Appropriating Donald Schön

Abstract

Donald Schön embraces a constructivist approach to learning and research., characterising designing as a reflective conversation between designer and the materials of a design situation. Accordingly, Schön's views on digital design support are based on his valuing of indeterminacy, surprise and ambiguity as opportunities to develop new understanding and insight. His criticism of technical rationality is directed towards the privileging of formal and codified knowledge over embodied and tacit forms of knowing. While Schön's work is increasingly acknowledged in recent CAAD research, respective publications typically remain within the technical rationality perspective. Based on several characteristic examples, this paper examines how Schön's ideas are absorbed into a perspective incongruous to his own, concluding with a discussion of potential new research approaches that sustain Schön's values.