The Art of Wicked Problem Solving: Criticising Technical Rationality by Means of Design

• In Event: Social Sciences of the Artificial: Interrupting and Interrogating the Meanings of Design

Abstract

This paper discusses from a historical, discourse analytical standpoint how design and design thinking became a major paradigm for problem-solving and handling uncertainty in various fields since the 1960s and 70s. It traces the intricate entanglement of design methods, problem-solving, future thinking, and policy making that emerged after World War II in Germany and the United states against the backdrop of environmental, societal, and economic issues. Central in this debate was the concept of ill-structured, ›wicked problems‹, which emerged from discourses of operations research, systems theory, and urban planning of that time (Churchman 1967; Rittel 1972; Rittel/Webber 1973; Simon 1973). The concept of ›wicked problems‹ was introduced to deal with a specific category of problems in the realm of social policy and system planning that supposedly couldn't be tackled according the criteria of scientific and technical rationality (Rittel/Webber 1973: 160). Drawing on ›wicked problems‹ as a basic principle, the field of design was radically redefined since the 1960s as a general problem-solving discipline (Dorst 2006; Farell/Hocker 2013; Huppatz 2015), in the consequence being that the idea of design became more and more detached from the realm of arts, aesthetics, and craftsmanship. Instead it became associated with scientific, technical, organizational, and economical thoughts and procedures. Being a critique of overly rigid systems theory and technological rationality (Ackoff 1978; Schön 1983) at that time, the debates on ›wicked problem‹ touch questions belonging to the fields of logic, ethics, and the theory of science, and promote a critical perspective on knowledge production per se.


Literature
Ackoff 1978: Ackoff, Russell Lincoln: The Art of Problem Solving. Wiley 1978.
Churchman, West C. 1967. “Wicked Problems. Guest Editorial.” Management Science 4(14): B-141-142.
Dorst 2006: Dorst, Kees: Design Problems and Design Paradoxes. In: Design Issues. Vol. 22, Nr. 3. 2006, pp. 4–17.
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Huppatz 2015: Huppatz, DJ: Revisiting Herbert Simon’s Science of Design. In: Design Issues. Vol. 31, Nr. 2 Spring 2015, pp. 29–40.
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Simon 1973: Simon, Herbert: The Structure of Ill Structured Problems. In: Artificial Intelligence 4 (1973), pp. 181-201.

Author

• Claudia Mareis, University of the Arts Basel / FHNW