The Italian Design Society welcomes the formation of scientific-cultural networks composed of scientific societies from other SSDs, institutions, and representatives from society and the economic world on topics of common interest. In this perspective, the establishment of a network of “Scientific Societies of the Project” fits within the framework of numerous ongoing and initiated initiatives to promote the exchange of experiences and reflections on research evaluation and proposals for an “objective indexing” of scientific production.
The theme presented by the forum clearly indicates a pragmatic dimension of the project oriented towards action and the development of operational tools for investigation, experimentation, and quality evaluation. In contrast, in recent years, even design education and academic research have predominantly focused on theoretical and methodological aspects. Gradually, by developing a critical and reflective approach to design, the production of tools with which to design has been favored instead of promoting the “material” culture of the project in its various dimensions and degrees of complexity.
One of the first effects of this high-risk drift towards self-referentiality is visible in the recent procedures for Research Quality Assessment. In many cases, design products have been considered at a limited level of merit. Over time, if this orientation of the VQR persists, university scientific communities would end up being composed largely of “analysts,” while designers, or rather educators with design experience, would become a true rarity.
This phenomenon takes on paradoxical connotations for a relatively “young” discipline like design, which opens up to new educational and research fields including interaction design, service design, fashion design, strategic design, design for sustainability, and new application fields in food products, tourism, and territorial systems. On one hand, design seems to respond to a demand for project research expressed by a world in continuous and profound transformation; on the other, our discipline risks losing connections with its history and the best tradition of Italian industrial design, which was founded on an activity not only cultural and critical but also practical, and on the continuous innovation and affirmation of shared values among local communities, designers, and enlightened entrepreneurs.
Opening a reflection on the scientific validity of design products would be interesting, but I believe it would simply shift the terms of the problem to another plane (epistemological). In my opinion, the core of the issue does not lie in the scientific nature of the project or its related disciplinary sectors, but rather concerns the university education of those who will be called to operate in the professional world and who will need to legitimize their proposals in various application fields.
In this context, I would like to understand how it is possible to teach, or rather, convey to students the ability to develop learning devices (learning to learn by doing) for designing, ranging between “artistic practice” and “the challenge of complexity.” I am convinced that it is not possible to develop project experimentation without relying on the transmission of “lived” experiences, and neglecting that “archaic,” yet still fruitful fiduciary and emotional relationship that is established between teacher and student.
Requesting to “experiment with the project to teach design,” therefore, is not an attempt to acquire a corporate privilege. It is simply the assertion of a necessity, I would dare say ethical. That of interacting in the conduct of the university educational task, the critical and reflective approach of academic research on theoretical and methodological aspects, with the pragmatic approach directly oriented towards development and innovation actions.
