Conventional Design Industrial design Product design Specialization Conventional Professional

Specific
Instrumental
Problem solving
Solutions
A priori design

Sustainable Design

Design of functional objects Creation of material culture Improvisation

Uncertain, uncomfortable Amateur, dilettante

(acting with love and joy) Holistic, integrative

Intrinsic

Experimenting

Possibilities

Contingent design

Adapted from Stuart Walker [ 17]

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Early Parallels

The current shift from a mechanical-object ethos to an organic-systems ethos has been anticipated in earlier shifts.

In the mid-1960s, architects and designers began to focus on “rational” design methods, borrowing from the successes of large military-engineering projects during the war and the years following it. While these methods were effective for military projects with clear objectives, they often proved unsuccessful in the face of social problems with complex and competing objectives. For example, methods suited to building missiles were applied to large-scale construction in urban-redevelopment projects, but those methods proved unsuited to addressing the underlying social problems that redevelopment projects sought to cure.

Horst Rittel proposed a second generation of design methods, effectively reframing the movement, casting design as conversation about “wicked problems [ 8].” His proposal came too late or too early for the design world, which had already moved on to “post-modernism” but had not yet encountered the Internet.

Rittel’s work did attract attention in computer science (he was a pioneer in using computers in design planning), where “design rationale” (the process of tracking issues and arguments related to a project) continues as a field of research. More recently, Rittel’s work has attracted attention in business-school publications addressing innovation and design management [ 18, 19].