#mastersindesign

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A study in vertical balance @ocadugrad #mastersindesign #ocaduniversity (at OCAD U Graduate Gallery)

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How my mind feels right now. #criticaltheory I thought I would be able to neatly store all of my weekly readings in this now exploding folder #mastersclass #ocaduniversity #mastersindesign (at OCAD U Graduate Gallery)

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Trendforecasting seminar March 2016/ZHdK/MAD/Trends

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Logbook entry 6: Project development. Day 3: articulate, interpret, communicate

Day 3: ARTICULATE: INTERPRETATION AND COMMUNICATION

Knowledge production: designers are not only concerned with the design practice, in the sense of making nice products, but also about taking the discipline further. Individual design research: define what elements of design research field are important for your research. Research proposal: enhance knowledge and understanding to the question, issues, or problems to be addressed. How will you apply this to your research? How will you enhance knowledge (knowledge about what exactly) and understanding of your theme? What is the best approach? What is the state of the art: in order to find out where the boundaries of knowledge and understanding are regarding your theme, look at examples from design but also from other fields like art, social sciences, biology, etc.

Free-writing: the goal is to generate raw material fast. We are showed interesting techniques for writing. The first technique discusses is called Elfchen. The goal is to capture the raw material into to one point. With the verbs & nouns technique, the aim is to activate our passive vocabulary.

Key take-away: write daily, to start thinking in ‘writing’, to make ideas understandable and precise.

There are three types of writing and writing strategies: structural type, struktureschaffer, mix.

Writing is design: Different types of writing: thesis-oriented writing genre-oriented writing audience-oriented writing

About writing an ABSTRACT? Ask yourself these questions: what will you research? what is the question? in which disciplinary, theoretical context is your question embedded? at which gap in research is your work focused? what is the basic hypothesis in your research? which methods will you employ? what do other thinkers think about your subject of research (change perspective)

HOW to read? Ask yourself these questions: why am i reading this text? what knowledge will i get? how can i use this knowledge? where?

After you finish the article make a summery of the text and reflect what the text means for you, is it relevant for your research?

Still to answer questions: was Design zur wissenschaftlichen Forschungsdisziplin macht wie eine Forschungsfrage entsteht (Zielsetzung) wie man sich dem aktuellen Wissenstand annähert (State of the Art) wie eine Forschungsfrage gestellt wird durch welche Haltung/Sichtweise man sich als Designforscher positioniert mit welchen Strategien und Methoden man geeigneter Weise vorgehen kann, - wie man, diszipliniert, selbstkritisch und nachvollziehbar bleibt wie Forschungsergebnisse interpretiert werden (Erkenntnis) welche Kriterien bei der Evaluation von forschungsorientierten Projekten angewendet werden solide wissen basis adequate strategie

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Logbook entry 5: Project development. Day 2 - Framework, perspective, position

Day 2: FRAMEWORK: PERSPECTIVE AND POSITION

We watched documentary about Pruitt Igoe. Pruitt Igoe is set as an example of how to ask wrong questions in architectural and design discipline. During the problem formulation it is important to approach the problem from different perspectives. Designers analyse what the problem is, not so much what the solution is.

Martin Baker on different types of research

explanatory archival narrative textual analytic argumentative scholarly critical conceptual methodological model-building case-study hypothesis testing, etc.

HOW do we research something that we do not know? 

HOW will we know we have found what we want to know?

Crotty 1988: research process Crotty discusses shifting perspectives in research: ontological perspective epistemological perspective theoretical perspective methodological perspective methods

Ontological perspective is how you see things and how you order things, which changes the problem.

Bjorn Franke: design research discipline There is no design research field, but designers who do research. Designers take perspectives from other disciplines. We are asked to reflect about this. What is the premise of other disciplines and how different is it from your premise. We are asked to position our own ontological perspective and our research (question) within the context of these different perspectives (from other disciplines like for example medicine or science). We are asked to make our own intellectual puzzle and research question.

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Logbook entry 4: Project development day 1 - vision

Day I. VISION

Collins 2010: Design context consists of theory, practice, and reflection. We are asked to take Collins' framework as a basic setting during this weeks' workshop. Reflection especially is an important aspect in the design process. We are asked to be critical, question each step and every position we take.Collins 2010: Design research is not a linear process.

Goals of this weeks' workshop are: to examine design as a research discipline to think about how to enter our research projects through various points to develop and focus our research question to develop a perspective for how to position our research in theory and practice to develop discipline towards working structurally and comprehensibly

Some characteristics of design as research

design for, and in, a specific context, situation explorative, iterative, and collaborative approach interest in product and knowledge involved as designer and researcher generation of knowledge through an active design relevance for design practice and research community

Fallman (2005, 2007): research-orientat vs. design-oriented research

Gray and Mallins 2004: the research process WHAT: the identification of a ‘hunch’ or tentative research proposition, leading eventually to a defined and viable research question WHY: the need for your research in relation to the wider context, in order to test out the value of your propositions, locate your research position, and explore a range of research strategies HOW: the importance of developing an appropriate methodology and specific methods for gathering and generating information relevant to your research question, and evaluating, analysing and interpreting research evidence SO WHAT: this provocative question challenges you to think about the significance and value of your research contribution, not only to your practice but to the wider research context, and how this is best communicated and disseminated

Continue reading about Day 2: Framework, perspective, position

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Logbook entry 2: An introduction to trend research

In the first week of the semester we were introduced to the our area of specialisation, Trends. One of the key take-aways is to not only look at mega-trends, they certainly are important, but also keep an eye on smaller, local, weaker signals of emerging developments in society. Another key takeaway was not to start with an abstract, theoretical work, but to start with visualising and designing right away. Research and design are parallel processes.

'De ware ontdekkingsreis is niet te zoeken naar nieuwe landschappen, maar om de wereld met nieuwe ogen te zien.' We are encouraged to - learn to recognise conflicting developments - to discover small manifestation, often these small phenomena have significant potential to develop to switch between research and design often to reflect

Trends are categorised into long and medium trend (5 > years) short, less than 1 year scenario’s (5 > years)

Our area of interest focuses on trends relevant for individuals and societies.

Questions to ask ourselves are: how is something developed? how can i understand that from its function and form?