I have sectioned my literature Review into seven sections; Ontology, Coordination or Style, Our Role as Disclosers, Commitment, Breakdown, Disclosing New Technologies, Designing Disclosure. Have a look at my problem statement here.

Designing Disclosure

Through this discourse I have aimed to bring two primary aspects into contrast and into accordance. The first is finding oneself within the design project – what is my purpose and role within the context of intervention. The second aspect is finding what is becoming within the area of intervention – this relies on sensitivity to a development trajectory or a historical movement into the future. With this we find the reasons and justification for creative action and emotional commitment.

It is the primary role of the ontological designer to first work on oneself, to design the architecture of experience or the ontological structure. To do this the designer must engage in an ontological inquiry and further into an exploration of the epistemological process that emerges from certain ontological foundations. As Flores and Winograd describe:

“In the act of design we bring fourth the objects and regularities in the world of our concern. We are engaged in an activity of interpretation that creates both possibilities and blindness. As we work within the domain we have defined, we are blind to the context from which it was carved and open to the new possibilities it generates -these new possibilities create new openness for design, and the process repeats in an endless circle.” (Flores & Winograd, 1986, 1987)

In this way we find a fundamental similarity between hermeneutic phenomenology and the design process – because we are engaged in a dialogue of sense making around basic ontological assumptions and epistemological machinery.

Therefore the most fundamental aim of the designer is in the design of one’s own ontological structures, what Heidegger called a return to thinking (Heidegger, 1977). This is an ongoing and dynamic disposition to inquire into the ontological assumptions in which we operate. Through this inquiry we unearth how knowledge is created, or the epistemological implications of differing ontological foundations. This in turn leads to a deconstruction of style that facilitates the development of new ways of being – both individual and shared.

In the final reckoning then the designer must aim to design oneself or architect within oneself the openness necessary to disclose new worlds. We could call this process, the design of ones own conceptual processes or the design of disclosure.