Laureen Mahler
Making/Space
A Holistic Approach to Designing through Interdisciplinary Practice
100541
MAKING/SPACE proposes that acts of making should serve as a central focus of inquiry in design research and argues for a holistic concept of designing: one capable of facilitating coordination in a field of research that is increasingly reliant on diverse approaches and methods. This thesis looks to the history of design research in the West, from the Bauhaus to the Design Methods movement and beyond, and traces the origins of the persistent divide between theory and practice via an examination of formal emergence. Through the framework of folding and origami, it establishes relationships between the visual, the material, and the processual to develop an integrative concept of designing that positions craft practices as a vital source of knowledge and a basis for interdisciplinary research. Throughout, a holistic concept of designing is developed through practice-led research methodologies, investigating the author’s work with fiber collection and extraction, papermaking, and folding. Material-driven inquiry serves as a common thread that unites approaches from design, art, mathematics, and paper science.