Designing Engineers (Inside Technology Series)

By Louis L. Bucciarelli

Book Overview

The products of engineering design are everywhere, but who or what determines their form and function? Their surfaces are usually cold, seemingly objective, as if they existed outside of history of the technologies that are so much a part of our lives. Written by a practising engineer, Designing Engineers yields clues to this mystery by probing deeply into the everyday world of engineering. In doing so, it reveals significant discrepancies between our ideal image of design as an instrumental process and the reality of design as a historically-situated social process that is full of uncertainty and ambiguity. This text describes the evolution of three disparate projects: an x-ray inspection system for airports, a photoprint machine, and a residential photovoltaic energy system.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262023776
• ISBN13: 9780262023771
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 0.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book on understanding design

I teach engineering design at a large state university, and this book was wonderfully written and entertaining. The author provides, through excerpts from three in-depth ethnographic studies, insights into how design is a negotiated process between many participants. This is not an engineering book, rather it is a study of the culture and daily lives of engineers. One caveat to this review is that while the book describes the design process and highlights its inherent uncertainty, one would likely need to have extensive experience with design to really appreciate all this book has to offer. Students and novices might find the book illuminating or might lack the context to fully appreciate the uncertain world-view the author presents.