DESIGN AND HETEROGENEOUS ENGINEERING: TOWARD AN ACTOR NETWORK PERSPECTIVE ON DESIGN

This paper seeks a vocabulary to study designers at work. The paper draws on STS studies of scientists and laboratories. A number of studies are explored in order to identify different points of attention in studies of science and in studies of design. It is argued that the notions in actor network theory of “following traces”, “heterogeneous engineering” and “programs and anti-programs” will be useful for the study of designers, but their potential has not been fully explored. Thorough investigation of texts of design work as well as an empirical case from a rubber valve plant in Denmark leads us to the notions of “mind”. Designing is argued to be successful when it takes place as mindful interrelating between numbers of entities of different kinds. The subjectivity and “biographical trajectory” of the designer are argued to be of particular interest in order to understand design work. The notion of mind is defined as being heedful to a number of entities. These points stand in opposition to the ideal type in science of constructing objectified inscriptions. Opposing those focuses leads to a discussion of the distribution of “regimes” in constructive everyday practice. Inspired by Latour (1998) the authors argue for a messy middle ground between a regime of science with the purpose of information transfer and a regime of design that produces a master narrative of the designer. Being mindful of identities, materials, machines, plans, customers and ideas is held to be the way designers stabilize networks and become successful.