ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that there is such a thing as a ‘designerly way of knowing’. Some of the features of the way designers know and of design knowledge are explained and explored. The difference between theoretical or semantic knowledge and experiential or episodic knowledge are introduced. Designers generally have relatively little semantic knowledge but a potentially huge amount of episodic knowledge. The reasons for this are explored and found to mainly depend on the nature of design problems. The concept of precedent in designing is introduced and the idea of using unlimited previous knowledge in unpredictable ways is introduced. The implications of all of this for the nature of the design school library are explored.
