Manifestations in Designing

Most times, designed artifacts obscure the processes, methods, and practices of their becoming. Behind the surface of finished, seemingly stable designs the traces of pragmatic requirements, individual strategies, design rationales and methods, or tools involved get concealed. The conference “Manifestations in Designing” (Manifestationen im Entwurf) at the RWTH Aachen University, co-organized by the ixdm, lays the focus on the epistemic objects that manifest in the process of designing: models, sketches, diagrams and notations of any kind. They are able to reveal intentions, methods, and techniques of different stages in the design process. As aesthetic manifestations they guide interpretations and decisions in designing and therefore serve as vehicles of knowledge. A particular concern of the conference is the paradigmatic shift from analog to digital means of planning and the implications for the relation of thought, intention, and acting. It aims at taking an interdisciplinary inventory of discourses in the fields of design, architecture, and engineering that are more or less detached up to now.

The conference will be held in German.
The admission is free but a registration is kindly requested.