Generations in Design Methodology

Abstract

The relationship between design and science is examined through the lens of design methodology. The purpose is to foresee the next generation of design methodology and its attributes. Four generations in design methodology are recognized – craft, design-by-drawing, hard systems methods, and soft systems methods – and each is characterized in terms of its benefits and limitations in respect of design practice. To the extent that each new generation overlays the preceding one, a system of design methodologies is created which, being more inclusive of the real world, should be increasingly useful to design practice.

The change process between generations appears to be a double exponential, suggesting that a fifth generation in design methodology is now emerging. Reasons are presented why this is likely to be an evolutionary systems methodology. Such a development will position design as an evolutionary guidance system for socioculture, a much more central role in human affairs. It also has the potential, as we better understand the evolutionary nature of biological and sociocultural phenomena, to generate a profound and comprehensive relationship between design and science.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Broadbent

BIOGRAPHY

John Broadbent is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia. He graduated and received his doctorate in the biological sciences at Reading University. John worked as a microbiologist in Nigeria and Australia for almost a decade. Having gained a Graduate Diploma in Environmental Studies, he then worked as environmental consultant for over a decade. During this latter period, John lectured in the Design School of the (then) Sydney College of the Arts, which merged with the University of Technology Sydney in 1988. His lecturing today spans information retrieval, research methods, technological change, design futures, systems thinking. His current research is into design as a sociocultural evolutionary guidance system. This work is based broadly on the holistic sciences of chaos and complexity, and more specifically on Ervin Laszlo's General Evolution Theory. John has published some 20 journal articles, 40 book chapters/reviews/reports and 15 conference papers.