BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

GENERIC DESIGN SCIENCE 1)

← Back

The global science of design.

J. WARFIELD states: "Generic Design Science is the whole of design science. It is comprised of all the specific design sciences and the Generic Design Science (itself), serving the universe of design activity. At the present times this concept remains unrealized" (1994, p.20).

The following is a summary by WARFIELD on G.D.S.:

"Generic design refers to the development of outcomes that necessarily are present in the design of anything. Specific design refers to the development of outcomes that necessarily are present for a single design, or for members of a small class of designs.

"When design aims to resolve complexity, the generic outcomes may often affect thousand or millions of people; hence the route to their development should be based in a science that is responsive to the demands of complexity.

"Generic design is such a science. It incorporates the foundational, theoretical and ethodological components that any science ought to exhibit (if only for purposes of facilitating its integration with other sciences, when aggregation is needed to serve application)…

"Because it offers transparency, and evaluative criteria, it is well positioned for assessment and improvement. Because it offers Laws of Design, it gives focus to constraints that will, if allowed to do so, degrade design activity, and lead to disasters" (1995e, p.8).

Generic Design considers the ways designers do design as related to psychological and conceptual aspects, as well as the difficulties proper to design in the general and in specific cases. It adds new dimensions to design and contributes to the management of complexity.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

We thank the following partners for making the open access of this volume possible:

© 2020 BCSSS Contact/Imprint