Wicked problems in design thinking

Author: R. Buchanan
Type: book chapter
Category: Teoría y Diseño

Richard Buchanan's foundational 1992 essay argues that design cannot be reduced to a single basis in the fine arts or the sciences, and proposes design as a new integrative liberal art. It introduces the idea that design problems are "wicked": open-ended, without fixed criteria for a correct solution, and shaped by the specific context in which they arise.

In "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking," Richard Buchanan traces how design, unlike a traditional academic subject, resists being reduced to a single foundation in the fine arts, the natural sciences or the social sciences. Drawing on philosopher John Dewey's idea that modern knowledge is no longer a fixed grasp of reality but an art directed at ordered change, Buchanan argues that the twentieth-century interest in "design thinking" is best understood as a search for new integrative disciplines that connect the arts and sciences for practical, productive purposes. He proposes that design should be regarded as a new liberal art of the technological culture, one built around "wicked problems," meaning problems that are indeterminate, have no fixed set of possible solutions, and depend on the particular circumstances, audience and purpose of each design situation rather than on a single objectively correct method. Credits: Buchanan, R. (s. f.). Wicked problems in design thinking. En Design philosophies and theories (pp. 96–100).