Designing with Uncertainty
“Designing with Uncertainty.” In Education, Design and Practice, edited by E. Lester, 133–146. AMPS proceedings series 17.2. London: UCL Press, 2019
Presented at the Education, Design and Practice conference, Stevens Institute, New York / New Jersey.
In a recent radio interview in which she spoke against the certainty expressed by political figures, Montréal playwright and author Fanny Britt argued eloquently for uncertainty as a critical and necessary aspect of social life. “The problem with certainties,” she said, “is that they kill our curiosity and make us mediocre. What we find in uncertainty, on the other hand, is shared humanity.”[i] With this, she suggests that avowing and sharing uncertainties binds us to others socially. Uncertainties are common and, although some may be resolved, the general condition of uncertainty is permanent. Certainty, on the other hand, is an unstable, relative and ephemeral condition that requires intense work and a great deal of fiction.
This article draws a parallel between Britt’s suggestion for the role of uncertainty with respect to social life and its role in design education. It suggests that uncertainty has the potential to tie student’s critical thinking with knowledge production in university and in practice by exposing the ways in which design methods and processes are devised, institutionalized and incrementally developed through time
[i] Plus on est de fous, plus on lit, Radio-Canada, 14 April 2016. Translation by author.
