Output details

Design Without Discipline

This paper, which is a development on the author’s earlier work Alterplinarity – ‘Alternative Disciplinarity’ in Future Art and Design Research Pursuits, Studies in Material Thinking, Vol. 6, December 2011, ISSN 1177-6234 relating to issues of disciplinarity, argues that reliance on the historic disciplines of design as the boundaries of our understanding have been superseded. This paper, reviewed by the four editors of Design Issues, critically analyses the discipline of design and poses three current crises for design to address: (i) “The Crisis of Professionalism”, (ii) “The Crisis of the Economy”, and (iii) “The Crisis of Technology”. The paper proposes that as the design disciplines have fragmented so too have the responsibilities of design. This paper is, in part, the result of work carried out as part of the AHRC funded Research Network – 'We are all Designers' (Grant Ref: AH/I022554/1).