The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the nature of design by
positioning it as a major sociocultural phenomenon. The goals are to produce an
understanding of design that is general enough to apply to most kinds of design
endeavors; to highlight its essence and nature; and to provide a foundation for
discussing the issue of boundaries between design and other sociocultural
phenomena that are often related to it. A major objective is to conceptualize
design at a very high level of abstraction that can inform general design
studies. Methodologically, we start with analyzing the process of artification,
progress to the project delivery process, and then focus on modeling the core
design act. Design is about organizing materiality or substrate and creating
configurations (material or social) that have never existedbefore.
We can conceptualize these configurations as models of artifacts that are submitted
to the production facilities for manufacturing. The paper contributes a new
vision about the essence of design; about its relationships with related social
institutions; and proposes a methodological platform for approaching certain
traditional issues of the design specialty disciplines in a new way.
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