism, evaluation
• in design: modelling, pattern-formation, synthesis

the values of each culture are:

• in the sciences: objectivity, rationality, neutrality, and a concern for ‘truth’
• in the humanities: subjectivity, imagination, commitment, and a concern for ‘justice’
• in design: practicality, ingenuity, empathy, and a concern for ‘appropriateness’

Perhaps it would be better to regard the ‘third culture’ as technology, rather than design (…) Technology involves a synthesis of knowledge and skills from both the sciences and the humanities, in the pursuit of practical tasks.

References

Cross, N., 1982. Designerly ways of knowling. In Design Studies, Vol. 3, no. 4 pp. 221-227

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