ABSTRACT
Through examining the historical dimensions of the interrelatedness of design and anthropology, and the ways in which ‘the space of the possible’ emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this chapter addresses the growing critique of design research in general, and its almost complete disregard of historiography. It examines how design shifted from a practice anchored to ‘historical rationalism and industrial productivity’ to one embracing anthropological discourse and method as a means of setting in motion new ways of imagining a transitional future that repositioned design at the forefront of negotiating the relationship between the past, present and future. Contemporary design has emerged as an endlessly expandable phenomenon: trans-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary, collaborative, participatory, critical, discursive, speculative, transitional. Within these various manifestations, the notion of the ‘social’ has taken on a newly valorized currency. The commonsensical notion of the designer as envisaging and ‘making’ the future is at once cliched and pertinent.
