Design and the Virtual Organization

Design and the Virtual Organization

Paula Rodrigues (Instituto Politécnico de Viseu Escola Superior de Educação, Portugal)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-986-1.ch021


The word design is of English origin and it is linked to the concept of plan or project, to ideas such as draw, intention, or configuration. The term implies the conjugation of two levels in permanent dynamic tension, the abstract level of conceiving/projecting and a more concrete, of giving form, materializing the idea. Furthermore the term does not refer only to manufactured objects; it can be used to refer to the design of a molecule, a structural arrangement, or the construction of curricula (Denis, 2000). It is also considered that a universal definition of design, valid independently of historical and socio cultural contexts, does not exist (Barnard, 1998). But, even if designing, as any other activity, is constrained by the social and cultural role assigned to the designer in a given society (Dormer, 1990; Downton, 2003; Manzini, 1993), that does not mean that we cannot present a general definition of design. So, although there are different areas of intervention for the designer, from common objects, to visual and verbal communications, services, systems, and environments, we can consider design as the conception and planning of the artificial (Margolin, 1995), having in mind the direct consequences for the consumer/user of this way of given material form to an idea (Bonsiepe,1999).

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