tetrad of
KNOWING

THINKING

While most schooling remains fixated on rote learning or ‘banking’,12 a designer’s ability to comprehend a situation, critically analyse it and apply the findings to the creation of a response, as well as reflect upon the outcome, are basic competencies required for design. As a reflective practitioner, the designer has to reflect not just on action but also in action. Several professionals such as pilots and surgeons need to reflect on their actions in real time, and not after ‘the job is done’. This seems to be a necessary condition for designers too – to be able to reflect on their actions during the process of design.

MAKING

Making is central to knowing.13 It forces the designer to move off the plane of thought and inhabit the real world. Artefacts of the mind become a thing once they enter and interact with the world. Making thus reveals the design. Prototypes enable the design and the designer’s assumptions to be tested, preferably in context. This enables the designer to reflect on the outcomes and perhaps the consequences of the design.

Making happens through one’s body, especially the hands. Hands embody tacit knowledge.14 Making hones the skill or craft of the designer through a personal and intimate dialogue between the maker and the material. A direct engagement with making forces the student to understand the complexities and intricacies of production of their design.

FEELING

A student has to feel their way through a project. To feel implies to be able to receive stimuli and respond emotionally, an awareness of the self and the world. To feel is to perceive the world, not just through one’s eyes, but through the richness and fidelity of the senses. To feel is to be a good listener, receptive to other people, ideas, phenomena and values and respect their place in the world. Feeling cultivates character and conscience.

Often the student may listen to their inner voice. One way of looking at this gut feeling or intuition is as some form of ‘informed judgement’ that is subconsciously drawn from past experiences, coupled with current knowledge. Listening to your gut is like listening to your body, and just as one tends to the body, one should pay attention to one’s instinct, even if it pits you against your rational self.

EXPRESSING

The student has to learn how to communicate their design through diverse modes such as written text, image, video, sound and three-dimensional representations in any form (drawings or sketches, models or computer-aided visualisations, prototypes). Communication is inherently multimodal.15 Each mode carries its own value and cannot be substituted; they complement each other. Each of these modes has to be learned and allows the student to articulate their design. As the student learns these modes of representation, they begin to document the process of design. This archive is an invaluable library for introspection.

  1. read Paolo Friere in Chapter 2 in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970).
  2. read Tim Ingold in Making: Anthropology, Archeology, Art and Architecture (2013).
  3. read Michael Polanyi in The Tacit Dimension (1967).
  4. read Gunther Kress in Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication (2009).