Nigel Cross, “Chapter 1: Designerly Ways of Knowing”

1. Peters says that the first principal criterion for education is that worthwhile knowledge of some value must be transmitted. He then tries to define what knowledge is considered “worthwhile”, stating that it is value-laden and problematic. Shouldn’t “worthwhile knowledge” be determined by each person’s subjective opinion? Isn’t what we want to know that makes it worthwhile?

2. This article firmly states that a designer has to be properly educated and trained. However, every teacher teaches differently due to their own preference and experience. Does it make any difference that there are multiple ways of how a student can be taught to be a designer?

3. “These experiments suggest that scientists problem-solve by analysis, whereas designers problem-solve by synthesis.” This statement seems a little too cut and dry for these two groups. Don’t designers do research first before making something while scientists conduct experiments to prove their analysis?

Johan Verbeke, “This is Research by Design”

1. Ranulph Glanville states that, “Design is not interested in describing what it is, but changing what is,” using ‘Mode 1’ and ‘Mode 2’ knowledge. However, isn’t the whole purpose of research in architecture to know what is before changing it?

2. The concept discussed by this article is “research by design” and how it works. So how would the reverse, “design by research” be perceived by the author? What would change? What wouldn’t?

3. The issue of the arts and architecture were brought up in this article several times as parallels of each other. It was even stated that they were strongly linked in the past. Why aren’t they still strongly linked today? Is it our evolving research or technology that changed this or is it something else?