Designing the unknown | C-K Theory Presentation from CGS Mines ParisTech on Vimeo.

While I found this video very hard to watch it had a great presentation of C-K theory or Concept Knowledge theory.

What is C-K theory?

C-K theory is targeted as a breakthrough approach for innovation and creativity. Lauded as a design approach which uses the interaction between the K or Knowledge space and the C or concept space. Some have found their findings have parallels between predictions and the results achieved within the experiments.  Described as a powerful tool to develop creativity in disciplines.

Why use C-K theory?

C-K theory has the potential to engender creativity within the design process. Creativity is described in this context as overcoming the fixation effect when designing.  The fixation effect is a set of rules within our own minds which we find difficult to change. Interestingly, when developing objects part of the fixation effect comes from our own optical illusions as well.

How do we overcome the Fixation effect?

We overcome the fixation effect in a couple of ways:

• We give a new meaning to a notion or object. This is giving a new interpretation of the notion or object.
• We create a new object by creating from a list of desired properties.

This can be done by a process of forcing (a mathematics concept from the 1960s) which provides a set of desired attributes for our new creation. We rearrange the attributes to get the properties we would like in our new creation.

C-K theory meets Forcing

C-K theory meets forcing when we have an undecidable proposition (e.g. a flying boat). Through the design process we add attributes that will be required for our new object (the flying boat).  We consider our current knowledge of flying and boats. By continuing to add attributes we are developing a space where new things are appearing, this moves from the Knowledge space, what we know and adding the attributes moves them from this space to the Concept space.

Conclusion

When designing we can either move from the knowledge space by adding attributes and moving to the concept space or start with the concept space and move to the knowledge space to gain the information we require to design the new object.

C-K theory has received recognition in the academic world.

 Supporting C-K

The information within the video is built upon in a paper by Hatchuel, where the authors presented industrial applications of a unified design theory. The article discusses the fact previous systematic  design principles don’t innovate at speed and could not adapt to our modern environment of radical, fast technology changes and the expectations of the consumer.

According to the authors, C-K theory supports design reasoning. It allows organisation through innovation in both science-based products and creative based products, very different fields which demonstrate it’s universality (Hatchuel, Le Masson, & Weil, 2004).

The authors also outline the ability of C-K theory to clarify tasks and teamwork phases and helps to analyse critical turning points in the project which may call for new team members, new knowledge, or other forms of project management (Hatchuel et al., 2004).

References

Hatchuel, A., Le Masson, P., & Weil, B. (2004). CK theory in practice: Lessons from industrial applications. Paper presented at the DS 32: Proceedings of DESIGN 2004, the 8th International Design Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia.