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2006 Design Research Society
International Conference in Lisbon

Forewords

(tecnical data and forewords in pdf format for print)

1. Design Research Society

In 2002 we took a very big step to create a biennial cycle of international conferences that would be a forum and showcase for the wide spectrum design research going on round the world. These events, starting at Brunel University in England, going on to Monash University in Australia in 2004 and now at IADE here in Lisbon, have quickly made a firm imprint on the field.

One aspect of that is our determination that we would use good peer review practice to attract and foster the development of talented researchers, whether they are old hands with a history of building our knowledge or new researchers feeling their way up the ladder. But it is also essential that a conference provides a good social environment to allow people to get to know each other and exchange ideas, maybe even form collaborations for the future. At each of these events the organizing team have worked long hard hours, while juggling demanding academic jobs, to meet this challenge. Things go wrong, people have to race around behind the scenes to fix problems while preserving a confident public smile, policy is wrangled over, often by email across several continents, but somehow, on the first day of the conference, it all works.

So have a thought for the great team of people here at IADE, for whom this is the end of months of effort. Look around at your colleagues at the conference and remind yourself that these are the people working with you to build up this dynamic field of research. Take advantage of their experience and ideas, think about what you have to share with them and don't forget to have some fun while you are here in this beautiful city.

Chris Rust,

2. Design Research Reviews

Wonderground has developed the review process as a prelude to evaluating past experience and to plan future policy. To do this, we studied a wide range of review policies. Some journals and conferences are invitational. For others, editors or organizers review submissions. Double-blind peer review policies take three forms. The first is summary review, acceptance or rejection without significant response. The second reports reviewer opinion without offering suggestions for development. The third is a substantive response designed to help each author to improve. Wonderground chose this path.

We examined dozens of conferences and journals to develop a review protocol based on best practices across the spectrum of design research. Charles Burnette helped us to test the protocol, redesign it, test again, and use it. Two hundred reviewers representing the entire field did the work while Martim Lapa wrestled with the reviewing software. Eduardo Corte-Real describes our experiences in his article for the new DRS journal, Design Research Quarterly, and I’ll discuss our findings in a special Wonderground workshop session on peer review.

Wonderground marks a new step for DRS, with more papers and more participants than at any past DRS conference. We represent a broader field than we did, and we continue to improve in quality. What we learn this year will help us to shape better conferences in the future for DRS and for the worldwide International Association of Societies of Design Research.

The road to Lisbon has involved challenges and solutions along with occasional thrills and a few chills. As the curtain goes up, three tenors welcome you to Lisbon with a strong program. It won’t be the operatic tenors, but Eduardo, Terry Love and I will get by with a little help from our friends – and we have had many friends in IADE and around the world helping us.

Welcome, friends, to Wonderground.

Ken Friedman,

3. Lisbon Design Revisited

Design and designs. Old - so very old. Modern and sometimes so post-modern it hurts. Home of desenrascanco - designing the impossible!

Phoenician city here over 3000 years ago. Greeks named it Olissipo after Ulysses. Later a self-ruled Roman city, Felicitas Julia. Famous for exports of fish sauce(!!) and fast horses. 400 years as a Muslim city and last 900 years under Christianity. New urban design supported by earthquake disasters. City redesign by the Marques de Pombal after 1755 that reshaped the centre of the city rectangular. Art Nouveau everywhere. The present liberal life of Lisbon grew from carnations in the guns of the peaceful 1975 revolution, rapid industrial and knowledge economy development and recent membership of the EU..

Hot sun. Sitting with friends edge of Tagus river. Long restaurant table with a huge parasol. Seafood, white tablecloth, red wine,soft breeze. Martim chatting with ladies in pearls. Fast driving.

Remembering 400 years Arab history. Pouring water from the carafe (garrafa(Portuguese), gharrafah (Arabic). Spooning sugar (açucar, al-sukkar) into my coffee. Peeling an orange (laranga, al-naranj). Remembering the climb up to the castle through tiny impregnable streets of Muslim-built Alfama (al-hammah, 'hot spring'). Thinking about empire, sailing and technology with admirals (almirante, amir al-bar), algebra (algebra, al-jabr), almanacs (almanaque, al-manakh), azimuth (azimute, al-samt), sailing ship (caravel,qârib) zero (cifra, sifr). Bright blue tiles everywhere (azulejos,al-zulayi). Arab design skills echo from the past to Lisbon's designfutures.

Lisbon, people, design, skills: a place with a lever long enough to move the world. Lisbon, centre of first and longest lasting global empire. Capital of of diaspora of over 4 million Portuguese family round the world - visiting frequently. Educated and cosmopolitan. Lisbon.

Terence Love,

4. IADE Design School

Curiously enough IADE is one of only sixteen independent art and design schools represented among the institutions of our 254 presenters.

For the record, more than half of the presenters come from classical universities, colleges, schools. or departments. Sixty come from technical universities or institutes, and nine come from universities of the arts. The geography of the presenting institutions bridges 25 countries on five continents: eight from South America, twenty-five from Oceania, twenty-nine from Asia, thirty-six from North America, and 126 from Europe. Amongst the Europeans, forty-seven come from the United Kingdom, twelve from Portugal, and eleven from Turkey. We like to think that this is the biggest overseas invasion of design scholars that ever took place in Europe.

This means that -along with Africa- the Design Research Society biennial conference didn’t penetrate deeply in art and design Schools.. This also means that a good half of the realm of design education is left still to “conquer” or seduce.

The research tracks indicate an interesting themography . There are four major equal sized groups, theory and philosophy, user studies, identity studies and architecture (from interiors to landscape). These correspond, in total, to almost two thirds of the conference. There are three medium sized groups: strategic design, digital design and sustainability studies. These correspond to less than one fourth of the conference. Finally, the exquisite small groups of history and engineering correspond roughly to ten per cent. We decided to spread design education among the others since, in the end, all is related to education. IADE began organizing international conferences refereed by scientific committees in 2003. Since then, with three conferences, IADE has welcomed almost six hundred design scholars, touched more than thirty countries, and built links with over three hundred institutions.

Believe it or not, Lisbon, in Europe is in the shortest distance from: Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Montreal, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Luanda and Cape Town. In the “United States of Europe” we are struggling very hard to be California and not Florida. Nice sun and surf spots as well as strong knowledge production. Many Northern Europeans choose our country as a place to retire. They are very welcome but we also welcome productive, bright minds of any age.

People like Bruno Munari and Attilio Marcolli helped IADE’s Design School to rise up in the seventies. A British Designer, John David Bear, seldom forgotten, marked the first years of the school working directly with the students. Martim holds him in the memory as a true model of the insatiable designer mind. Much like the advertisements for a famous watch, we are just taking care of IADE for the next generation. For our generation, the honor of hosting the DRS biennial international conference is certainly a milestone in that house keeping.

2006 Design Research Society International Conference in Lisbon