SI-WP-2-2 Design experiments – a method for working with wicked problems

Sustainable development and climate change adaptation are poorly formulated problems. The planning and development of technology to resolve these problems affects society and other technologies tremendously, yet the nature of the knowledge and information required for this process is not as yet evident. The design process confronts, contextualises and integrates different kinds of technical, spatial, experimental and social knowledge. This article describes three design experiments which attempted to understand and solve societal problems, while supporting and elaborating interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research approaches, and involved key persons in research, planning and design. Based on the three design experiments; Rittel and Webber (1973); and recent contributions to social-technical transitions, it is discussed how and why the combined knowledge deriving from these studies may help to further the use of design experiments as a method of working with wicked problems. Design experiments bring actors and networks together. They allow the development of integrated solutions within a limited timeframe, which specialist scientists and engineers can use in their research. In general, design experiments enable the conscious framing and elaboration of wicked problems. Design experiments employ both the components and the whole in a way which communicates to stakeholders, lay-people, landscape architects, scientists and engineers – adaptively, participatory and transdisciplinary. Introduction Sustainable development and climate change adaptation are issues which urgently need alternatives to conventional methods and technologies. The problems are ill-formulated and the development of technology and planning for such issues affects society and other technologies tremendously. Politicians, decision-makers and planners depend on finding key-persons and keystages where solutions can be implemented; in complex situations this can be difficult. Formal and theoretical procedures do not always highlight the key components, because informal routine has established a tradition (Latour, 2005; Lawson, 2000:47). When society addresses problems and formulates policies, there is often a demand for more knowledge and information, though the exact nature of this knowledge and information is not known. Basically, any additional knowledge and information can improve conditions for a sustainable solution. Specialist disciplines and planners need to know more about the process, interactions and the relation between the solution and knowledge. The situation is complex. Many scientists and engineers using technical rationality, face difficulty formulating an alternative solution which reaches further than their own field, and which will be generally accepted in society (Schön, 1991). The appreciation of sustainability as an idea is not enough. Therefore the need for a more holistic way of working across disciplines has arisen, and the methods of planning and designing are, to an increasing extent, explored as a means of solving complex problems and providing a framework for research. The design process confronts, contextualises and integrates different kinds of technical, spatial, experimental or social knowledge (e.g. Stapers, 2007; von Seggern, Werner, and Grosse-Bächle, 2008), in a spiralling process of different stages of consideration, action and re-consideration (Schön, 1991). A skilled designer can focus on and develop a final product, even if not all seemingly necessary information is available. The resulting product, i.e. the solution to a problem, is variable; there are always various solutions that would work in the given context (Steenbergen, 2008). While designers are focused on achieving the desired result, the classical scientists, with their methods based on theory building and empirical testing, are focused on discovering the underlying rules (Lawson, 2005). Combining both worlds enables research to be conducted very close to practice, and thus opens new paths to gaining the knowledge that is needed to solve our time’s wicked problems. Following the classification developed by De Jong and Van Der Voordt (2005) and processed by Streenbergen (2008), the research method presented in this article is called "design experiment". Design experiments can be used to investigate the context of a variable object, or the variability of an object in a context (Steenbergen, 2008). Besides this classification, there is little or no scientific literature introducing and reflecting upon the methodology "design experiment" in more detail. This article aims to contribute to this field by describing three design experiments initiated in order to understand and solve complex societal problems; support and elaborate inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary research approaches; and embrace the phenomenological inclusion of the acting persons in research, planning and design. The three design experiments are: (A) a one-year interdisciplinary Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS) retrofit design project for a 15 km catchment area in Copenhagen, involving eight PhD students (Backhaus and Fryd, 2012; Roldin et al., 2012; Fryd et al., 2013). (B) a two-week design workshop with six teams of professional landscape architects exploring SUDS retrofit options for a school and a fully urbanised sub-catchment area in the Vanløse district of Copenhagen (Backhaus, Dam, and Jensen, 2012). (C) a three-week workshop involving four teams of professional landscape architects together with concrete manufacturers, exploring the possibilities for a typical suburban residential street (Støvring and Dam, 2013). The objective of the design experiments was to develop initial resolutions in a real-life social context in order to improve understanding of the problem as a whole, and to facilitate collaborative behaviour amongst stakeholders. All three design experiments were set up as collaborations between researchers and practitioners, and all authors of this article have been personally involved with the development, implementation and analyses of at least one of the three design experiments. None of the experiments have previously been thoroughly discussed in the light of theories of the wicked problem. In this article, the methods and results from the three design experiments are summarised. Based on the gathered experiences; Rittel and Webber (1973); and recent contributions on socialtechnical transitions, the article discusses how and why the combined knowledge deriving from these studies might help to further the use of design experiments as a method for working with wicked problems, and thus support the evolution of urban ecological, social and economic sustainability. Theory and Methods Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning caught our attention with “the wicked problem”. It was generally appraised because “the process of formulating the problem and of conceiving a solution are identical” (Rittel and Webber, 1973:161) and “because one cannot meaningfully search for information without knowing of a solution concept” (Rittel and Webber, 1973:162). In 1973, Rittel and Webber introduced the theory of the wicked problem, as opposed to tame problems. Their mission was to clear out planning and find another approach, because the cognitive style of science and the occupational style of engineering did not work on social problems. At around the same time, Riceour (1969) and Habermas (1968) also advocated the hermeneutic humanistic theories instead of research as natural science. Harvey Brooks from Harvard Engineering School wrote Dilemmas of Engineering Education in 1967 (Schön, 1991:171), where he warned about the specialisation of the engineering education. He perceived that the disappearing art of engineering design presented an educational dilemma. Rittel and Webber (1973) juxtaposed the theory of wicked problems with tame natural science based problems. Many of the characteristics of natural science and engineering originate from similar writings. Rittel and Webber refer to Popper (1961), as Karl Popper argues in the The Logic of Scientific Discovery, it is a principle that solutions are only hypotheses offered for refutation. consequently; the scientific community does not blame its members for postulating hypotheses that are later refuted (Rittel and Webber, 1973:167). The method is described as ‘systems engineering’, and Donald Schön characterises it as ‘technical rationality’ when he argues for reflection in action (Schön 1991:39). Schön (1991) combines the experiment with the art of scientific investigation: “Experiments functions at the same time to test technological moves, discriminate among plausible scientific hypotheses and explore puzzling phenomena” (Schön, 1991:177). Krog (1983), Buchanan (1992), Lawson (1997), Latour (2005), and Cross (2006) have over the years since the 1970s established an understanding of the hermeneutic planning / design approach, where it is no longer necessary to define planning and design in opposition to natural science. Design is not science, but as Buchanan describes design generally: “once a product is conceived, planned and produced, it may indeed become an object for study by any of the arts and sciences” (Buchanan, 1992:18). In the development and framing of the design experiments, the introduction of new technologies, methods and practices has been approached with consideration for wicked problems (Rittel and Webber, 1973; Conklin, 2005), socio-technical transitions (Geels, 2002; Loorbach, 2004; Rotmans, 2005; Schot and Geels, 2008; Geels, 2011), and complex adaptive systems (Geldof, 2005; UhlBien, Marion, and McKelvey, 2007). In 2008, as part of a trans-disciplinary research project in Denmark (see Design experiment A below), the notion and nature of wicked problems was introduced to the authors by one of the champions of integrated urban water management in Europe, Dr. Govert Geldof. The traditional