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Legitimating design: A sociology of knowledge account of the field

Article  in  Design Studies · September 2009

DOI: 10.1016/j.destud.2008.11.005

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Legitimating design: a sociology of
knowledge account of the field
Lucila Carvalho and Andy Dong, Design Lab, Faculty of Architecture,
Design and Planning, Wilkinson Building (G04), University of Sydney,
148 City Road, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia
Karl Maton, Department of Sociology & Social Policy, Faculty of Arts,
University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia

This paper presents a sociology of knowledge approach to describe disciplines in

the field of design. We show how the approach casts the nature of knowledge in
design disciplines as based upon socially agreed criteria for what constitutes the
realization of legitimate knowledge. Interviews with designers and analyses of
professional and pedagogic discourse about design are used to illustrate how the
approach reveals the differences in what kind of design knowledge is valued,
cultivated, and emphasised within a discipline. By placing a sociological lens on
knowledge in design, we aim to suggest a language by which what counts as
design knowledge can be explicitly expressed. A common, shared language to
describe the differences opens a mechanism to discuss what can count as
knowledge, rather than to retreat into corners and only agree to disagree that
there are different knowledges in design.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: design knowledge, design theory, epistemology, interdisciplinarity,

sociology of design

An engineer’s training is classical; it is a training in control. An architect’s

training is primarily romantic, a training in aesthetic conscience. . They
see conflict between the two modes and control by their own mode as
essential. (Happold, 1986, p. 136)

T
his quote is representative of one of a number of tensions within the
field of design concerning differences in the interpretation of design ac-
tivities and the knowledge required to undertake them. Such tensions
express disagreements existent within the field about what knowledge one
needs to design and what is the ‘right’ kind of knowledge. Debates over
what counts as knowledge (e.g. empirical evidence, first-person accounts)
and what displays of knowledge distinguishes disciplines are not new among
academics and practitioners. However, they have become of growing concern
Corresponding author:
Lucila Carvalho in a contemporary climate that encourages inter- or even post-disciplinarity.
lude2071@mail.usyd. Competing claims to knowledge touch upon all aspects of the professional
edu.au practice of a discipline, shaping who is viewed as having insight, who is entitled
www.elsevier.com/locate/destud
0142-694X $ - see front matter Design Studies 30 (2009) 483e502
doi:10.1016/j.destud.2008.11.005 483
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 to participate in the profession, whose voice is more legitimate, and so on.
Calls for collaboration both within and between disciplines require knowledge
of the knowledge and practices that are being brought together, or such calls
will remain more rhetoric than reality.

This kind of debate is no stranger to the field of design. When design re-
searchers and design professionals describe their processes, they tacitly as-
sume that the readers (observers) already know (or agree with them) what
constitutes a legitimate display of design knowledge. That is, the designers
are performing what is essentially describable as designing. The competing
claims to what counts as design knowledge is further complicated by incorpo-
rating the ‘totality of disciplines, phenomena, knowledge, analytical instru-
ments and philosophies that the design of useful objects must take into
account’ (Vitta, 1989, p. 31). In fact the ‘culture of design’ was said to encom-
pass the ‘culture of the object’ itself. The struggles to agree upon what counts
as design knowledge and its cultural identity can therefore be perceived as af-
fecting and being affected by a complex system involving economy, produc-
tion, social significance, consumption, use of objects, and so on. The
broadness of what may be incorporated into the interpretation of design ac-
tivities is overwhelming and its complexity may even prevent the realization
of the discussion of what is considered legitimate design knowledge.

The many ways of describing design, which in turn need to make the assump-
tion that what counts as a legitimate display of design knowledge has been
‘agreed upon’, has been partially rationalised by Dorst (Dorst and Dijkhuis,
1995; Dorst, 2008a, 2008b). Dorst cast the debate as a dialectic between
Simon’s rational problem-solving paradigm (Simon, 1995, 1996) and Schön’s
reflective practice approach (Schön, 1983). Whilst acknowledging the com-
plexity of design, Simon writes, ‘Design is inherently computational e a matter
of computing the implications of initial assumptions and combinations about
them.’ (Simon, 1995, p. 247) Conversely, Schön embraces the inherent
complexity of design and regards purely rational approaches with their reduc-
tionist tendencies and emphasis on quantitative data as unable to cope with the
realities of design in practice. The ‘reflective practitioner’ must apply know-
ledge and experience to each unique circumstance.

At this point, we could rehearse all of the debates surrounding the description
of design, and categorise the debates along dialectics including art vs. science,
qualitative vs. quantitative, and rational vs. reflective. There is not one single
description of design that could be agreed upon by practitioners and aca-
demics in the field since the design disciplines are continuously evolving and
expanding into new dimensions, in both their practices and understandings
(Buchanan, 2001). Individual designers are both artists and scientists, applying
qualitative methods even during rational problem solving. The challenge in
reaching an integrative discussion about the field of design is that designers

484 Design Studies Vol 30 No. 5 September 2009

 claim the field by reference to how they practice design. As described by Papa-
nek (2001), there are those who aim for a design process that is more method-
ical, scientific, conventional and computer-compatible or those who follow
a process that embraces ‘feeling, sensation, revelation and intuition’ (p. 56).
Fundamentally, we see the debate as being not over what design is; rather,
the debate is over what design knowledge is.

The problem with any debate over design is that the intellectual resources
with which the debate is typically engaged are themselves located within
the field, and the competing definitions of design is the terrain over which
struggles are fought and the resources used in those struggles. Each actor
(or in this case, each designer) engages in these struggles and does so from
a position within the field; each has a situated viewpoint and this viewpoint
shapes the analysis of the field (Bourdieu, 1983). Thus, there is a need to be
able to view the field afresh, from a perspective that is not associated with
any specific position within the field but rather objectifies the field. This is
not to argue for an ‘ultimate-truth’ perspective, but rather to suggest that,
in order to be able to analyse the debates, one needs specific kinds of tools.
Designers work with knowledge to ‘do’ design. When analysing the field of
design the object of study has now shifted: it is not the design object but
knowledge itself as an object that is being studied. For engineering a bridge,
engineering knowledge is valuable; for designing a house, architectural
knowledge is valuable. For analysing knowledge, a theory of knowledge itself
is valuable.

There is still a need for a more integrative discussion. Schön described this as
tensions that a theory of designing should resolve. He saw them only as differ-
ences between the way different types of designers practice design. ‘These in-
dividuals in their different roles tend also to pursue different interests, see
things in different ways, and even speak different languages.’ (Schön, 1988,
p. 184) We see the tension differently. The ways that the debates have been
cast, we believe, are actually surface features of a more significant difference
in the underlying structuring principles of the disciplines of design. This paper
claims that these debates have, at their core, disagreements as to what form of
knowledge is valued within a discipline of design. The differences in the ways
of describing design emanate from differences in the underlying bases of
knowledge.

Within the field of design, differing grounds exist for deciding what should
count as relevant, within and amongst the design disciplines and its practi-
tioners. To complicate matters, ‘design’ incorporates a range of disciplines,
from architecture and engineering (which includes its own specialisations
such as mechanical, civil, electrical, and chemical) to new media and interior
design. While all practice design in its broadest sense e the intentional produc-
tion of a material work to satisfy functional needs e they also perform design

Legitimating design 485

 in different ways. Such differences can be understood as reflecting the various
values, beliefs, and mores held by a design discipline, or what Strickfaden et al.
(2006) has called the ‘culture medium’. These values and beliefs function as
structuring principles which generate and organize design practices; they are
related to what Bourdieu defines as ‘habitus’ (1983) in that these values be-
come internalized codes which equip the designer to operate successfully
within the ‘rules of the game’ of a design discipline. Therefore, how knowledge
is put to use to practice design within a discipline is premised on what counts as
knowledge and what counts as a recognizable design practice within the disci-
pline. What designers do to make their activities ontologically described as
architectural design or engineering design is to perform design activities
according to the unwritten rules of the discipline.

So, the debate is not about the surface-level descriptors of what designers do,
such as the diversity of the knowledge needed to design in architecture and
engineering, but what is the form taken by the knowledge that is valued, cul-
tivated, and more generally emphasised within a discipline. It is a consequence
of a sociological decision as to what counts as knowledge that leads to organ-
ising principles around the formation of design disciplines as practicing ver-
sions of design, which may exhibit what is ultimately labelled as scientific or
artistic sensibilities.

This paper aims to uncover the differences in what counts as valued design
knowledge within various design disciplines using a sociology of knowledge
approach based on Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). By examining the un-
derlying structuring principles of various instances of design, we make explicit
what is different and how such differences may affect the way one understands
design. Our belief is that understanding this structuring may help explain why
different images or conceptions of design can produce the kind of tensions de-
scribed by Schön. Understanding this structuring may also help us to see why
we should expect clashes if an image of the legitimate performance of design
cannot be made explicit and negotiated.

In the first part of the paper, we describe a sociological approach to under-

standing how knowledge shapes social fields of practice: Legitimation Code
Theory. We then discuss how this approach was used to excavate the underly-
ing principles structuring positions within different design disciplines through
analyses of interviews with designers. We contextualise the interview results
within official pedagogic and professional discourse as to what kind of knowl-
edge is valued within the disciplines and how this valuation is further reflected
in the research literature. Finally, we discuss how these varying claims to de-
sign are not restricted to conceptual debates; instead they may produce real
world ‘clashes’ over the way design knowledge is believed to be legitimately re-
alized. By objectifying these debates, we aim to enable productive insights into

486 Design Studies Vol 30 No. 5 September 2009

 the nature of the various design disciplines, and therefore move forward in our
understanding of design.

1 The structuring of knowledge in design

Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) integrates insights from the approaches of
Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein to provide a framework for analysing the
structuring of knowledge and practices within pedagogical and intellectual
fields (see Maton, 2000; Moore and Maton, 2001; Maton and Muller,
2007). LCT views disciplines as fields of struggle over status and resources
in which the beliefs and practices of actors embody competing claims to le-
gitimacy or messages as to what should be considered the dominant basis
of achievement within the field. These ‘languages of legitimation’ are ana-
lysed in terms of their underlying structuring principles or legitimation codes.
One dimension of the code is ‘specialisation’ or what makes someone or
something different, special and worthy of distinction. This dimension is
based on the simple premise that every practice, belief or knowledge claim
is about or oriented towards something and by someone, and so sets up an
epistemic relation to an object (ER) and a social relation to a subject (SR).
Simply put, each relation may be more strongly (þ) or weakly () emphas-
ised in practices and beliefs, and these two relative strengths of emphasis to-
gether give the code. Thus, a claim to insight or legitimacy can be viewed as
specialised by its epistemic relation, by its social relation, by both, or neither.
Figure 1 outlines four such codes:

 a knowledge code (ERþ, SR), where possession of specialised know-

ledge, skills or procedures are emphasised as the basis of achievement,
and the dispositions of authors or actors are downplayed;
 a knower code (ER, SRþ), where specialist knowledge or skills are less
significant and instead the dispositions of the subject as a knower are em-
phasised as the measure of achievement, whether these are viewed as

epistemic relation

ER+

knowledge elite

social SR- SR+

relation

relativist knower
Figure 1 Legitimation codes of
specialisation Source: Maton
ER-
(2007:97)

Legitimating design 487

 natural (e.g. ‘genius’), cultivated (such as an educated artistic gaze) or
socially based (such as a specific gender, e.g. feminist standpoint theory);
 an elite code (ERþ, SRþ), where legitimacy is based on both possessing
specialist knowledge and being the right kind of knower. (‘Elite’ does not
necessarily mean ‘socially exclusive’ but rather highlights the necessity of
possessing both legitimate knowledge and legitimate dispositions.); and,
 a relativist code (ER, SR), where legitimate insight is ostensibly deter-
mined by neither specialist knowledge nor specific dispositions.

These legitimation codes conceptualise the ‘rules of the game’ e the domi-
nant basis of success in any particular social context. Within any context,
a specific code may underpin the unwritten rules of the game, but there
may be struggles over which code is dominant e a ‘code clash’. It should
be emphasised that there is always an epistemic relation to an object and
a social relation to a subject e there are always both knowledges and
knowers. What LCT asks is which of these is emphasised in practices and
knowledge claims. In other words, it explores whether the rules of the
game are such that what matters is: one’s demonstrated possession of
specialist knowledge (knowledge code); one’s sensibilities, attributes and
dispositions (knower code); both (elite code); or neither (relativist code).
This framework is currently being used in a range of empirical studies of
educational issues (e.g. Doherty, 2008; Lamont and Maton, 2008).

How designers perceive knowledge (and determine what types of knowledge

are valuable) in their field is pivotal to LCT because designers need to have
‘recognition rules’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. 17) in order to differentiate design dis-
ciplines and to identify the specificities of the discipline one is in. In other
words, it is through these recognition rules that an individual designer iden-
tifies what meanings are relevant in the ‘home’ discipline. Once recognition
rules are established, ‘realization rules’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. 17) will regulate
how meanings are to be put together (i.e. how design is practiced) so that
the individual designers practice and communicate according to the discipline.
If the criteria and values for knowledge change, these recognition and realiza-
tion rules adapt accordingly.

The relation between recognition and realization rules, epistemic and social
relations, and the interpretation of design processes is illustrated in Figure 2
using the analogy of the refraction of light. The field of design is the common
‘light source’ or scene viewed by actors. Each actor (or group of actors or dis-
cipline) views the field differently: each has a particular lens. The nature of
the lens through which they gaze on design can be conceptualised using
the notion of legitimation codes. The lens refracts light according to this
code (e.g. knower code ER/SRþ or knowledge code ERþ/SR) resulting
in different valuations of what is legitimate design. What is recognised as le-
gitimate design processes is then labelled as artistic or scientific. Such

488 Design Studies Vol 30 No. 5 September 2009

Figure 2 Recognition and
realization of design accord-
ing to LCT

descriptions are how actors in the field portray its practices; from the
perspective outlined here, they are the surface features of a more significant
underlying structure principle, that is, the lens (or code) which results in
differing valuations of knowledge and practice.

2 Qualitative study
We used the above framework to analyse interviews with designers from engi-
neering, architecture, digital media and fashion design disciplines. Eight de-
signers were interviewed about their views of design within the following
disciplines: engineering, fashion, architecture, and digital media. The aim of
the interviews is to ascertain the way design professionals perceive their disci-
pline, other designers and what constitutes genuine or original design within
their particular design discipline.
The participants comprised: two designers from each discipline; four males
and four females; four working in their own practices and four employed
within organizations. All participants had at least seven years of professional
design experience. An open-ended interview protocol was used to investigate
their perceptions of their discipline, of designers, and of what counts as genu-
ine or original design work. Each individual interview lasted between 30
and 60 min and was audio-taped and transcribed. Questions in the interview
protocol included:

How would you describe your design discipline to someone who is new to the
field?
What would be the most important information a new person entering your
discipline should know about working in the field?
What are the essential characteristics that a designer must have?
What qualities do you look for in a prospective employee/partner?
What are the characteristics of an interesting, original, valid, genuine work in
your discipline? Can you give me an example?

Legitimating design 489

 A key aspect of the investigation is the qualitative analysis of the language
(words) that the designers use to describe what knowledge is valued in their
discipline and how knowledge is evaluated. The analysis searches for patterns
within the designers’ accounts, on the way they describe their design discipline,
how they describe what is necessary in order to be a designer, and their expla-
nations of what is valuable or original design. The analysis was also supported
by the use of a matrix, created to guide the research process. This matrix allows
the mapping of the theory to data and vice versa, working as a translation
device (Carvalho and Dong, 2008). It is based on Bernstein’s concepts of
languages of description (2000).

2.1 Engineering design

The ways the interviewed engineering designers describe their discipline can
be understood as being grounded on the epistemic relation of knowledge to
its object. When describing originality, both participants focused on the
application of engineering, rather than features of the designed object itself
or how that object is experienced. A key focus was how the solution meets
the problem and how the technical challenges are overcome so that the
designed product could be generated. Engineering Designer 1 exemplifies
original work by explaining how knowledge is used to meet a solution to
a problem:

.the Seacliff Bridge down the South Coast is an example. What it is, is
fantastic application. There is nothing particularly, in a purely engineering
sense, there is nothing new about that bridge. (.) Where the real original-
ity in that project is, is not necessarily the bridge itself, it’s just the appli-
cation. It is taking that type of bridge and putting it where it is to solve
a problem which was about rocks falling off the face of the cliff. Again it
is about the solution to what was probably a geotechnical issue which was
slope stability was down by a bridge. (Emphasis added)

Similarly, Engineering Designer 2 exemplified value in engineering design in

terms of the use of research and mathematical knowledge in ‘The Water
Cube’, the National Aquatics Centre for the Beijing Olympic swimming
pool.

Interesting, original. Probably the most obvious one to explain is the water
cube. (.) that was the idea of the building needed to be square, so how can
we make a building square and still make it interesting (.) they sort of
look at how soap bubbles form and then did research on the mathematics
behind and (how could) you automate that (.) That geometry you see
there is the creation of if you’ve got a soap film and blew it up and that’s
how it was created. (Emphasis added)

While emphasising the ways in which specialised engineering knowledge is ap-

plied to design situations (the epistemic relation of knowledge to the object),
the engineering designers also downplayed the social relation of knowledge to

490 Design Studies Vol 30 No. 5 September 2009

 the subject. Even when discussing the interests of engineering designers, the
participants emphasised mathematical and physical concepts required by
the discipline and downplayed subjective aspects, emphasising they should
possess a ‘liking’ rather than a ‘passion’ for technical issues; for example:

They should have a technical, not a passion, but a liking for technical sort
of problems and the like. So that’s why a lot of engineers are just good at
maths and science because it leads you that way and every day there’s
physics concepts and mathematical concepts that are just sort of part of
my every day life.
(Engineering Design 2)

Similarly, both interviewees differentiated between the focus of engineering

on meeting technical requirements and the focus of architecture on more sub-
jective issues, such as beauty:

things stay up because we (engineers) design them to stay up and architects

design them to fit into the environment and look beautiful and work well
(Engineering Designer 1)

In summary, the participant engineering designers emphasised specialised

knowledge, skills and procedures as the basis of insight and quality (stron-
ger epistemic relation) and downplayed the significance of the dispositions,
attributes and aptitudes of subjects (weaker social relation): a knowledge
code.

The emphasis and value placed on technical knowledge is a long-standing

tradition in engineering design. Based on a longitudinal review of engineering
design practice in Germany (Pahl et al., 1999), the authors stated:

‘The essential thinking and procedural obstacles, as well as errors in

thought and action were recognised. They originate mainly in disorderly
or, respectively, non-systematic procedures where individual strategies do
not revolve sufficiently around specific problems. Very good results are of-
ten missed due to a lacking analysis of target and demand, too narrow and
insufficiently abstract observation of the solution field, as well as insuffi-
cient analysis of the solution.’ (Pahl et al., 1999, pp. 493e494) (Emphasis
added)

Systematic thinking and orderly processes and procedures comes to be knowl-

edge that is valued in engineering design.

In fact, other researchers have shown that the social relation to knowledge is
looked upon with caution in engineering design. In their study of engineering
designers at Rolls-Royce, Baird and colleagues found that the way that knowl-
edge is gathered is at least as important as who possesses and transmits the
knowledge, if not more so (2000). The authors describe the valuation of

Legitimating design 491

 engineering knowledge at Rolls-Royce as part of the company’s provenance
system.

Engineers routinely preface their contributions to team meetings and infor-

mal discussions with the name of the contributors to their data. If this in-
formation is not given it is requested. Equally they give the process by
which they gathered their evidence and they give a verdict based on it. If
they give verdicts without evidence or evidence without verdicts they are
asked to complete the statements. The informal social system of peer eval-
uation also includes a decision about how pessimistic/cautious/cavalier the
opinion is. . This provenance system has thus had a long and enduring
history and each verbal opinion is still duly modulated. (Baird et al.,
2000, p. 345)

The value of knowledge is embodied in the objective evidence provided; the

engineer who is valued is the one who followed processes grounded in system-
atic and scientific approaches. A ‘commitment to the ideas behind their
designs’ as ‘one of the things that architects value most highly’ (Lawson,
1994, p. 134) is not as highly valued in engineering design.

2.2 Fashion design

In contrast, the interviewed fashion designers emphasised the kinds of dispo-
sitions, attributes and attitudes required to be a successful designer:
(.) probably the most important thing is have, have, I don’t know like
have that sensation that something inside of you is pushing you to do this
and you don’t quite know why. (.) There’s something inside of you that
says you can’t live without this thing, if you can’t, if somebody took
that away from you you’d be as good as nothing, that you’d be as good
as dead probably. (Emphasis added)
(Fashion Designer 1)

Rather than a ‘liking . for technical problems’ (see above), here a designer
needs an ‘inner calling’, and to have ‘a lot of passion’ or ‘a strong interest’
(Fashion Designer 2). Maton (2007) emphasises that there is always an episte-
mic relation and a social relation (or, there is always knowledge and knowers).
Here, the fashion designers did not suggest that technical skills were not re-
quired, but, rather, placed these secondary to personal attributes. The inter-
viewees emphasised that one needs to have motivation, passion and artistic
attributes before embarking on the technical aspects of the discipline. Indeed,
some skills were viewed as part of one’s personal characteristics, such as
having a ‘natural’ sense of proportions or of colours:

I don’t think there are any prerequisites to be honest. I don’t think you
have to be an amazing illustrator (.) I think there are natural things
that you know, a sense of colour and a sense of just a natural sense of pro-
portion and um somebody can try and teach you all that but I think if you

492 Design Studies Vol 30 No. 5 September 2009

 haven’t got it naturally well then you know, everything’s a lot slower, the
whole process is probably a lot slower I guess. (Emphasis added)
(Fashion Designer 1)

For one interviewee, fashion design is akin more to art than to a technical
science, describing themselves as ‘a practising contemporary textile artist
who predominantly weaves’ (Fashion Designer 2).

This emphasis on the social relation and downplaying of the epistemic

relation e a knower code (ER/SRþ) e was reflected in how the participants
described originality in fashion design. Rather than utility and function in rela-
tion to a defined problem, original design was described in more ‘subjective’
terms, such as the experiences it evokes in an audience (e.g. ‘containing a real
simplicity’, Fashion Designer 2), its use of old ideas in new ways that might sur-
prise the audience, or its cultural or political message; for example:

(.) the new techniques or new materials and incorporated that with the
traditional element of fibre art. (.) Using the hand craft as a cultural
or a political practice and message but um she’s showing her contemporary
side of it. (Emphasis added)
(Fashion Designer 2)

2.3 Architecture design

While the engineering designers highlighted systems and procedures and fash-
ion designers used intersubjective terms, the interviewed architecture de-
signers described their discipline as combining creativity with scientific
knowledge e a balance between ‘arts’ and ‘science’. For example, architecture
was described by one interviewee as ‘a discipline that crosses a number of
fields in terms of balance, creative and philosophical endeavours with quite
scientific engineering bases.’ (Architecture Designer 1). Similarly, the kinds
of attributes they suggested were required by a successful designer combined
artistic and scientific characteristics. Architecture Designer 2, for example,
argued:

(.) it is a combination of passion and creativity and tenacity but then you
also do need the rigors of discipline and structure and order, organisation as
well. I think a lot of people maybe don’t have that balance, it’s the old thing
about you know, art and science to me that covers that, it is that balance of
art and science; creativity and pragmatism.

Though there are always epistemic and social relations, so one expects
participants to discuss both skills or procedures and subjective character-
istics (unless operating with a relativist code, where both are unimportant),
architecture designers not only discussed both (as did other designers) but
also emphasised both equally e an elite code (ERþ, SRþ). Originality in

Legitimating design 493

 design is, participants suggested, a matter of juggling two measures of
achievement:

I always tell people it’s like juggling and always trying to make things prac-
tical but you also have an agenda that’s a social agenda or a creative idea or
an artistic idea and they don’t always meet. And when they do meet well,
that’s when good products come out. (Emphasis added)
(Architecture Designer 1)

Like the engineering designers (above), the interviewed architecture designers

emphasised the need to provide solutions to specific problems, but they also
emphasised the artistic and creative dimension that architecture brings to the
solution of such problems. This difference was highlighted by both the engi-
neering and architecture designers; for example:
(.) a lot of the time what the architect or designer can do is bring imag-
ination to that process because anybody can pour concrete or you know,
build buildings in commodity but hopefully there’s a jump between a par-
ticular need either by, a society need or a community need or a business
need that the architect can imagine how that might manifest itself in a built
form. (Emphasis added)
(Architecture Designer 2)

Conversely, Architecture Designer 1 argued that though technical processes

and abstract knowledge are important, ‘the kind of thing that drives your
ideas is much more intrinsic to you and your way of thinking’. Similarly,
the architects measured the success of solutions to design problems not
only in terms of functionality or the nature of the object itself but also one’s
experience of the designed object. They talked, for example, of ‘buildings that
have genuinely moved me’, the ‘connection to a number of selves, which is
always personal’ that great design achieves, the ‘self referential’ and ‘subjec-
tive’ nature of design (Architecture Designer 1) and the need to ‘appreciate
the space’ (Architecture Designer 2). Thus, legitimacy for these designers
was primarily based neither on dispositions of the author nor on the relations
of specialist knowledge to its object but rather on both being evident.

This mutual emphasis on knowledge and knowers (or epistemic and social re-
lations) varies somewhat from Lawson’s opinion that architectural designers
‘see technological problems as of secondary importance or even as tertiary
considerations’ (Lawson, 1994, p. 136) This may, however, be a matter of in-
terpretation of the interviews. Architecture Designer 1 commented, ‘You can
always find your way through the sciences through engineers and other people,
but the kind of thing that drives your ideas is much more intrinsic to you and
your way of thinking .’. Yet, this designer never seems to privilege one over
the other, leading us to weigh that, on balance, both relations are equally
emphasised.

494 Design Studies Vol 30 No. 5 September 2009

 2.4 Digital media design
Where interview responses from designers in the other three design disciplines
tended to share similar legitimation codes (though often expressed in different
ways), the digital media designers interviewed were more divergent. One de-
signer emphasised the personal attributes of designers as being crucial for
achievement:

I think that worldly experience helps you, you know, if you know how to
speak to people (.) you’re not born a graphic designer or born a de-
signer, you can, I think you can actually develop those skills but you
have to have a good idea about them and you know, you can develop
them.
(Digital Media Designer 1)

For this designer, the kind of design knowledge one may ‘pick up’ through
personal experience is more significant than that acquired by formal study,
and being ‘worldly’ is more relevant than a ‘beautiful portfolio’. Legitimacy
here comes from attributes of the designer (stronger social relation), such
as interpersonal skills, while the significance of specialist techniques related
to a well-defined object is downplayed (weaker epistemic relation): a knower
code. For example, ideas may come from everywhere (ER) and are selected,
recontextualised and legitimated on the basis of the personality of the de-
signer (SRþ):

I’ve had so many different jobs, in hospitals and I’ve worked in prisons as
well in the area of information collection so I’ve had this weird background
so I think all of that creates an originality that if I was a graphic designer
from when I was eighteen to now, I probably wouldn’t have that, because I
can draw upon that wealth of information inside that makes it different, but I
don’t know what makes it. It’s such a personal thing, what makes something
interesting. What do they say, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. It’s
kind of like, it’s so subjective, isn’t it. (Emphasis added)
(Digital Media Designer 1)

In contrast, the second interviewee focused on technical content and the ways
one might use this knowledge to present information or communicate ideas.
Rather than viewing design as ‘subjective’ and ‘a personal thing’, Digital Me-
dia Designer 2 emphasised the importance of designers emotionally distanc-
ing themselves from their designs (SR) and instead focusing upon
providing design solutions to problems (ERþ): a knowledge code. For
example:

Critical thinking and analysis and also to really separate yourself from your
designs emotionally and always remain focused on providing a solution and
there’s more than one solution to a problem. So you can’t really afford to
become tied to a solution. (Emphasis added)
(Digital Media Designer 2)

Legitimating design 495

 It is the problem that provides the basis for selecting, recontextualising and
legitimating knowledge and ideas, rather than the personality or subjective
dispositions of the designer. Similarly, originality in design is, for this digital
media designer, based on how a work has addressed particular issues. Indeed,
the designed object is judged in terms of the application of technical knowl-
edge to provide solutions to a series of tightly defined problems:

(.) you can say in this (web)site this worked really well here, which might
be a tiny bit of it and I just actually can’t think of anything. I know there
are things that I’ve seen and gone, ‘Oh that works really well here’ or some-
thing, but when I’m scouting around, I never really look at a site as a whole
anymore. I look for individual pieces now, because the work that I’m
doing is so detailed. (Emphasis added)
(Digital Media Designer 2)

For this participant, the designer is also an object e a consulting resource for
the employing organization: ‘If you’re being employed and for me here I’m
seen as a resource, so I come into projects, give my consultation or do my
work on it and then leave again.’ Thus, the social relation to the designer
as subject is downplayed in favour of the epistemic relation to the design
object.

2.5 What is legitimate design in these disciplines?

Interviewees from across the range of design disciplines emphasised the differ-
ence between designers and the lay audience. Architecture Designer 2, for
example, stated that:

(.) what makes it a great piece of work is because it is complex, you know
it’s not easy to achieve so you’ve got to be prepared again to have this vi-
sion, have this idea um and I think that’s what makes it interesting because
the average lay person will go in and they won’t appreciate any of the com-
plexities, they will just appreciate the space as a good, simple inspiring
space.
(Architecture Designer 2)

Similarly, though Fashion Designer 2 focused on good design ‘containing

a real simplicity’, this feature of quality was something that many people
would not see. However, the basis of this ‘vision’, or difference between pro-
fessional designer and ‘laypeople’, varied across design disciplines.

The way participants described the basis of legitimacy in their own discipline
can be understood as representing a knowledge code for engineering, a knower
code for fashion, an elite code for architecture, and either a knowledge code or
a knower code for digital media. Figure 3 maps the analysis of the interviews as
legitimation codes. The two different codes underlying responses from the two
digital media designers might reflect their different working environments:
a knower code underlay the responses of a designer working in a small private

496 Design Studies Vol 30 No. 5 September 2009

Figure 3 Legitimation codes
of design disciplines

company; a knowledge code was voiced by a designer working for a large cor-
poration, a potentially more anonymous and less intimate environment. Also,
digital media is a comparatively younger field than architecture, engineering or
fashion; claims to the legitimacy of knowledge in this discipline may not yet
have coalesced.

As the interviews illustrate, the design field is characterised by a range of dif-

ferent legitimation codes. Drawing inspiration from Jacob Grimm’s concept of
Sprachgeist, we could describe these codes as Gestaltungsgeist e the spirit of
design in these fields that drives practice along certain lines of thinking.
Though only a limited number of eight participant designers (necessarily small
because the aim was to generate data of sufficient qualitative depth), these co-
des do resonate with how professional societies and schools of design publicly
describe their own disciplines and what their discipline values. We have taken
excerpts from professional bodies and noted schools of design to ascertain
whether equivalent valuations on knowledge are reflected in professional
and pedagogic discourse, respectively. Given that the professional bodies rep-
resent the practice of a discipline, they provide a statement on how the disci-
pline has organised itself socially and expectations as to how practitioners
within the discipline are to orient themselves towards the discipline.

Professional Engineers apply advanced skills in the analysis and knowledge

of science, engineering, technology, management and social responsibility
to problem solving and synthesis in new and existing fields. . Professional
Engineers lead teams or work in them and need to be innovative and crea-
tive to develop the best possible solutions. The engineer must frequently

Legitimating design 497

 make balanced judgements between design refinement, cost, risk and envi-
ronmental impact. . Top level mathematics, physics and chemistry are
highly recommended subjects.
(Engineers Australia, 2008, emphasis added)

As the italicized text highlights, engineering involves both specialist knowl-

edge and specialised dispositions. Nonetheless, specialist knowledge (in
‘mathematics, physics and chemistry’) are emphasised so that creativity and
innovation can serve the need to provide ‘the best possible solutions’ (knowl-
edge code). In contrast, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) em-
phasises equally specialised knowledge and imagination and creativity (elite
code):

As professional experts in the field of building design and construction, ar-

chitects use their unique creative skills . Because of their ability to design
and their extensive knowledge of construction, architects’ skills are in de-
mand in all areas of property, construction and design. Architects’ exper-
tise is invaluable . Architects can be extremely influential as well as being
admired for their imagination and creative skills.
(RIBA, 2008, emphasis added)

Architects’ ‘unique creative skills’ (an emphasis on the social relation) are
a characteristic that is strongly noted by Lawson in his study of key archi-
tects. ‘What is beyond doubt is that each of the designers discussed here
have strong programmes of their own which they explore and develop
through their design work.’ (Lawson, 1994, p. 144) Architects ‘explore and
develop their own intellectual programme’ (Lawson, 1994, p. 138) by working
on various projects. Lawson’s conclusion further affirms the personal relation
to design knowledge that architects cultivate through their practice and come
to value. In contrast to this description of architects with an emphasis on a so-
cial relation to generating knowledge, Baird characterises valuable knowledge
becoming archived at Rolls-Royce, as being recorded/stored through follow-
ing particular procedures: ‘Such knowledge is captured by experts over suc-
cessive fleets of engine history and is recorded in data, diagrams, written
reports. This data is gathered by specialist engineers who have particular in-
terests in engine components histories and is moderated by their experienced
judgement.’ (Baird et al., 2000, p. 346).

In Fashion, as exemplified through a passage from the Central Saint Martins

website, much greater emphasis is placed on the designer’s characteristics
(knower code); for example, being a ‘hard worker’, ‘flexible’, ‘passionate’, ‘in-
novative’, ‘highly creative’, someone able to make ‘outstanding contributions’:
Fashion is a fast moving and highly diverse international industry. It
takes hard work, flexibility and passion to succeed. The BA Fashion course
at Central Saint Martins has earned a national and international reputa-
tion for producing innovative and highly creative designers and fashion

498 Design Studies Vol 30 No. 5 September 2009

 communicators who have gone on to make outstanding and directional
contributions within a variety of fashion professions in the UK and abroad.
Graduates include such influential names as John Galliano, Hussein
Chalayan, Matthew Williamson, Stella McCartney.
(Central Saint Martins, 2008, emphasis added)

Lastly, the excerpt extracted from the American Institute of Graphic Artists
illustrates that, within the digital media community, greater emphasis is also
placed on dispositions of the designer, as someone who needs to be ‘particu-
larly thoughtful’. No emphasis is placed on specific processes, techniques, or
skills.

Graphic design is complex combinations of words and pictures, numbers

and charts, photographs and illustrations that, in order to succeed,
demands the clear thinking of a particularly thoughtful individual who
can orchestrate these elements so they all add up to something distinctive,
or useful, or playful, or surprising, or subversive or somehow memorable.
(American Institute of Graphic Artists, 2008, emphasis added)

In summary, disciplines in the field of design practice design differently not

just because of the variety of knowledge that is required to perform the asso-
ciated tasks but because of the way that knowledge is valued in the respective
discipline. They have different ‘rules of the game’, measures of achievement or
‘legitimation codes’. Evidence from interviews, professional bodies, schools of
designs, and research literature illustrate different trajectories for the disci-
plines based on whether the discipline is underpinned by a knowledge code,
knower code or elite code. In other words, actors from each discipline tend
to possess a different lens through which they view the field of design and
its practices; each discipline is dominated by a particular code (or, in the
case of the less concretely defined digital media, by two competing codes).
Clearly, within a discipline, a designer has some level of individual agency
to adopt a different code to that which dominates the discipline. Thus, a dif-
ferent sample of interviewees and professional bodies may result in slightly
different results. However, what we believe will not change is that the data
will suggest the recurrence not of an art vs. science, quantitative vs. qualita-
tive or rational vs. reflective dialectic in design disciplines, but substantive dif-
ferences in the valuation of knowledge. Disciplines structure their profession
in an image of the knowledge they value. The evidence shows that speaking of
knowledge in design cannot be neutral and asocial as to what counts as
knowledge.

3 Summary and way forward

Overall, this paper discussed how differences in design definitions are much
more than an academic or practitioners’ matter. Disagreements exist within
the various design disciplines involving fundamental issues underlying peo-
ple’s beliefs about what should count as knowledge within the discipline.

Legitimating design 499

 We illustrated how LCT offers an approach that goes beyond superficial dif-
ferences to explore the basic principles underlying knowledge. By using this so-
ciological lens, fruitful insights may arise about the effects of such differences,
such as how design knowledge and design identities are expressed and valued.

This debate on claiming design takes on a political dimension in the public

sphere. In a special issue edited by Henry Sanoff on participatory design in
the journal Design Studies, the democratic ideals of its methods are promoted:
‘Participatory design is an attitude about a force for change in the creation and
management of environments for people.’ (Sanoff, 2007). We suggest that mis-
conceptions by stakeholders of what kind of design is being done are likely to
produce clashes beyond conceptions of what is desired in the designed work.
When participatory design takes place within a defined discipline, such as in-
formation systems design, then the likelihood that this code clash would pro-
duce significant hurdles towards shared understanding in design is probably
low. However, in urban design and large scale public work projects with a mul-
tiplicity of voices and perspectives, this is likely to be a significant problem.
Imagine that a local governing agent runs a major public infrastructure project
under a knowledge code approach to design and conducts participatory design
charettes in which the public is asked to comment on technical matters. If the
public’s view of design reflects a knower code, its concerns will be based on
personal stances towards the project rather than technical, rational or proce-
dural issues. This can lead not only to disagreement and debate, which one
would hope would be generated by public discussion, but also disagreement
on the very grounds of debate. Rather than having different perspectives on
the problem, in this example the governing agent and public would not agree
on what they are disagreeing over: they are using competing measures of legit-
imacy e a code clash. This difference is not generally discussed in a charette;
consequently the clash between these codes would prevent the formation of
a shared understanding.

This is not simply a hypothetical situation; just such a situation played itself
out in Sydney, Australia. On January 16, 2006 the Sydney Morning Herald
ran an online poll asking its readers, ‘Sydney desalination plant: Are you
for or against?’ Of the 2646 respondents, 81% were against, and 19% were
in favour. While not a scientific poll, it is interesting to compare this to a dec-
laration by former Planning Minister Craig Knowles that the design of the
Kurnell desalination plant is ‘beyond public debate’ (Frew, 2005). As was illus-
trated by the attitudes of many members of the public attending consultation
workshops, a clash emerged between the government and large numbers of the
people of the state of New South Wales in Australia not only over the desir-
ability of the desalination plant, but over the approach to the design of this
project and what is considered legitimate design practice.

500 Design Studies Vol 30 No. 5 September 2009

 The clash of codes need not be a barrier to participatory design or a barrier to
designers from across disciplines working together. Rather, we see LCT and its
language of description as making explicit what is already known, at least im-
plicitly, by members of the field. In making these differences explicit, we have
a means to discuss them. It can provide a basis for understanding what code is
operating when and for which practices. What is perhaps most controversial is
to what extent design education can dispense with these codes or whether it is
important to maintain specific codes within each discipline. Education is never
neutral. Nonetheless, design pedagogy should allow students to reconfigure
existing traditions and practices which take account of and build upon their
profession’s knowledge base whilst at the same time integrating their own po-
sitions. Making explicit for students this transformation of knowledge of/
about design into knowledge about the structuring of knowledge in design
could sow the seeds for making transparent the problem of legitimating design.

Acknowledgements
This research is supported by two Australian Research Council grants. The
research of Lucila Carvalho is supported by an Australian Postgraduate
Award Industry grant under Australian Research Council’s Linkage Projects
funding scheme (project number LP0562267). The other research is supported
under Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (pro-
ject number DP0772252). The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of
the Australian Research Council. The views expressed herein are those of the
authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Research Council.

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