Making Design Education (Even More) Complex: Exploring Complexity for an Amplified Mindset of Design

Abstract

An Amplified Mindset of Design (AMD) has emerged from recent research on emerging design practices, as designers are once again re‐inventing their identity to include an adaptability to uncertainty and paradox. However, this is not yet visible in what design education offers. As designers intervene in complex contexts and embrace participatory, collaborative and interdisciplinary practices informed by strong ethical and sustainability concerns, design education must adjust and expand its scope to include, for example, collaboration, cross‐cultural and interdisciplinary skills, and a way of being in the world through design. In this article, I argue for the formal introduction and exploration of social complexity in design education to assist the development of an AMD in design students. Boundaries, dependence on context, edge of chaos, emergence and organisation were identified as key qualities of complex systems to introduce to students. Embodiment and visualisation techniques were used as the most appropriate vehicles for such an endeavour. In this article, I discuss the results of a qualitative research informed by action research in which I explore ways of teaching complexity to design students. The inquiry was driven by the following core research question: How can complexity can be taught in design education using visual and embodiment methods to encourage the development of an Amplified Mindset of Design?

From Making Things to Making Meaning

“…Thiscompetenceisdifferentfromthelanguagesofthehumanitiesandthenotationsofthesciences. ForArcher,modellingincovertorexternalizedformisexpressedinotheractivitiesnotnormally associatedwithdesignsuchasnavigationorcrossingtheroad,areferencetothevisual-spatialability thatBalchinobserved.Second, Archer(1979a)describesdesignproblemasbeingill-defined,and designsolutionas"onethathasresidualmisfitorobscurity"(p.17).Thisinspiredmodernscholars' inquiryintothenatureofdesignproblemsas"wicked" (Buchanan,1992,p.14;Christensenetal., 2019, p. 125), "uncertain or paradox" (Moreira, 2019, p. 3), or "ambiguous" (David Carlson & Dobson,2020;anddesignsolutionsas"synthesisofconstraints" (Moggridge&Atkinson,2007, p.650).Finally,Archerproclaimsthatdesignisanexpressionandcollectedexperiencesofman's materialculture,orthedoing and makingabilitythatisexpressedinthecreationofhumanartefacts andpracticesaroundit.Archerstatedthatanysubjectwhichrelatestoman'smaterialculturemust necessarilybe"anthropocentric" (Archer,1979b,p.19),atermthatinspiredmoderndesignterms like"human-centered" (Brown,2008,p.1)"user-centered"(Moggridge&Atkinson,2007,p.46)or "learner-centered"(Burdick&Willis,2011Jones,2014,p.28).…”