Designerly Ways of Knowing: Design Discipline versus Design Science

Author(s): Nigel Cross

Source: Design Issues, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer, 2001), pp. 49-55
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1511801
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 DesignerlyWaysof Knowing:
DesignDisciplineVersus
DesignScience
NigelCross

Thisis a revisedversionof a paperprepared Design and Science

fortheDesign+Research Symposium heldat I would like to begin this paper with a brief review of some of the
thePolitecnicodiMilano,Italy,May2000. historical concerns that have emerged with respect to the relation-
ship between design and science. These concerns emerged strongly
at two important periods in the modern history of design: in the
1920s, with a search for scientific design products, and in the 1960s,
with a concern for scientific design process. The 40-year cycle in
these concerns appears to be coming around again, and we might
expect to see the reemergence of design-science concerns in the
2000s.
A desire to "scientise" design can be traced back to ideas in
the twentieth century modem movement of design. For example, in
the early 1920s, the De Stijl protagonist, Theo van Doesburg,
expressed his perception of a new spirit in art and design: "Our
epoch is hostile to every subjective speculation in art, science, tech-
nology, etc. The new spirit, which already governs almost all
modern life, is opposed to animal spontaneity, to nature's domina-
tion, to artistic flummery. In order to construct a new object we need
a method, that is to say, an objective system." 1 A little later, the
architect Le Corbusier wrote about the house as an objectively
designed "machine for living:" "The use of the house consists of a
regular sequence of definite functions. The regular sequence of these
functions is a traffic phenomenon. To render that traffic exact,
economical, and rapid is the key effort of modern architectural
science." 2In both comments, and throughout much of the modern
movement, we see a desire to produce works of art and design
based on objectivity and rationality, that is, on the values of science.
These aspirations to scientise design surfaced strongly again
in the "design methods movement" of the 1960s. The Conference on
Design Methods, held in London in September, 19623 generally is
1 T.vanDoesberg, "Towardsa Collective
regarded as the event which marked the launch of design method-
DeStij/(1923)
Construction," (Quotedby
ology as a subject or field of inquiry. The desire of the new move-
G.Naylor,TheBauhaus, London:Studio
Vista,1968). ment was even more strong than before to base design process (as
2 LeCorbusier,CIAM 2ndCongress, well as the products of design) on objectivity and rationality. The
Frankfurt
(1929). origins of this emergence of new design methods in the 1960s lay in
3 J. C.JonesandD.G.Thornley,eds., the application of novel, scientific, and computational methods to
Conference onDesignMethods (Oxford:
the novel and pressing problems of the Second World War-from
Pergamon, 1963).
( Copyright2001 MassachusettsInstituteof Technology
Design Issues: Volume17, Number3 Summer2001 49
 which came civilian developments such as operations research and
management decision-making techniques.
The 1960s was heralded as the "design science decade" by
the radical technologist Buckminster Fuller, who called for a "design
science revolution" based on science, technology, and rationalism to
overcome the human and environmental problems that he believed
could not be solved by politics and economics.4 From this perspec-
tive, the decade culminated with Herbert Simon's outline of "the
sciences of the artificial,"5 and his specific plea for the development
of "a science of design" in the universities: "a body of intellectually
tough, analytic, partly formalizable, partly empirical, teachable
doctrine about the design process."
However, in the 1970s, there emerged a backlash against
design methodology and a rejection of its underlying values,
notably by some of the early pioneers of the movement. Christopher
Alexander, who had originated a rational method for architecture
and planning,6 now said: "I've disassociated myself from the field...
There is so little in what is called "design methods" that has
anything useful to say about how to design buildings that I never
even read the literature anymore... I would say forget it, forget the
4 B.Fuller,UtopiaorOblivion (NewYork: whole thing." 7 Another leading pioneer, J. Christopher Jones, said:
Bantam Books,1999). "In the 1970s, I reacted against design methods. I dislike the
5. H.A.Simon,TheSciencesof the
machine language, the behaviorism, the continual attempt to fix the
MA:MITPress,
Artificia/(Cambridge,
1969).
whole of life into a logical framework. 8
6. C.Alexander,NotesontheSynthesis of To put the quotations of Alexander and Jones into context, it
Form(Harvard University Press,1964). may be necessary to recall the social/cultural climate of the late-
7 C.Alexander, "TheStateof theArtin 1960s-the campus revolutions and radical political movements, the
DesignMethods," DMGNewsletter 5:3
new liberal humanism, and the rejection of conservative values. But
(1971).
also it had to be acknowledged that there had been a lack of success
8 J. C.Jones,"HowMyThoughts About
DesignMethodsHaveChanged During in the application of "scientific" methods to everyday design prac-
theYears,"DesignMethods andTheories tice. Fundamental issues also were raised by Rittel and Webber,9
11:1(1977). who characterized design and planning problems as "wicked"
9 H.RittelandM.Webber, "Dilemmas ina problems, fundamentally unamenable to the techniques of science
GeneralTheory of Planning,"
Policy
and engineering, which dealt with "tame" problems.
Sciences4 (1973):155-69.
10 E.Tjalve,
A ShortCourse inIndustrial Nevertheless, design methodology continued to develop
Design(London: Newnes-Butterworth, strongly, especially in engineering and some branches of industrial
1979). design. (Although there may still have been very limited evidence
11 V.Hubka, of Engineering
Principles of practical applications and results.) The fruits of this work
Design(Guildford:Butterworth,
1982).
emerged in a series of books on engineering design methods and
12 G.PahlandW.Beitz,Engineering Design
methodology in the 1980s. English-language ones included Tjalve,10
(London:Springer/Design Council,
1984).
13 M.J. French,Conceptual Designfor Hubka,11Pahl and Beitz,12French,"3Cross,"4and Pugh."5
Engineers(London: DesignCouncil, Another significant development throughout the 1980s and
1985). into the 1990s was the emergence of new journals of design re-
14 N.Cross,Engineering DesignMethods search, theory, and methodology. Again, English-language publica-
(Chichester:
Wiley,1989).
tions included Design Studies in 1979, Design Issues in 1984, Research
15 S. Pugh,Total
Design:Integrated
MethodsforSuccessful Product
in Engineering Design in 1989, the Journalof Engineering Design and
Engineering(Workingham: Addison- the Journal of Design Management in 1990, Languages of Design in
Wesley,1991). 1993, and the Design Journalin 1997.

50 DesignIssues:Volume 3 Summer
17,Number 2001
 Despite the apparent scientific basis (and bias) of much of
their work, design methodologists also sought from the earliest
days to make distinctions between design and science, as reflected
in the following quotations.
Scientists try to identify the components of existing struc-
tures, designers try to shape the components of new struc-
tures.
-Alexander 6

The scientific method is a pattern of problem-solving

behavior employed in finding out the nature of what exists,
whereas the design method is a pattern of behavior
employed in inventing things...which do not yet exist.
Science is analytic; design is constructive.
-Gregory 16

The natural sciences are concerned with how things

are...design on the other hand is concerned with how things
ought to be.
-Simon'

There may indeed be a critical distinction to be made: method may

be vital to the practice of science (where it validates the results), but
not to the practice of design (where results do not have to be repeat-
able, and, in most cases, must not be repeated, or copied). The
Design Research Society's 1980 conference on "Design: Science:
Method"17 provided an opportunity to air many of these considera-
tions. The general feeling from that conference was, perhaps, that it
was time to move on from making simplistic comparisons and
distinctions between science and design; that perhaps there was not
so much for design to learn from science after all, and that perhaps
science rather had something to learn from design. Cross et al.18
claimed that the epistemology of science was, in any case, in disar-
ray and, therefore, had little to offer an epistemology of design.
16 S. Gregory,
"ADesignScience," inS. A. Glynn19later suggested that "It is the epistemology of design that
ed., TheDesignMethod
Gregory, has inherited the task of developing the logic of creativity, hypothe-
Butterworth,
(London: 1966). sis innovation, or invention that has proved so elusive to the
17 R.JacquesandJ. Powell,eds., philosophers of science."
Design:Science:Method(Guildford:
Despite several attempts at clarification (see de Vries, Cross,
WestburyHouse,1981).
and Grant20), there remains some confusion about the design-
18 N.Cross,J. Naughton,
andD.Walker,
"DesignMethodandScientificMethod," science relationship. Let us at least try to clarify three different inter-
inR.JacquesandJ. Powell,eds., pretations of this concern with the relationship between science and
Design:Science.Method,
(Guildford: design: (a) scientific design, (b) design science, and (c) a science of
WestburyHouse,1981). design.
19 S. Glynn,
"ScienceandPerception
as
Design,"
DesignStudies6:3(1985).
20 M.deVries,N.Cross,andD.Grant,eds.,
Scientific Design
DesignMethodologyandRelationships As I noted above, the origins of design methods lay in "scientific"
WithScience(Dordrecht:
Kluwer,
1993). methods, similar to decision theory and the methods of operational

DesignIssues:Volume
17,Number
3 Summer
2001 51
 research. The originators of the "design methods movement" also
realized that there had been a change from the craftwork of pre-
industrial design to the mechanization of industrial design-and
perhaps some even foresaw the emergence of a post-industrial
design. The reasons advanced for developing new methods often
were based on the assumption that modern, industrial design had
become too complex for intuitive methods.
The first half of the twentieth century had seen the rapid
growth of scientific underpinnings in many types of design-e.g.,
materials science, engineering science, building science, and behav-
ioral science. One view of the design-science relationship is that,
through this reliance of modern design upon scientific knowledge,
and through the application of scientific knowledge in practical
tasks, design "makes science visible." 21
So we might agree that scientific design refers to modern,
industrialized design-as distinct from pre-industrial, craft-oriented
design-based on scientific knowledge but utilizing a mix of both
intuitive and nonintuitive design methods. "Scientific design" is
probably not a controversial concept, but merely a reflection of the
reality of modern design practice.

Design Science
"Design Science" was a term perhaps first used by Buckminster
Fuller, but it was adapted by Gregory 16into the context of the 1965
conference on "The Design Method." The concern to develop a
design science thus led to attempts to formulate the design me-
thod-a coherent, rationalized method, as "the scientific method"
was supposed to be. Others, too, have had the development of a
"design science" as their aim; for example, Hubka and Eder,21origi-
nators of the WorkshopDesign Konstruction (WDK) and a major,
continuing series of international conferences on engineering design
(ICED), also formed "The International Society for Design Science."
Hansen23had stated the aim of design science as being to "recognize
laws of design and its activities, and to develop rules." This would
seem to be design science constituted simply as "systematic de-
sign"-the procedures of designing organized in a systematic way.
Hubka and Eder regard this as a narrower interpretation of design
science than their own: "Design science comprises a collection (a
system) of logically connected knowledge in the area of design, and
contains concepts of technical information and of design methodol-
ogy.... Design science addresses the problem of determining and
categorizing all regular phenomena of the systems to be designed,
21 R.A.Willem,"Design andScience," and of the design process. Design science also is concerned with
DesignStudies11:1(1990). deriving from the applied knowledge of the natural sciences appro-
22 V.Hubka andW.E.Eder"AScientific
priate information in a form suitable for the designer's use." This
Approach to Engineering Design
Design,"
Studies8:3(1987). definition extends beyond "scientific design," in including system-
23 F Hansen, Konstruktionswissenschaft atic knowledge of design process and methodology, as well as the
(Munich:CarlHanser,1974). scientific/technological underpinnings of the design of artifacts.

52 DesignIssues: Volume17, Number3 Summer2001

 So we might conclude that designsciencerefers to an explic-
itly organized, rational, and wholly systematic approach to design;
not just the utilization of scientific knowledge of artifacts, but design
in some sense as a scientific activity itself. This certainly is a contro-
versial concept, challenged by many designers and design theorists.
As Grant24wrote:
Most opinion among design methodologists and among
designers holds that the act of designing itself is not and
will not ever be a scientific activity; that is, that designing is
itself a nonscientific or ascientific activity.

Science of Design
However, Grant also made it clear that "the study of designing may
be a scientific activity; that is, design as an activity may be the
subject of scientific investigation." There remains some confusion
between concepts of design science and of a science of design, since
a "science of design" seems to imply (or, for some people, has the
goal of) the development of a "design science." But the concept of a
science of design has been clearly stated by Gasparski and
Strzalecki:25
The science of design (should be) understood, just like the
science of science, as a federation of subdisciplines having
design as the subject of their cognitive interests.

In this latter view, therefore, the science of design is the study of

design-something similar to what I have elsewhere defined as
"design methodology"; the study of the principles, practices, and
procedures of design. For me, design methodology "includes the
study of how designers work and think, the establishment of appro-
priate structures for the design process, the development and appli-
cation of new design methods, techniques and procedures, and
reflection on the nature and extent of design knowledge and its
application to design problems."26 The studyof design leaves open
the interpretation of the natureof design.
So let me suggest here that the scienceof designrefers to that
body of work which attempts to improve our understanding of
design through "scientific" (i.e., systematic, reliable) methods of
investigation. And let us be clear that a "science of design" is not the
same as a "design science."
24 D.Grant,
"Design Methodology and
DesignMethods," DesignMethods and
Theories
13:1(1979). Design as a Discipline
25 W.GasparskiandA.Strzalecki, Donald Schon27 explicitly challenged the positivist doctrine under-
"Contributions
to DesignScience: lying much of the "design science" movement, and offered instead
Praxeological Design
Perspective," a constructivist paradigm. He criticized Simon's view of a "science
MethodsandTheories 24:2 (1990).
of design" for being based on approaches to solving well-formed
26 N.Cross,DevelopmentsinDesign
Methodology(Chichester:
Wiley,1984). problems, whereas professional practice throughout design and
27 D.Schon,TheReflectivePractitioner technology and elsewhere has to face and deal with "messy, prob-
(London:
Temple-Smith, 1983). lematic situations." Sch6n proposed, instead, to search for "an epis-

DesignIssues:Volume
17,Number
3 Summer
2001 53
 temology of practice implicit in the artistic, intuitive processes
which some practitioners do bring to situations of uncertainty, insta-
bility, uniqueness, and value conflict," and which he characterized
as "reflective practice." Sch6n appeared to be more prepared than
his positivist predecessors to put trust in the abilities displayed by
competent practitioners, and to try to explicate those competencies
rather than to supplant them. This approach particularly has been
developed in a series of conferences and publications throughout
the 1990s in "design thinking research": Cross et al.,28'29 Akin,30and
Goldschmidt and Porter.3"
Despite the positivist, technical-rationality basis of The
Sciences of the Artificial, Simon did propose that ""thescience of
design" could form a fundamental, common ground of intellectual
endeavor and communication across the arts, sciences, and technol-
ogy. What he suggested was that the study of design could be an
interdisciplinary study accessible to all those involved in the
creative activity of making the artificial world. For example, Simon
wrote that "Few engineers and composers... can carry on a mutually
rewarding conversation about the content of each other's profes-
sional work. What I am suggesting is that they can carry on such a
conversation about design, can begin to perceive the common
creative activity in which they are both engaged, and can begin to
share their experiences of the creative, professional design process."
I believe that this is what we have been seeing in the development
of interdisciplinary design studies in our journals and conferences.
Design as a discipline, therefore, can mean design studied on
its own terms, and within its own rigorous culture. It can mean a
science of design based on the reflective practice of design: design
as a discipline, but not design as a science. This discipline seeks to
develop domain-independent approaches to theory and research in
design.32 The underlying axiom of this discipline is that there are
forms of knowledge special to the awareness and ability of a de-
signer, independent of the different professional domains of design
practice.
What designers especially know about is the "artificial
28 N.Cross,K.Dorst,andN.Roozenburg, world"-the human-made world of artifacts. What they especially
eds.,ResearchinDesignThinking (Delft: know how to do is the proposing of additions to and changes to the
DelftUniversity
Press,1992). artificial world. Their knowledge, skills, and values lie in the tech-
29 N.Cross,H.Christiaans,
andK.Dorst,
niques of the artificial. (Not "the sciences of the artificial.") So
eds.,AnalysingDesignActivity
design knowledge is of and about the artificial world and how to
Wiley,1996).
(Chichester:
30 0. Akin,ed.,"Descriptive
Modelsof contribute to the creation and maintenance of that world. Some of it
DesignActivity,"
DesignStudiesl8:4 is knowledge inherent in the activity of designing, gained through
(1997). engaging in and reflecting on that activity. Some of it is knowledge
31 G.Goldschmidt andW.Porter,eds.,4th inherent in the artifacts of the artificial world (e.g., in their forms
DesignThinking Research
Symposium
and configurations-knowledge that is used in copying from,
(Cambridge, MA:MITPress,1999).
32 N.Cross,"Design Research:
A reusing or varying aspects of existing artifacts), gained through
Disciplined
Conversation,"
DesignIssues using and reflecting upon the use of those artifacts. Some of it is
15:2(1999). knowledge inherent in the processes of manufacturing the artifacts,

54 DesignIssues:Volume
17,Number
3 Summer
2001
 gained through making and reflecting upon the making of those
artifacts. And some of each of these forms of knowledge also can be
gained through instruction in them.
Just as the other intellectual cultures in the sciences and the
arts concentrate on the underlying forms of knowledge peculiar to
the scientist or the artist, so we must concentrate on the "design-
erly" ways of knowing, thinking, and acting.3334 Following Sch6n
and others, many researchers in the design world have realized that
design practice does indeed have its own strong and appropriate
intellectual culture, and that we must avoid swamping our design
research with different cultures imported either from the sciences or
the arts. This does not mean that we should completely ignore these
other cultures. On the contrary, they have much stronger histories of
inquiry, scholarship, and research than we have in design. We need
to draw upon those histories and traditions where appropriate,
while building our own intellectual culture, acceptable and defensi-
Waysof Knowing,"
33 N.Cross,"Designerly
DesignStudies3:4(1982). ble in the world on its own terms. We have to be able to demon-
34 N.Cross,"Natural in
Intelligence strate that standards of rigor in our intellectual culture at least
DesignStudies20:1(1999).
Design," match those of the others.

DesignIssues:Volume
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3 Summer
2001 55