Designs on Critical Practice?

This paper initially focuses on the way design and other creative disciplines are compromised and reduced in their practices in order that they may ‘fit’ within academe, with its axiological cast determined by the epistemologies of the sciences and humanities; a cast that has no place for the uncertainties of creative practice. It then explores the epistemological bases of design thinking and suggests that if design thinking is knowledge it is knowledge-in (as)- potential (potentia). This is a knowledge built with uncertainties - a pre-reflective knowing. It then moves to describe a critical thread that may be drawn through the stretch of design practice, including its uncertainties, and argues that this criticality is what the design community needs to appreciate and develop. It finally argues that academe needs to modify it’s validity criteria to accommodate critical practice rather than shape practice to fit with current validation models. [Abstract]