BASICS OF A DESIGN RESEARCH EPISTEMOLOGY

To assure the reliability of results, design research has often adopted the methods of other disciplines, reproducing the exterior shape of scientific research rather than its deeper grounds. Design academics often imitate what scientific disciplines do when they do research (i.e. applying codified methods), yet the discussion about why such disciplines behave that way is still limited. Basing on science studies, we argue that what determines research findings' validity may not just be the application of research methods but the consensus of a community, which lets new knowledge claims enter what we refer to as the Great Archive of Science (GAS). By analysing the dynamics of the GAS, we show that the rules, methods, and models typical of the research environment have as their main purpose to make the reliability of researchers’ knowledge claims as durable as possible. Regarding design research, we thus argue that what turns designers’ work into research is not just the application of scientific methods but primarily the participation in the grand game of the GAS, whose dynamics enable a relatively circumscribed corpus of knowledge to be held reliable and durable by a community. Relying on this argument, we seek to explore how design, while remaining a planning endeavour, may at the same time become an activity of knowledge production, which is the essential feature of research itself.