In his 2002 PhD thesis, Rabah Bousbaci outlined the main theoretical models of architecture and design disciplines, exploring the potential for moral and ethical reasoning to provide a philosophical basis for architecture. In a more recent paper The Models of Man in Design Thinking Bousabaci cites Nigel Cross, stating that design thinking has been described ‘in terms of what is largely accepted today as the “generation game” (i.e., first-,second-, and third-generation design methods’ (above). Reacting against the intuitive processes of the “beaux-arts”, between the late 1950s and 1967, supporters of the first generation championed highly rationalistic design. Between 1967 and 1983 a second generation informed by the participatory theses of Horst Rittel and Christopher Alexander reduced design to processes of bounded rationality. Finally since 1983, based on the cognitive analyses of Donald Schon, a third generation operate from within the “reflective turn“. As Bousabaci’s review shows, since the early 1980s research in design thinking has attempted to incorporate a broader range of issues (poetical, rhetorical, phenomenological, hermeneutical, and ethical). However some researchers in the field would be reluctant to define this final shift as paradigmatic.

In Design Research: a revolution waiting to happen, design thinking guru Kees Dorst claims outcomes of modeling design research have been problematic for two reasons: 1) an overwhelming ‘emphasis on the process of design’ and 2) a ‘strong orientation towards practice’. For Dorst, such conditions have resulted in cognitive divisions between observing, describing, explaining and prescribing design tools for education and practice. Perhaps more importantly, Dorst recognizes a fundamental lack of explanatory framework on which to develop an academic knowledge base, rendering the majority of design research virtually impenetrable to critical analysis. Inspired by contemporary educational preference for Hubert Dreyfus‘ learning model (learning-by-doing), Dorst and collaborator Brian Lawson have recently attempted to counter the above scenario with a systematized model of ‘design expertise’. Initial findings suggest design can be reduced to a seven-layered process, beginning with the ’naive’, ‘novice’ and ‘advanced beginner’, and extending to the ‘competent’, ‘expert’, ‘master’ and ‘visionary’.

Kees accepts ‘there may be discontinuities in the model’ due to Dreyfus’ methodological mix of AI critique and phenomenological theory, yet clearly any attempt to provide ‘an empirical basis for levels of design expertise’ using Dreyfus’ anecdotally-biased model would seem constrained by the very processes they wish to counter. Whether responding to the limitations of protocol analysis or inspired by emerging applications of neuromarketing, John McCardle’s inquiry into identity and affect in design cognition may provide a genuine break from tradition. McCardle’s musings in ‘further investigations’ suggest the interplay or resonant interval between ‘the effects of design activity on the designer’ and ‘the role of self-concept in design cognition’ can be expanded via a series of skin conductance experiments. Based on physiological response and models of the extended mind, such approaches may indeed prove to be paradigmatic…