ABSTRACT
“Scientific” approaches to Design Research adopt seemingly rigid scientific standards without reflecting on their appropriateness for design. External paradigms are transferred as a whole into design. This text argues for the “designerly” approach instead and asks: “How can design establish its own genuine research paradigm, independent of the Sciences, the Humanities, and the Arts, one that is appropriate for dealing with purposeful change in complex, ill-defined, real-world situations?”The answer may be Research Through Design, a cybernetic model of evolutionary learning and of reflecting observer positions and perspectives. The further considerations indicate that these approaches are suitable as foundations of a trans-domain of knowledge production, a new intellectual mindset and communicative space, which allows a multitude of approaches between the dualism of pure black and white. It contributes to the re-integration of scientific and designerly modes of enquiry. Current developments in Science Studies, such as the concept of Mode-2 Science, or the emergence of Transdisciplinarity, support this claim.
The new edition of the chapter, a decade after its first publication, is supplemented by a foreword, which undertakes a critical re-contextualisation of the author’s otherwise unchanged theoretical position.
