de s form design research sem fin

Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences

Abstract.

•  WHY: Many of us have experienced that the notion of Design Research has often been the cause of much conflict, creative conflict, in both the Academic and the Commercial contexts alike. Design is a Research activity in itself. So, what does Design Research mean to us in Academia and in the 21st Century?

•  HOW: How do we understand these concepts, how do we make sense of them and how do we contribute to Transforming our futures; the future of our people, the future of our world and the future of our Discipline while at the same time, being and acting as a Designer?

•  Ever since I joined the Royal College of Art in 1981 I have experienced something of the paradox, which the notion of 'Research' proposes: one the one hand an activity, which seeks to UNDERSTAND the world more fully through Objective Scientific Objective Experimentation in Laboratory contexts, while on the other hand the other strives to CHANGE the world through often Subjective, Exploration in Community contexts. At a dangerously simplistic level, one appears to be an act of Creation through Practice and the other an act of Scholarship through Study, and yet somehow we can bring them together.

•  ACADEMIC’S CHALLENGE: Both the Analytical and the Synthetical approaches do of course come together of course as I believe that we are all Creative and as such have a desire to create a 'better' world for the future. But none the less the two approaches do set up a tension in the academic contexts, which in time I believe can become a 'most creative' one from which we can all grow!

•  WHAT: This is is something that I'd like to discuss during this seminar while at the same time sharing some examples of the work we create as part of our Design Research Programmes at Northumbria University.

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Northumbria Design Research#a creative value proposition for the future


Newcastle: heart of the North Eastern Industrial Revolution

1830s… Coal, Iron, Gas, Chemicals….Steel,

Ships, Railways, Pharmaceuticals, Arms and Energy Industries

1980s… Technology (life science (Stem Cell),

digital economy, Energy, Healthcare, Energy (Solar and Wind)

Innovation, Creativity, Culture

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Newcastle: heart of the North Eastern Industrial Revolution

•  Key education & R&D areas: http://www.investnortheastengland.co.uk/key-sectors.html –  Digital Economy (Gaming, SAGE) –  Technology (printable electronics) venture culture (Entrep’ship) –  Automotive Manufacturing (Ultra low carbon) –  Well being & Aging –  Medical (Stem Cell and Genetic) Research –  Clean tech and Energy (new & renewable - off shore wind) –  Cultural arts

•  Increasing spend on education & R&D

•  Seats of UK learning in the North east –  Durham….. Classics –  Newcastle…. Medicine, agriculture, … –  Northumbria…. Innovation, Entrepreneurship & professional practice

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School of Design : A creative community for Innovation

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School of Design : A creative community for Innovation

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Northumbria Design

The School of Design takes its roots from 1841, as the Newcastle Upon Tyne ‘Government School of Design’, headed by William Bell Scott and was by ‘act’ of the Government Department of Science and Art.

Commissioned to teach, not drawing, modeling,

colour, or the science of Perspective, projection or geometry, … but

to Create new Decorative Designs, ‘to have & express their Ideas’ …even to begin New Trades, ‘ to drive new forms of business’

Design : a player in Innovation, by seeing & doing

new things in new ways. The Roll of Design Academia

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Value added : three distinct forms

Our Choice! These three broad domains of purposeful learning – discovery, solutions and practice – each

represent fundamentally different businesses: they each serve different markets and customer needs, with different values and different delivery processes, and they demand different capabilities and skills.

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A Laboratory for Change: Daniel Weil, Royal College of Art : 1993

Our aim is to renew the profession’s commitment to the cultural objectives of Design in the proposition of Products (systems, services and solutions) of

integrity and real value.

It is for Universities to explore and experiment in order to provide research, data, and approaches (methodologies), which will enable practitioners (the

profession) to respond to the opportunities offered by the new Technologies, ideas, and global alignments.

…it is vital that the University should re-establish its place as a testing ground

and as a laboratory for the trial of new perspectives and approaches that the day-to-day pressures prevent practitioners from attempting.

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Design Departments

Two Communities of Practice -Professional excellence

Design: 1.  Industrial Design 2.  Fashion Design 3.  Design Innovation & Creative

Entrepreneurship

Media & Communication Design: 1.  Film & TV, 2.  Journalism & Broadcast Media 3.  Visual communication &

Advertising 4.  Digital Interaction, animation &

Interactive Media


Integrated, multi-disciplinary and connected

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Industrial design Visual and

Performing Arts

Fashion design

History Politics

Criminology

Interaction design

Creative Writing

Technology specialists

Social science

Human factors

Brand strategy


NORTHUMBRIA DESIGN RESEARCH Research Projects

introduction


Design Research : Key Challenges

•  Why we do it

•  Our Design Research Questions

•  An introduction to Northumbria Design’s Design Research Programme.

•  The Academic’s challenge

•  Some conclusions

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Design Research : 8 Themes across 3 groupings

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Design Research

•  Over the last 20 years it has grown into a broad-based academic and professional partnership working in areas of research, teaching and consultancy with industrial, commercial and public sector clients.

•  Future of Profession (new Leaders) •  Future of Discipline ( New Subject) •  Future of Industry ( new Ideas; new

type of Experimental laboratory

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Design Led Enterprise Programme

Develop a Enterprise Culture and Pathway in Northumberland and beyond

•  Value to School over three years £1Mil

•  Make available NSD experience of Design Led Enterprise in collaboration with SMEs

•  Models for new ways of supporting Innovation, Enterprise and Graduate retention

•  Wider collaboration opportunities through establishment of an Innovation in the county ‘focus’

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Design Innovation creating sustainable value for the regions SME community The programme partnered with regional SME’s on projects ranging from materials which will dramatically cut global industrial electricity usage, through to a device to alleviate infant colic. With the tangible impact of creating new jobs, new intellectual property and increased economic activity in the region


Service Design Methods (KTP programmes) Co-Creation of community support in the voluntary Sector

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Design used to communicate how a small change in behaviour can have a huge impact on health Outcomes were educational tools for GPS to use with patients, and the development of a GP training tool to help define ‘physical movement’ in relation to Type II diabetes.

Movement as Medicine behaviour change in patients through behaviour change in GPs


Banking for the Older Old electronic pensions, post offices closing, financial isolation

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Design brought together 80 something's, the banks and the third sector Collaboratively identified needs and barriers of the stakeholders Over 5 months we co-designed new banking services and prototypes, including an electronic cheque book and mobile banking service


High Value Low Carbon creating a network for regional low carbon innovation

How do you move from Government ‘push’ to consumer ‘pull’ and establish sustainable consumer demand for electric vehicles?

Focus on the value proposition not the features and benefits…. Creating customer value in an electric vehicle - What does it need to look and feel like in order to make it a credible alternative to petrol cars?

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Personhood in Dementia creating conversations, sparking memories and keeping ‘life alive’

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Designing objects to maintain self-identity in dementia We have worked with individuals living with mild stages of dementia and their close family members to make a series of digital jewellery objects that echo elements of their life stories and treasured relationships and experiences Enabling dementia sufferers themselves to engage in the research of the disease


Enabling Self, Intimacy and a Sense of Home in Dementia: An Enquiry into Design in a Hospital Setting.

Design of interactive art pieces (public art commission) within a secure adult mental health unit in a UK hospital. 16 clients with severe dementia live in the unit for assessment for a number of weeks Things that motivated the designs •  sparseness of the unit •  lack of familiarity •  enhancement of staff practice


Items tied to local identity


Insights & Impact

Space for relaxation for clients and staff - there was one client who was very agitated and never sat down and Amy (staff) said, “But he sat there and he sat for ten minutes.” New forms of interpersonal communication- generating different levels of communication and creating genuine human relationships beyond clients and care-giver.


Insights & Impact

Ways in – You must keep people’s identity. So even while working in a standard environment its the staff conforming to them rather than clients conforming to the staff.

Need for intimacy – encouraging people to visit in bed areas, as well as the day areas. Intimate gestures are needed both by clients and their family members.

Value of home-like and comforting referents – Staff repeatedly described the room as cozy. The room and the pieces have become a more comfortable space that feels more like home within the institutional environment.


In Conclusion The use of local collective identities to tap into very personal meanings. Facilitation of a natural, familiar setting for signposts and reassurance. Working with staff to gain nuanced understandings of their practice and enabling staff to find ‘ways in’. The value of a space in which to be intimate. Designs that step back from constraints that emphasise cognitive impairment and instead focus on enabling the person.


Develop opportunities from global trends

Global trends Globalization, urbanization and rise of emerging markets Aging population Climate change Consumer empowerment Sustainable development

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Northumbria University Opportunities (2010)

Energy efficiency & Technology

Digital Media, Personalized experiences and

immersive atmospheres

Personal well-being, Home care, Independent

living, better healthcare for all

Social Innovation, thru’ business &

Technology


Design & the Future thru’ Teaching and Researching

We are familiar with the notions of •  Designers learn through doing. •  Research through Design / action research Integrating the use complementary creative processes of study, thinking and

doing to –

•  Create new knowledge, •  Develop new methods of creative practice, - used both inside and outside the

Industrial Company and User Communities •  Propose new Ideas for Living (visions) for the future

in the world of communications, media, objects, system solutions and social innovations...

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What does NSDesign create?

Design Research & Impact Intellectual leadership, Narrative, Positions

through:

•  New Ideas, products, systems, solutions

•  New Practices, …roles for Design, ways of working or Methods….

•  New knowledge about contexts of Life…

•  New IP, from which to build New Companies…

Design Education & People •  Future practitioners, consultants, in-

house, makers

•  Future Entrepreneurs

•  Future Researchers

•  Future Strategic Leaders

•  Future Academics and thinkers •  New knowledge about contexts of Life…


Design education: Graduate Exit profile. 4 Pathways. Different Competence Profiles.

Our Education and Research Programmes are designed to support the students across these personal Development tracks.

•  Academic leader…. (Phd. To professor)

•  Creator (Designer) Maker. (SME)

•  Consulting practitioner (external practice) & Staff Designer, Corporate Design function Leader (Internal)

•  Creative thinker to Strategic leadership in other contexts. –  Leadership & management, Marketing, Innovation, Product management, ….

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Design Research : The Academy’s Challenge

•  Independent vs Integration of Research and Education. •  Independent vs Integrated Practice and Theory. To test new theory through practice,

experiment through Practice to form new theory. (Desform is an example of this.) •  Recognise that researching and testing out ‘New Design territories and Forms of

Practice’ is part of Academic knowledge… •  Communities of Practice focused on external issues vs Autonomous Academic

focused on own Authority Author/ship…

•  Experienced Practitioners are NOT always Academic in their nature •  Academics, who can analyse and study practice (ASK) in order to Educate and

research it, are not always experienced in that practice in a commercial context. We need both and for colleagues to be continuing their professional lives in both spaces, simultaneously.

•  Phd.s are concerned with learning how to research as well as creating New Know How.

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Design Research : The Academy’s Challenge

•  How / whether to enable New Colleagues to take Phds along side their Research and Teaching activities.

•  How / whether to Include the Student Learning activity to be part academic’s Research. –  Education in the Morning, Research with and through students as Experimental

Laboratory, in the afternoon!!

•  How / whether to align the Contract Research work with the PHd subject to enable a WIN WIN.

•  Grow our own Phd. –  Graduate Tutor scheme, as some EU / Dutch Universities do and align their Phd

Research with the aims of local design Companies, or corporate Design teams so that their own professional Practice experience can be developed.

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Design Research : The Academy’s Challenge Industrial partners & How we work with them. 5 contexts.

•  Graduate placement and graduate employment network to provides route to employment and sources of future talent.

•  Profession practitioners as ‘tutors’

•  Offer Continuous Professional Development programmes (‘credit’ earning) to industry

•  Contracted Research collaborating with Gov’t Programs (RCs)

•  Partners for Academics to maintain a professional practice with

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Design Research : The Academy’s Challenge Different Academic Progression & Career Pathway Arrangements

Roles&&&Grade! Research&Pathway! Learning&&&Teaching&Pathway! Enterprise/Business&Engagement&Pathway!

Leadership&roles&Faculty>based&Academic&!

Director&&&Champion&roles&assigned&to&Grade&8&or&9&academic&members&of&staff&within&FaculGes!

PROFESSOR&Current&Grade&9!

Professor&>&Research!

Professor&>Research!

Professor&>&Learning&&&Teaching!

Professor&>Learning&&&Teaching!

Professor&–&Enterprise&!

Professor&–&Enterprise!

ASSOCIATE&PROFESSOR&Current&Grade&8!

Reader! Reader! Teaching&Fellow! Teaching&Fellow! Enterprise&Fellow!

Enterprise&Fellow!

ASSISTANT&PROFESSOR&Current&Grade&7!

Senior&Lecturer!Senior&Research&Fellow!

Senior&Lecturer! Senior&Lecturer!

POST&DOC&Current&Grade&6!

Lecturer! Research&Fellow! Lecturer! Lecturer!

POST&DOC&Current&Grade&5!

Senior&Research&Assistant!

Current&Grade&4! Research&Assistant!


Design Research : The Academy’s Challenge The Creative Consortia and collaborative integration

•  Creating new ways of thinking and doing

•  A common approach, working across all four stakeholder groupings

•  Transformational Design Research •  Enabling a Creative Partnerships &

Industrial Consortia •  Inspiration, insights and integration •  Academic Impact:

–  new design principles for –  emerging industrial contexts, behaviours

and qualities of life, –  integration with School Research themes

and –  international networks

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Creative Consortia : innovation for emerging business

Collaborative Future thinking platform

PEOPLE & MARKETS

GROWTH STRATEGY

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

DESIGN

Copyright Philips Design & IJD Vol. 3(1) April2009

- Future business model - Socio cultural mindsets

- Macro drivers of social change

- Design qualities

- Design language


An integrated multi-disciplinary & connected School

Ref: Stanford, D-School, “the Big Picture” 42

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AI:TU/e ARCH

COMP-SCI

ELE-ENG

Design: (DQI) theory & Practice

Overbeeke / Hummels

Business Process DESIGN (BPD)

TBA

What they do

What they will do

Designed Intelligence

(DI) Rauterberg / Feijs

Industrial Design of Embedded Systems. What they do

Another research group (s)

What they will do

What they will do

User Centered

Engineering (UCE) Eggen / Martens

User Centered Engineering…

Another Research group (s) . TECHNOLOGY

PEOPLE

DESIGN

BUSINESS POLITICS

RSEARCH @IDTU/e Copyright. 2000- 2010 Technical University Eindhoven…


Northumbria Design Research : Some Conclusions

•  Nearly fifty years of history, change is always difficult, even for designers •  Very few professional ‘Designers’ have Phds, value or know how to research in the accepted

sense (scientific ??) •  Education for professional practice, •  Students want skills and experience knowledge, •  Industry & local govt looking for pragmatic solutions & team people, •  ‘National Innovation’ agendas and the Discipline is looking to a ‘new future’,

•  High quality practice and creative ideas beautifully executed are not Research •  ‘Changing the world’ and ‘understanding it’ are often two different cultures

•  University Research agendas and Positioning are often difficult to agree upon…( should there be one??, how to cluster, around Professional practice, Global Issues, or Future Contexts of Use…)

•  Working alone or part of a collective

•  Academic career paths, specialism vs holistic

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Analytical Understanding through Doing

Scientific Experimental

Chemistry Rigour

Justification Left brain

Objective & Observational Cognitive creation

Segmented isolation Objectified quality

Efficiency Instituted & functional perfection

Laboratory

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Synthetical Being as the source of knowledge Confidence Explorative Alchemy Relevance Instinctive Right brain Subjective & Interpretational Physical creation Holistic integration Intuitive beauty Effectiveness Relational cohesion Community

Some of the paradoxes

de s form design research sem fin

Education

northumbria design research

notion of design research

faculty of arts

design research programmes

social sciences northumbria

social sciences newcastle

cultural objectives

roll of design academia