Arousing “Arts of Making” in design: cultivating growing material societal meanings for sustainable transitions

Under the industrial mass production of the 20th century, “making” is controllable and directed by “thinking” in artifact design activities, which formalizes the dominant pattern of “reactive making”, meaning “making following thinking”. The initiative of “making” has been continually weakened and overlooked. Meanwhile, properties of the physical material are defined by the disciplines of Science and Engineering, acting as the “tags” or “surface textures” in CAD for designers to select after the conceptualizing process in design practices. We found tons of nameless and meaningless materials have been surged forth in an uncontrolled way, which has grown a cultural and societal sharp disconnection with human beings, consequently instigating a cascade of environmental crises. In response to this challenge, we delved deeply and unearthed the underlying "making" paradigm that drives the current predominant approach to designing artifacts. By conducting thorough historical research, we retraced the origins of the concept of "making" and its evolution, as discussed by five prominent thinkers: Aristotle, Herbert Simon, John Dewey, Paul Carter, and Tim Ingold. These scholars' ideas converge within the domains of both "making" and "design." Following a further and in-depth comparative analysis, we identified two separate yet interconnected paradigms of "making"—namely, the "Science of Making (SoM)" and the "Arts of Making (AoM)." As a result, we formulated four essential principles of the "becoming-with" concept within the framework of "AoM." We further exemplified the practical implementations of these principles through grounded research and case studies.