A problematic approach to the science of sustainable design

In industrialised countries the reduction of the consumption of resources is recognised as the first step toward sustainable development. Achieving this will require an economic change which divorces economic success from resource consumption. An emerging trend in design research that is directly concerned with such 'dematerialisation' is for businesses to realign their corporate strategies toward the selling of performance rather than goods through the design of product-service combinations. In such a 'service' economy products cannot be completely defined by an essential and eternal form because productservices change in ways that are unforeseeable to the designer. This paper considers that such an epistemological shift can be conceptualised, following the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) as the transition from an axiomatic to a problematic approach to design. This paper will develop and explain the differences and similarities between these two approaches and then draw out the implications for sustainable design and the relation between design and science.