Unknown Positions of

Imagination in Design
Mads Nygaard Folkmann

1 James Engell, Creative Imagination

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1980).
2 Edward S. Casey, Imagining: A
Phenomenological Study (Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press, 1976);
Vaune Ainsworth-Land, Imaging and
Creativity: An Integrating Perspective,
The Journal of Creative Behavior 16,
no. 1 (1982): 528.
3 Terry Liddament, The Myths of
Imagery, Design Studies 21, no. 6
(2000): 589606.
4 Nagai Yukari and Toshiharu Taura,
eds., Design Creativity 2010 (London:
Springer, 2011).
5 David Wang and Ali O. Ilhan, Holding
Creativity Together: A Sociological
Theory of the Design Professions,
Design Issues 25, no. 1 (Winter 2009):
521.
6

Introduction
Even though imagination may seem a pivotal ingredient in developing design, difficulties arise in describing it. And even though
the notion of imagination as formative in creative processes dates
back to, at least, Romanticism,1 and imagination has played a central role in notions of idea formation and creativity,2 it has received
little attention as a research topic in relation to design. Exceptions
do existfor example, in the attempt to link design and the formation of images in imaging. 3 However, the topic generally has
received only limited attention and has not been embedded in
larger frameworks, such as cultural theory or practice-oriented
theories. Instead, the theme of design creativity has emerged
and defined a field of its own.4 Also, from a sociological point of
view, the concern has been to focus on the designers contribution
in professional contexts that draws on a core of creativity.5

Taking a different approach, my proposal is to use imagination as a means to investigate the construction of meaning in
design. Further, this path is the opposite of claiming the imagination as a hidden source of creativity in the human consciousness and thus confirming the (post-)Romantic ideology of imagination as an equally powerful and inaccessible force. Instead,
my approach is to regard imagination as operative on an epistemological level in staging conditions of experience and to offer a
phenomenological analysis of the effect of imagination on meaning
creation in design. In relation to design, this approach raises the
question of how the objects of design, in the process of designing,
are positioned, perceived, and conceptualized as vehicles for creating new meaning.
Imagination as a Mental and Cultural Force
Importantly, imagination is not only a matter of epistemology
but also of cultural and social meaning. On this point, the heritage
from the Romantic idea of the imagination is to acknowledge its
role as a cultural forcethat is, as a force that creates cultural and
social meaning on a level beyond the potential revolutions of the

2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

DesignIssues: Volume 30, Number 4 Autumn 2014

doi:10.1162/DESI_a_00293

Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large:

Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
(Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press, 1996), 31. Another
example is Cornelius Castoriadiss social
theory of the imaginary as a generative
dynamics of creating common notions of
society on the basis of an open stream
of the collective anonymous, with the
ability to enable social institutions.
See Cornelius Castoriadis, LInstitution
Imaginaire de la Socit [The Imaginary
Institution of Society] (Paris: ditions
du seuil, 1975), 493.
That imaginary meaning may have social
effect can be seen in the fact that the
feeling of belonging to a nation is to be
part of an imagined community, as
precisely phrased by cultural historian
Benedict Anderson. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections
on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
(London: Verso, 1991).
Anne Balsamo, Designing Culture: The
Technological Imagination at Work
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2011), 6.
Ibid., 5, 7.

individual mind (although the Romantics were very fond of such

revolutions). Within Romanticism, it is a central claim of S. T.
Coleridges theoretical manifesto Biographia Literaria [Biographical
Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions] (1817) to conceive of the
human imagination as an emancipating force that influences not
only the singular human mind but also how all human meaning
is experienced and comprehended. A notion of a social imagination
develops. The basic notion is that not only does the world of physical and tangible things matter, but so too (and even more so) do
individual and collective aspirations, conceptions, and principles of
meaning organization.

Beyond Romanticism, cultural theorist Arjun Appadurai
anchors imagination in the context of cultural theory and describes
the imaginary and imagination as terms that direct us to something critical and new in global cultural processes: the imagination as
a social practice. At this point, says Appadurai, we do not speak of a
simple escape, but of an organized field of social practices, a
form of work [...] and a form of negotiation between sites of agency
(individuals) and globally defined fields of possibility. The imagination is now central to all forms of agency, is itself a social fact,
and is the key component of the new global order.6 To imagine,
then, is to create meaning that can have social effect.7 Thus, from
the perspective of cultural theory, the concept of imagination can be
used to describe something that is not given, per se, but that exists
as possibility, and that nevertheless still has a present effect as, created in the minds of people, it guides their behavior, ideas, and orientation in the world.

Seen in relation to the creation of new possibilities, theories
of imagination as a social and cultural force exceeding the human
mind enter the field of meaning formation on two levels. First, on a
macro level, imagination enters the field of cultural theory when it is
seen in relation to the enabling and stimulation of possibilities, with
a starting point in the desire of humans to interact with their surroundings. An example is media theorist Anne Balsamos concept
of a performative technological imagination, which functions as a
mindset that enables people to think with technology, to transform
what is known into what is possible.8 In Balsamos perspective,
this engagement with imagination affects how culture as a socially
shared symbolic system of signs and meanings is conceived,
understood, and produced, whereby shaping the technological
imagination is a cultural imperative of the highest order.9

Second, on a micro level, imagination can be seen to create
structures and figurations of meaning. To illustrate, sociologist
Peter Murphy has formulated the search for the possible in relation
to a concept of imagination as an act of figuration. With a power
of organization, such figuration is involved in object creation,

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10 Peter Murphy, Michael A. Peters, and

Simon Marginson, Imagination: Three
Models of Imagination in the Age of the
Knowledge Economy (New York: Peter
Lang, 2010), 2629.
11 In this way, we can detect how societies
at different times can be more or less
imaginativehow they can show
different degrees of creativity and vision
in the production of meaning. In Murphys
analysis, the European Renaissance,
for example, was a period with a flourish
of creative endeavors, whereas the
contemporary age is seen on the large
scale, somewhat pessimistically, as a
period of few creative achievements.
Ibid., 6.
12 John Heskett speaks of a cultural
context where design is a primary
element in stimulating the awareness
of possibilities. See John Heskett,
Toothpicks and Logos (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002),133.
13 See also Mads Nygaard Folkmann,
The Aesthetics of Imagination in Design
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013).
8

enacted through a series of form-generation media and a development of patterns (e.g., hierarchy, balance, repetition, similarity,
and proportion), all of which reside at the intersection of the sensuousness of materials and the meaningfulness of explicit forms.10
Thus, as a principle of meaning generation rooted in practical reality, the figurative ability of imagination is seen by Murphy to interfere in the social-cultural sphere.11

In my view, we must focus on both aspects of imagination in
relation to the creation of cultural meaning in design: (1) the macrocreation of cultural possibilities when design is used as a means for
humans to engage with the world,12 and (2) the micro-formative
structures of meaning in design. Thus, the following discussion can
be understood as a contribution both to a cultural theory of design
(i.e., what is the role of design in creating new possibilities?) and to
a discussion of meaning formation in design (how might mental
positions of the imagination in acts of figuration affect object creation?).

In the following paragraphs, my primary focus is on the latter of these two aspects. However, they cannot ultimately be understood without each other: To look at meaning formation in design is
also, at least implicitly, to investigate the role of design as a principle of human interaction with the worldthat is, in creating cultural meaning. In relation to the investigation of meaning
formation, my phenomenological perspective leads me in a direction of acts of figuration different than Peter Murphys focus on
positive presence and structures of balance and order. In contrast, I
consider meaning constitution through positions of presence and
absence and open the discussion for the role of negativity and nonorder in the formation of meaning in design and its ability to create
new possibilities. My phenomenological approach is to look at
modes and positions of the imagination, to look at the effects on
meaning production that result from the workings of the imagination,
and to relate these effects to the development of meaning in design.
Although we cannot access the mechanisms of imagination directly,
we can try to describe its workings on a structural level: how it
relates to and creates conceptual meaning.13

A central claim of this article is that a vital element of imagination in design is its relationship to knowledgeto what can be
known, what the role of knowledge in design processes is, and how
knowledge (as well as non-knowledge) is active through design in
cultural meaning creation. In particular, what is at play when we
put imagination on the agenda is the role of the unknown as a
driver of meaning formation in design.

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14 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia

Literaria (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press,1984).
15 John Chris Jones, Design Methods:
Seeds of Human Futures (New York:
John Wiley, 1980); and Bryan Lawson,
How Designers Think (Oxford:
Architectural Press, 2005).
16 The double movement of centrifugal
and centripetal forces is also evident
in the post-Romantic tradition, such
as in Nietzsches formulation of
the coexistence of the ecstatic
Dionysian principle with the prudent
and clear-headed Apollonian principle
in Die Geburt der Tragdie [The Birth
of Tragedy] (1872).

Models of Imagination
In the following I look at the structural coding of imagination in
design workat different positions of imaginative, mental settings
that determine how the object of design is perceived and associated
with meaning. This mental setting can be viewed as a particular
way of linking the conceptual framework of the design task with
the material manifestation in the design objects.

First, I examine two different structural characteristics of
imagination in relation to the production of meaning: its unfolding
as a synthetic activity vs. a dispersive operation and its function of
producing presence vs. evoking absence. Second, I introduce the
central concept of schematization and indicate how it contributes to
framing the operation of imagination in design.

Synthetic vs. Dispersive Imagination
First, we can identify two distinct ways of conceiving imagination
with regard to the effect of its operation: synthetic activity vs. dispersive activity. On the one hand, imagination is often associated
with a synthetic activity. This perspective is part of its tradition
from Romanticism, most notably in the claim by English Romanticist S. T. Coleridge that imagination is a synthesizing, coalescing
power.14 Imagination is what connects and unites the most disparate aspects in thinking and material, resulting in some kind of
product. Here, we might regard imagination as equivalent to the
synthetic activity of the design process, where positions in design
methodology have described both linear models and dynamic
models. The former are mostly one-way approaches of analysis
that lead to synthesis and in turn to evaluation before possibly
performing a feedback loop to new analysis and synthesis; the latter include, for example, John Chris Joness notion of the design
process as a dynamic succession of divergence (opening up problems), transformation (creating new patterns of the problem), and
convergence (the creation of a solution), as well as Bryan Lawsons
circular-dynamic models of the design process as an ongoing negotiation between problem view and solution view in the interchange
of analytical, synthetic, and evaluative perspectives of design
work.15 Notably, design theory is fond of synthesis as the means
through which design solutions can be found.

From the perspective of imagination, however, synthesis
is not the only aspect. Imagination might also have a dispersive
function; it has the capacity to lead us astray. Interestingly, this
wandering is also a part of the Romantic concept of imagination.
Here, a central part of the imaginative dynamics is the expansive,
centrifugal movement of creative, inspirational enthusiasm, which
takes the imaginings far beyond any given constraints.16 Imagination thus approaches the visionary, which can also be associated
with design, but it also brings it close to the chaotic, which is not
typically part of the design discourse.
DesignIssues: Volume 30, Number 4 Autumn 2014

17 Murphy, Imagination, 82.

18 Murphys concept of imagination is
thus in accordance with the part of
aesthetic theory that views principles
of equilibrium and order as outstanding
aesthetic features, including John
Dewey, Art as Experience (New York:
Penguin, 2005), and Richard Shusterman,
Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty,
Rethinking Art (Lanham, MD: Rowman
& Littlefield, 2000).
19 Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Schriften
und Fragmente 16 [Critical Writings
and Fragments 16], Ernst Behler and
Hans Eichner, eds. (Paderborn: Ferdinand
Schningh, 1988).
20 Henri Poincar, The Foundations of
Science (Washington, DC: University
Press of America, 1982).
21 Jean-Jacques Wunenburger, LImaginaire
[The Imaginary] (Paris: Presses Universitaires des France, 2003).
10

In placing these two notions in the foreground, I aim to make

three points:

First, too much ideology concerning design creativity
clings to the concept of the synthetic in a search for the
wholes and entities that can be produced by design.
This position is echoed in creativity theory, for example,
by Peter Murphy who acknowledges the divergent
potential of imagination but presents it as leading to
and resulting in order. Murphy further claims the
harmonizing and coalescing element of imagination
and relates it to aesthetic principles like proportion,
economy, and symmetry.17 This view is not unprob lematic, in that equilibrium and harmony are thus
implicitly held up as the central structuring principles
of human experience.18

Second, the two notions of imaginationsynthetic vs.
dispersive, ordering vs. chaotic, convergent vs. diver gentare mutually co-dependent, as Murphy also
indicates. However, my point is that they are co-existent,
not that one necessarily leads to the other. Likewise,
Romanticism saw the expansive, centrifugal movement
of creative, inspirational enthusiasm as part of a whole
that also involves a kind of centripetal contraction and
reflection.19 As a matrix for enabling and maintaining
imaginative vision, the framework of the duality of
enthusiasm and reflection reaches beyond Romanticism;
it is present in various models of idea generation and
creativity, as in Henry Poincars famous model, in
which phases of incubation, a more or less sudden
illumination in the breakthrough of an insight of the
new idea, and verification succeed one another.20
Balance and order are important, but so is chaos.

Third, foregrounding the element of the dispersive and
chaotic in imagination and its relationship to design
might prove advantageous. The chaotic is not just
something to be avoided but can be productive. By
addressing the non-ordering element of the imagination
and relating it to design, we might gain a new perspective
on knowledge in design: that it not only is the result of
synthesizing activities, which create order and coherence,
but also is marked by a constitutive movement of disper sion that reaches out to the borderline of the known and
goes beyond it, to the unknown. Philosopher Jean-Jacques
Wunenburger similarly reformulates the relationship
between the ordering and the chaotic principles of
imagination.21 He sees the ordered product of imagination
as limited, static content that can never go beyond the

DesignIssues: Volume 30, Number 4 Autumn 2014

content that is put into it by imagination; it will always

be restrained by the limitations of perception. Conversely,
he suggests a sort of dynamicexpanding imagination
that in integrating all sorts of activities of imagination,
designates systematic groups of images while carrying on some kind of auto-organizing, auto-generating
principle that, without halt, permits the opening of the
imaginary towards the innovation, transformation, the
new creation.22

Hence, my claim is that imagination deals not only with making

and materializing new entities of meaningfor example, in a product or a design solutionbut also with reflecting and integrating
elements of the unknown. Accordingly, a central element of the
work of designers is to work with the invisible frontiers of the
unknown in their progressive approach to creating the new and
not-yet-existing. According to this line of argument, acknowledging
the role and importance of the unknown is essential. We must integrate the element of the unknown into the design process as a constitutive, productive factor for designnot simply as a lack of data,
but as a driver of design development. I examine how to do so in
the sections on schematization.

22 Ibid., 1213.
23 Jean-Paul Sartre, LImaginaire [The
Imaginary] (Paris: Gallimard, 1940),
3035.
24 Maurice Blanchot, The Space of the
Literary (Lincoln, NE: University of
Nebraska Press, 1989), 260.

Presence vs. Absence in Imagination

We might ask next what the product of imagination looks like
and, further, what characterizes its ontology. Strictly speaking,
the first and immediate product of the mental act of imagining
is not an object or a product, but an inner mental image. As a locus
and medium for imagining, the imageseen here as a formative
principle in designcan lead in new directions and serve as an
important source for the production of new meaning.

Importantly, the image simultaneously is an evocation of
new presence and is based on negation: On the one hand, a central
legacy of Romanticism is the notion of imagination as a creative,
productive power that leads to an abundance of new creations.
Here, the focus is on the new presence created by imagination.
On the other hand, imagination leads not only to abundance but
also to its inverse: the emptiness of representation. The empirical
foundation of the mental image has been questioned. Thus, in a
phenomenological analysis, Jean-Paul Sartre has pointed out that
the imaginary is a product of and marked by negation: The inner
mental image annihilates and unrealizes the real-life object.23
The non-presence of the object in consciousness, then, is two-sided.
Although the consciousness has the freedom to produce new
images on the basis of the object and, in the words of Maurice
Blanchot, to idealize it and raise it to a higher meaning,24 negativity also is to be taken seriously. In Blanchots analysis, the

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11

Positions of Imagination

Figure 1
Positions of imagination with regard to
ontology and mode of operation.

Mode of Operation
Order
Concepts

Idealizing

Absence

Virtuality

Known
Fixture

Actuality

Unknown
Negativity

Presence

Ontology

Disruption
New Organization
of Meaning

Chaos
Dispersion

imaginary image not only makes the object absent, it also makes the
absence present. Blanchot precisely states the double structure of
the image as the potential of both presence and absence. Comprehending the negation and emptiness as a constitutive part of the
imaginary image, rather than positing this image as a structure constituted entirely of overflowing meaning, is important.

Still, the imaginary and the image enable new perspectives
on reality, which are focused not only on the actual but also,
through negation, on the virtual.25 In relation to design, this virtual
perspective questions the ontology of the design object in the
course of developing it: In its becoming, it can be positioned as
something not there (as negation), with a virtual potentiality of
becoming a new being that has never before been seen.

25 Sabine Wettig, Imagination im

Erkenntnisprozess. Chancen und
Herausforderungen im Zeitalter der
Bildmedien [The Imagination in the
Process of Cognition. Opportunities
and Challenges in the Era of Images]
(Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2009).
12

Mapping the Structure of Imagination

To summarize, imagination can be described in a framework of two
polarities: one regarding the activity and mode of operation (creating order vs. embracing chaos) and the other the product and its
ontology (presence vs. absence). Different positions of imagination
can be described by combining these polarities. Visualizing these
polarities in a coordinate system, in which where the polarity of
activity is placed on the y-axis and the polarity of product is placed
on the x-axis, produces four quadrants, which describe different
positions in imagination (see Figure 1).

DesignIssues: Volume 30, Number 4 Autumn 2014

26 In a managerial context, the same

process is proposed by C. O. Scharmer,
Theory U: Leading from the Future
as It Emerges (Cambridge, MA: Society
for Organizational Learning, 2007).
Scharmers approach is influenced by a
high degree of anthroposophic mysticism,
in the notion that the coming of the
new is enabled by letting go of the old;
instead, I suggest a subsequent phase
of actively organizing new meaning by
working with conceptual meaning.

In the upper right quadrant, imagination is seen as creating
order and presencethe position of new design objects and the
result of a structured and ordered imagination. Here, things are
present and known. In fact, this quadrant might reflect a position of
objects more so than one of imagination, in that imagination cannot
be made present, per se.

Next, in the upper left quadrant, imagination is still marked
by order but also by negation. In this position, the potential for
imagination to idealize is activated. Here, imagination uses negation to create new principles of order and a presence of something
that is otherwise absent.

In the lower left quadrant, the combination of absence
and chaos produces a dangerous cocktail. Here, imagination
approaches an abyss characterized by the absence of all meaning
in a maelstrom of dispersion. This position might seem counterproductive, but the point is that it must be acknowledged as part
of the dynamics of imagination, and that it designates a position
of non-knowledgethat is, a letting-go of acquired (i.e., known)
knowledge and ordering principles. It stands in a dialectical opposition to the upper right corner and is, so to speak, its condition
and nurturing principle: Without letting go of control and meaning,
we cannot create new meaning but would be stuck in the fixation of
the given.26

Finally, the lower right quadrant describes a position of
chaos combined with the presence of meaning. Visible disruption
characterizes this quadrant, where a new organization of meaning
takes place; further, this combination can be seen as the place of the
visionary flights of the imagination, where meaning takes new
directions and evolves, without being anchored, however, in a basic
organizing principle. The process of allowing the chaotic becoming
of new meaning mirrors the principle at play in the opposite corner
of the model. Here, new meaning also evolves but is based on negation and with a tendency toward idealization. Design processes can
be said to use both principles of meaning creation: Idealization is
sought through the mental image and its negating power, and a
new presence of meaning (in the becoming of the design object) is
encountered by seeking the chaotic moment of non-linear or nongoaloriented re-creation and re-arrangement of meaning (e.g., in
creating ever new models and prototypes).
Schematization
This approach to imagination can be connected to the concept
of schematization. As I use the term, schematization derives from
German philosopher Immanuel Kants seminal epistemology, Kritik
der reinen Vernunft [Critique of Pure Reason] (1781/1787). Kant sees

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13

27 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft

[Critique of Pure Reason] (Hamburg: Felix
Meiner, 1990), B177.
28 Thus, design theorist Henrik Gedenryd
has proposed that creativity in design can
be indirectly enhanced through a better
understanding of some of the mechanisms and processes in cognition that
underlie design creativity, that practice
can perhaps take advantage of an
improved understanding of its underlying
principles. Henrik Gedenryd, How
Designers Work: Making Sense of
Authentic Cognitive Activities (Lund: Lund
University Cognitive Studies, 1998), 3.
29 Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and
Aaron Wildavsky, Cultural Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), 6. The
grid-group typology has been set forth by
anthropologist Mary Douglas but is here
embedded in a context of cultural theory.
30 For a discussion of design as a profession
with a specific notion or core of
creativity, see Wang and Ilhan, Holding
Creativity Together. See also the discussion of the formation of creative professions in the paradigmatic case study by
Dana Cuff. See Dana Cuff, Architecture:
The Story of Practice (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1991).
14

schematization as an ability in imagination to create meaningful

experience when sensual appearances meet human inescapable
structures of time and space and of the conceptual constructions
of cognition.

Kant proposes the scheme as a matrix for the apperceptive
and synthesizing linking of concepts and sensual, sensory, and perceptually given appearances and thus for the human production of
meaning.27 The scheme conditions human ability to construct meaning through synthesis. Because it pertains to the imagination, the
scheme is not given once and for all but is open to alteration and
new configurations. We see that meaning is not simply given but is
created in a complex interaction of constructive factors. In understanding our own seeing and understanding, we learn about the
nature and structure of these factors and see that they are flexible
and can be altered.28 In this way, the notion of schematization can be
made productive: It is a way of conceptualizing the construction of
meaning in design as a meeting of sensual material and appearance
on the one hand and of conceptual constructions on the other hand.

Enhancing Kants epistemological framework, we can raise
the question of whether any variations of schematization exist in
the dynamic space between individual dispositions and social contexts. Kants point is that the structures of schematization are
bound in the singular subject but ideally apply to all humans. However, imaginations vary individually, and processes of developing
meaning (e.g., in design) are always social and socially situated.

The social aspect of schematization can be related to cultural
theory through a gridgroup typology, where two spectrums can
describe how schematization can be bound in different social contexts and be submitted to social control.29 First, the question of
schematization can be raised in relation to the group: Does a strong
group consensus influence the creation of meaning by relating concepts and sensual matter? In design, this consensus can be noted in
company notions of how to operate in the realm of knowledge production, for example. Further, a consensus about how to be creative in relation to meaning creation might exist in the design
profession as a result of the process of socialization in design education. Thus, design professionals mightas a grouphave ideas
about (schematizing) meaning creation and might operate with
social processes of inclusion and exclusion.30 The group (e.g., the
firm, the profession, etc.) decides what the norm of creative work
should be. Second, we might ask about the balance of individual
freedom vs. grids. In other words, what are the modes of regulation? To what degree does the schematizing subject play freely
with the connections of concepts and sensual material? What rules,
if any, determine the game?

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My proposal is to speak of a mental setting in design and for
designers as a way of approaching the question of how an intention
or an idea in designa conceptmight relate to the possible outcome in a material manifestation. This setting might have individual character, but the schematization in design is grid-bound to
some extent. Three general meta-conceptual settings are at play in
the process of turning inner imaginings into objects: knowledge,
perspective, and focus.31 These settings are specifically marked by
the discourse of designthat is, of the professional discourse and
methodology that designers as a group use.32 However, how group
identities and designer roles inflect imaginations requires a larger,
empirical study of how designers work and organize themselves. In
this article, I keep my focus on the mental setting in design in relation to knowledge and look at it in a general, epistemological perspective, although I acknowledge that it is always framed by a grid
(i.e., by specific concepts in design of what knowledge is) and by
group identities (i.e., by how a group, such as a consultancy, stages
knowledge and relates to it).

31 Folkmann, Aesthetics of Imagination in

Design, 10538.
32 As pointed out by Claudia Mareis, all
design theory is but the opposite of being
value-free and disconnected from the
social (and group-based) contexts from
which it derives; promoting specific
notions of, for example, design theory is
never free of interests, a social structure,
and discursive frame. Claudia Mareis,
Design als Wissenskultur: Interferenzen
zwischen Design- und Wissensdiskursen
seit 1960 [Design as a Culture of
Knowledge. Interferences between
Discourses of Design and Knowledge
Since 1960] (Bielefeld: transcript
Verlag, 2012).
33 Peter Friedrich Stephan, Wissen und
Nicht-Wissen im Entwurf, [Knowledge
and Non-Knowledge in Design] in
Entwerfen. Wissen, Produzieren:
Designforschung im Anwendungskontext
[Design. Knowledge. Production: Design
Research in Use Context], Claudia
Mareis, Gesche Joost, and Kora Kimpel,
eds. (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2010):
81100.
34 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Urtheilskraft
[Critique of Judgment] (Kln: Knemann,
1995).

Known and Unknown

The interface of known vs. unknown can be seen as a structure of
schematization that generates meaning by linking concepts and
material matter; we can localize this interface as a mental setting
that determines how meaning is produced. This perspective marks
a shift from regarding non-knowledge as a lack of knowledge or
dataa gap that we need to compensate forto regarding it as a
resource in the process of generating new knowledge. (This view
also characterizes an avant-garde notion of new knowledge as
being disruptive in relation to what we already know.)33 As a link
between concepts and sensual appearances in the structure of schematization, the interface of known vs. unknown filters the construction of experience and meaning. This structure of knowledge can be
circumscribed by the grid of design methodology, and an awareness of it can be an asset in the design process.

Further, I point to a mechanism in schematization where the
unknown plays the leading role. In his work on aesthetic experience, Kritik der Urtheilskraft [Critique of Judgment] (1790), Kant uses
the flexibility of schematization in relation to judgments of taste.34
Judgment of taste operates without concepts; through the imagination, it might schematize openly without given concepts. It operates
in a search for concepts that fit the appearances.

The point is that imagination can perform the operation of
linking sensual matter with conceptual meaning in an open, nonteleological construction of the concepts involved. Thus, cognition
can entail an open search of concepts to fit a given appearance.

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Figure 2
Papton, folded paperboard.
Design: FUCHS+FUNKE.

35 Ibid., 198.
36 Ibid., 201.
37 Interview conducted with Wilm Fuchs,
Berlin, Germany, December 10, 2009.
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Kant aims at this possibility with his concept of aesthetic ideas,

which he sees as the kind of apprehension of the imagination
that entails much to think about, although there is no definite
thoughtthat is, conceptthat can be adequate to it, and which,
consequently, cannot be comprehended or made comprehensible in any language.35 Through the imagination, aesthetic ideas
exceed any given concepts; they produce a surplus and a multitude of ideas, conceptions, and apprehensions that may engage
in new combinations and connections, which paradoxically leaves
much unnameable [Unnennbares] to be thought of in relation
to a concept.36 To Kant, aesthetic ideas have two features. First,
they do not have a concept as their starting point. Kant speaks of
reflective judgment in opposition to determining judgment; the
latter serves to make sensual appearances and concepts fit symmetrically, while the former describes an open reflection on the sensual
without the determination of a pre-existing concept. Second, aesthetic ideas can be a means of relating to meaning beyond the
given, to Vernunftideen, by which he means transsensual ideas of
reason. In this sense, the sensual is reflected in concepts that exceed
normal comprehension.

In the context of design, we must focus both on the process
of exceeding given concepts and on the search for new ones to
fit the unknown. An example of this dual approach can be seen in
the German design firm, FUCHS+FUNKE. In many cases, the starting point of the firms experimental design in the dichotomy of
known vs. unknown is an inward meditation seeking to position
the design process as a search for the unknown. The intention,
according to partner Wilm Fuchs, is to discover cross-links or
intersections of the known and unknown, thus enabling something
hitherto not possible.37

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This approach is reflected, for example, in Papton (from 2004
and on; see Figure 2), an origami chair that is still in the process of
discovering its form. In many regards, Papton is a design in process;
based on the material constraints of a standard sheet of paperboard,
the design can be understood as an ongoing search for ultimate and
minimalist form by using the origami technique to produce a
chair.38 According to Fuchs, the design sprang from a basic idea that
operates as a principle for development by setting the direction for
the process of materializing the idea in new ways. One way of
understanding this search might be to see it in relation to an
implicit assumption of creating a perfect expression of form, where
the inside properties of the paperboard contain an ideal chair that
simply needs to be discovered and carried out in the design; the
design, then, would ultimately lead to the perfect, one-and-only
expression of form.

Another and more appropriate approach would be to see the
process as an example of Kantian aesthetic schematization, where
the concepts for the design (the principle of folding in the right
way) are continually explored in a process of infinite approximation. In this perspective, the ways of folding the paperboard all contribute to the open process of the non-teleological construction of
the concepts involved. The chair is the result of a mental setting of
openness toward the relationship between known and unknown.
By taking into account the fact that the solution to the problem
how to make the ultimate origami chair out of a standard sheet of
paperboardis developed in a process of infinite approximation
(the folding can always change slightly), the design process takes
on the character of a negotiation of the known and is given in the
material matter of the chair, and of the unknown, in the conceptual
construction of its form.

38 Further, Papton, echoes the Panton Chair

(1960) not only in its name but also in
its ambition to make a chair in one piece
of material.

Schematization in Process
Design is often a search for the not-yet-existing and never-beforeseen solution. From this perspective, the role of knowledge comes
into play in design processes: How do we search for the new without reproducing what already exists? How does imagination
exceed the limitation of being bound to what is already given? Or is
imagination simply a matter of finding new ways of combining
existing materials and creating a new synthetic order?

We might not ever solve the mystery of how we gain new
knowledge in design, but I propose two points: First, we can gain a
cognitive advantage by being aware of the paradox of knowledge
production and the role of imagination in design: We seek the new,
but all knowledge and imagination take their starting point in what
we know, and what is given. Thus, to seek something new, we must
consciously work within the constraints of the given and expand
them. Second, as a mechanism of imagination, schematization can

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Process of Schematization

Figure 3
Process of schematization in relation
to positions of the imagination.

Mode of Operation
Order
Concepts

Idealizing
Lead by Concepts

Absence

Virtuality

Known:
Design Solutions

Actuality

Dissolved Concepts:
Lead by Experiments

Presence

Ontology

New Organization
of Meaning:
Becoming of Solutions

Chaos
Dispersion

be regarded as a productive device for seeking the new and

unknown, thus making the unknown a driver for design processes.
In this sense, the notion of an open schematization without concepts can be combined with the model of imagination discussed.
Accordingly, I suggest a four-stage process of meaning formation
through different positions of imagination, as shown in Figure 3.
The four stages include the following:

1. The process of open schematization takes its starting
point in the upper right corner, where the domain of
presence and order designates what is given and known.

2. Next, the process aims at letting go of the present in a
process of negating to obtain a kind of order that
may not be present in real life (i.e., a tendency toward
idealization). Here, concepts are the defining factor:
Ultimately, concepts that are purified of any material
constraints are what create idealization. Concepts
might create a degree of order that is not present in a
real-life context.

3. In the pivotal moment, we must let go of the concepts.

The decisive point is the transition from the sphere of
order and idealization to the sphere of dispersion and
chaos. To let go of the concepts is to challenge their role
and effect and to avoid being controlled by the ordering
principle of the concept.

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4. In a design context, letting go of the concepts and
seeking the dispersion of meaning quickly leads to
a kind of material manifestation and a new organization
of meaning, as illustrated in the lower right corner. Thus,
the process can turn to concrete matters in the form of
open-ended experimentation with materials. Or the
design might try to make present and reflect the kind of
conceptual meaning by which it is structured.
Finally, after a detour into the land without concepts, the design
process returns to the sphere of the known and, potentially, provides new presence to a new kind of ordering principle. Hence, the
productive relevance of gaining knowledge in design progresses by
challenging its mode of operation and ontology and thereby seeking to let go of conceptual meaning. In many regards, this approach
is not new to designers experience; the design process often does
not begin with the abstract concept but with the concrete material,
even if the clients brief is conceptually anchored. My contribution
to the discussion is to describe the process in which a mental setting
is used that encourages an open schematization of the unknown.
Epilogue
Exploring the workings of the productive imagination can provide
insight into the workings of the tacit parts of the design process. In
this article I have aimed to relate insights into modes of imaginationthat is, to relate aspects of the human mind to elements of
meaning formation in design. In doing so, my ambition has been to
describe the effects of the imagination beyond the constraints of the
singular human consciousness. In the end, on the inter-subjective
level of processes in design, the human imagination really faces the
challenges of being truly culturally productive.

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