《风景园林》2024-08刊首语 | 章明：关于设计研究

全文刊登于《风景园林》2024年第8期 P8-9

关于设计研究

About Design Research

风景园林的理论研究和设计实践似两条平行线，遥相对望却难以互相支持，相辅相成，原因主要有二。其一，设计文化与科学文化、人文文化并举为人类的3类知识范畴，三者在研究对象、方法体系和价值观上具有显著差异，本质上注定了设计学科的研究无法完全套用科学或人文类研究惯用的范式与方法。其二，带有主观与艺术特征的设计实践，成果很难直接转化为学术界广泛认可的研究成果，这就导致风景园林领域的学术工作不得不将自身纳入其他学术领域，并主动适应其他学科的内容、方法和研究路径。这种研究产生的结果往往只涉及本学科边缘，与实际设计实践的相关性较弱。

设计与研究、知识与实践的长期分置，致使风景园林设计领域的自主性未能确立。方法论的建构将直接影响风景园林设计领域未来的成长路径，因而寻求符合设计认知特点且逻辑自适的研究方法论成为设计领域亟须解决的问题。

自20世纪60年代起，设计研究作为一门独立的学术领域逐渐发展，它旨在回应上述问题，并通过系统的方法描述、解释乃至设计活动预测的全过程——从设计灵感的萌芽到最终成果的展现，以及设计过程中那些难以言喻却又至关重要的外延与内涵。

时至今日，国内外学术界广泛认可并形成了3种基本的设计研究类型：1）关于设计之研究，包括现象学研究、认识论研究和行为学研究；2）为了设计之研究，当“设计”作为设计产物时，指为具体设计项目提供支持的前序研究，当“设计”作为设计过程时，指有助于建构其设计过程的知识研究；3）通过设计之研究，指将设计过程作为测试研究假设的工具，或者把设计过程作为定义研究问题、修正设计方案的工具。但关于此3种类型如何进一步实现完整的研究范式和实例内容的论证，还面临诸多挑战。

正如前文所提及的，由于缺乏直接关联设计实践与科学研究的核心方法论和认识论体系，风景园林学科在学术研究中常常不得不依附于其他学科的理论框架与研究方法，这种做法虽然在一定程度上促进了学科交流与融合，但也导致研究成果往往停留于交叉学科边缘，难以直接指导本领域的设计实践。可以采取的解决路径包括：借由设计者-研究者的省思从实践中汲取经验建构理论；或者基于设计研究本体构建设计研究的方法论和认识论。二者均属于“关于设计之研究”的内容。但当前面临的问题在于，从实践中汲取经验而构建的理论，多为个别学者的散点式研究，少有系统性整体框架，且后期缺乏持续不断的推进；而从设计研究本体构建的方法论与认识论，由于语言体系的晦涩，其学术讨论往往局限于小范围内，未被广泛接受和采纳，因而有沦为解读性视角的风险。所以希望借由“设计研究”专题的推出，让越来越多人认识、关注这个小众但重要的领域，逐步改善设计和研究分野的现状。

设计，这个融合了艺术与哲学的精髓，又深根于科学与技术的领域，注定了要在困惑中对其自身认知和界定不断探索。风景园林设计研究正处于一个充满挑战与机遇的十字路口，无论是对实践案例的实证回溯，亦或是对理论体系的系统论述，皆希望通过持续的深耕探索，推进设计研究范式的建立，构筑属于风景园林自身的独立话语体系，为风景园林乃至更广泛的设计领域注入新的活力与智慧。

The theoretical research on landscape architecture and the design practice of landscape architecture may seem like two parallel lines, which are looking at each other from the distance but find it difficult to support or complement the other side mutually. There are two main reasons: Firstly, design culture, scientific culture, and humanistic culture are three parallel categories of human knowledge with significant differences in terms of research object, methodology, and values. In essence, it is destined that the paradigms and methods commonly used in scientific or humanities studies can not be completely applied to do research in the field of design. Secondly, since design practice is subjective and artistic, it is difficult to directly transform the design outcomes into widely recognized achievements in academic circles. Therefore, the academic work of landscape architecture has to incorporate itself into other fields and adapt to the content, methods, and research methodology of other disciplines proactively. The results of such research will mostly only include the edges of the discipline and have weak correlation between the actual design practices.

The long-term separation between design and research, as well as between knowledge and practices, will result in the failure to establish autonomy in the field of landscape architecture design. The construction of methodology will directly affect the future development path of landscape architecture design. Therefore, seeking a research methodology that conforms to the cognitive characteristics of design and is logically adaptive has become an urgent problem to be solved for design research. 

Design research has begun to develop as an independent academic field since the 1960s, aiming to solve the above problems, as well as describe, explain, and even predict the entire process (including the germination of design inspiration to the presentation of final results, and also the indescribable yet crucial extensions and connotations in the design process) of design activities via systematic methods. 

Nowadays, there are three basic types of design research formed and widely recognized by the academic circles both at home and abroad. 1) Research about Design (RaD), including phenomenology research, epistemology research and behavioral research; 2) Research for Design (RfD). When the “Design” represents design products, RfD refers to the preliminary research that provides support for specific design projects; When the “Design” is used to describe design processes, it refers to the knowledge research which will promote the construction of the design process; 3) Research through Design (RtD). This kind of research takes design process as a tool for testing research hypotheses, or a tool for defining research questions and revising design proposals. However, for these three types of research, there are still numerous challenges in terms of further demonstrating the complete research paradigm and example content. 

As mentioned above, due to the lack of a core methodology and epistemological system directly related to design practice and scientific research, landscape architecture has to rely on the theoretical frameworks and methodology of other disciplines. Although it can promote interdisciplinary exchange and integration to a certain extent, it will also cause the research results staying at the edge of interdisciplinary fields, making it difficult to directly guide the design practice path of landscape architecture. Feasible solutions include: To construct theories by drawing experience from practice through design-researcher reflection; Or construct methodology and epistemology of design research based on the ontology of the research. Both solutions belong to RaD. The current problem is that theories constructed by drawing experience from practice are mostly scattered research by individual scholars, with little overall systematic framework, and lack continuous promotion in the later stage; However, in terms of methodology and epistemology formed based on design research ontology, due to the obscurity of language system, the academic discussion will often be limited to a small scope and hard to be widely accepted and adopted, thus facing the risk of becoming an interpretive perspective. Therefore, by launching this Design Research topic, we hope that more and more people will recognize and pay attention to this niche but important field, so as to gradually improve the current situation of the division between design and research. 

As a field that combines the essence of art and philosophy while deeply roots in science and technology, design is destined to constantly explore its own cognition and definition despite confusion. The research on landscape architecture design is at a crossroads full of challenges and opportunities. Both the empirical review of practical cases and the systematic discussion of theoretical systems are conducted to promote the establishment of design research paradigms through continuous exploration, construct an independent discourse system belonging to landscape architecture itself, and inject new vitality and wisdom into the discipline and even the broader design field.

本期专题学术主持人：章明教授

Acquiring editor of the current issue: ZHANG Ming

2024年7月20日

July 20, 2024

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