Abstract
Ontological design — characterized by the understanding that what we design designs us — has been invoked as a necessary framing in redirecting the design discipline toward more pluralistic and sustainable ends. In this paper, I situate ongoing conversations about process documentation within emergent conversations surrounding ontological design, considering ways in which innovative documentation practices may support new ontological agendas. By considering process documentation as a hermeneutical, knowledge-making practice, I speculate ways that new, experimental modes of process documentation may afford designers — and design itself — new vantage points from which to (re)interpret design practice and the discipline writ large. To this end, I sketch out some preliminary ideas of what ontological documentation may look like. In particular, I explore how deliberately open-ended (or even speculative) approaches to design documentation could invite critical reflection and collaborative meaning-making — inviting more voices to shape the narratives and ontologies of design.
Keywords
design documentation, ontological design, design research, reflexivity
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.494
Citation
Manuel, T. (2022) Documenting new design ontologies, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.494
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Documenting new design ontologies
Ontological design — characterized by the understanding that what we design designs us — has been invoked as a necessary framing in redirecting the design discipline toward more pluralistic and sustainable ends. In this paper, I situate ongoing conversations about process documentation within emergent conversations surrounding ontological design, considering ways in which innovative documentation practices may support new ontological agendas. By considering process documentation as a hermeneutical, knowledge-making practice, I speculate ways that new, experimental modes of process documentation may afford designers — and design itself — new vantage points from which to (re)interpret design practice and the discipline writ large. To this end, I sketch out some preliminary ideas of what ontological documentation may look like. In particular, I explore how deliberately open-ended (or even speculative) approaches to design documentation could invite critical reflection and collaborative meaning-making — inviting more voices to shape the narratives and ontologies of design.