Output details

Overlooking the Visual Demystifying the Art of Design

This publication resolves the great riddle of the art of design: why it is still largely considered to be un-teachable and how can this antiquated supposition be dismantled? The book’s central premise is that the problem is philosophical - this emerged from the researcher’s earlier work during a two year Leverhulme Trust funded project. Over the last 15 years its radical premise and consequent implications have been researched further and discussed with key philosophers, such as Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam. Key assumptions have been re-conceptualized into the new discourse of this present work.

Written from the perspective of an experienced teacher/researcher and practitioner of landscape architecture the book fundamentally redefines theories of perception using a new perspective, not only to challenge assumptions underlying epistemology, intelligence, consciousness and the design process, but also to construct an alternative means of dealing with spatial, visual information that is artistically and conceptually rigorous.

Tim Ingold, Chair of Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen, suggested that the book’s premise is “just the kind of thing that I - and many others - have been waiting for ... it lays the ground for a much broader field of practice” (Ingold 2009). It is not specific to one discipline, being equally relevant to architecture and other art and design areas, as well as philosophy, aesthetics and education more generally. Comprehensively redefining design its new perspective makes it possible to articulate how to teach design expertise, develop aesthetic sensibility and instill the confidence to make judgments in any spatial conceptual medium.

Shortlisted for a British Book Design Award in 2011 http://www.britishbookawards.org/2010/shortlist.aspx and highly commended by the Landscape Institute in 2011 it sold out sooner than expected and was reprinted in November 2012. Translated into Chinese an approach has been received to translate it into Japanese.