Materializing Design
2025 - OngoingI design and build software tools to practice the method for design materialization (MDM). Materializing Design is a research group developing a method for design research validation.
Materializing Design is a research group at Concordia University, Montreal. We study design process, knowledge embedded in artifacts and in their creation process, and how can we give this tacit knowledge material form. We do this via the Method for Design Materialization (MDM).
Design research is generally communicated with annotated portfolios or post-mortem analyses. These approaches treat design as a state-function and the design process, failures, the design trajectory is discarded. Design knowledge is treated as secondary to its outputs. In academic research, this is a significant gap: if design is a form of inquiry, the process itself is scholarly material worth preserving and sharing.
MDM dovetails reflective design journaling with version control software (Git Commits) allowing the design process to be captured. MDM has two sides: Articulation and Analysis 1.