Design science

Design science was introduced in 1957 by R. Buckminster Fuller who defined it as a systematic form of designing. He expanded on this concept in his World Design Science Decade proposal to the International Union of Architects in 1961. The term was later used in S. A. Gregory's 1966 book of the 1965 Design Methods Conference where he drew the distinction between scientific method and design method. Gregory was clear in his view that design was not a science and that design science referred to the scientific study of design. Herbert Simon in his 1968 Karl Taylor Compton lectures used and popularized these terms in his argument for the scientific study of the artificial (as opposed to the natural). Over the intervening period the two uses of the term (systematic designing and study of designing) have co-mingled to the point where design science has come to have both meanings.

The first edition of Simon's The Sciences of the Artificial, published in 1969, built on previous developments and motivated the development of systematic and formalized design methodologies relevant to many design disciplines, for example architecture, engineering, urban planning, medicine, computer science, and management studies. Simon's ideas about the science of design also motivated the development of design research and the scientific study of designing. In his book Simon also used the idea of a theory of design alluding to design science as a science of design. For example, the axiomatic theory of design described in Suh presents a domain independent theory that can explain or prescribe the design process. The Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) ontology, described in Gero presenting a domain independent ontology of design and designing, is another example. Developing from the idea of a 'design science' there has been recurrent concern to differentiate design from science.Nigel Cross differentiated between scientific design, design science and a science of design. The scientific study of design does not require or assume that the acts of designing are themselves scientific and an increasing number of research programs take this view. Cross uses the term 'designerly' to distinguish designing from other kinds of human activity.

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