Design by Society: Science and Technology Studies and the Social Shaping of Design

摘要

This Design Issues symposium is a continuation of efforts to enrich design studies by selectively reaching out to scholarship in related fields. The contributors to this issue are from the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS). They include an anthropologist, a political scientist, and an interdisciplinary set of STS graduate students and recent Ph.D.s with backgrounds in engineering and design, as well as in the humanities and social sciences. This volume emerges from a project at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to develop "An STS Focus on Design," funded by the National Science Foundation's Science and Technology Studies program. Project participants seek to foster a dialogue with the design studies community on design as a public activity engaging professional designers with many other social actors and institutions. In this introduction, we provide an overview of how some STS scholars think about the challenges of design, and we briefly summarize the articles in this symposium. However, we begin by discussing the conceptual foundation for the work, distinguishing between what we call "proximate designers" and "design by society." Professional designers most immediately shape design by their decisions at the drawing board, of course, but they work within contexts and incentive structures shaped largely by others. In proposing that design studies pay increased attention to design by society, we are attempting to join with Victor Papanek, Nigel Whiteley, Joan Rothschild, Richard Buchanan, Victor Margolin, William McDonough, and others who think systematically about how design can help shape a commendable civilization.