Constructive Design Research

How do you design with the objective of producing knowledge?

Design is by now both a profession and a research discipline. The profession of being a designer is often referred to as a “solution oriented discipline”. Whereas it is true that design is concerned with delivering aesthetically attractive, useful, socially and commercially valuable solutions, it is often neglected that the process of designing is also about questioning initial assumptions, convictions and theories in the pursuit of identifying the actual underlying challenges, concerns and questions.

By means of sketches, artefacts, scenarios, mock-ups, service blueprints, screen dumps, video prototypes etc. Constructive design research is an exploratory endeavour building exemplars, arguments and evidence, and not least reframe questions and placing them into a better conceptual framework. As new knowledge evolves, the result is often a surprise that leads designers away from initial perceptions of the challenges and objective.

This approach is reflected in a number of the publications emerging from this group.