Leonard Bruce Archer | |
|---|---|
| Born | 22 November 1922 |
| Died | 16 May 2005 (aged 82) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | Mechanical engineer, Professor of Design Research at the Royal College of Art |
Leonard Bruce Archer CBE (22 November 1922 – 16 May 2005)[1] was a British chartered mechanical engineer and Professor of Design Research at the Royal College of Art (RCA) who championed research in design, and helped to establish design as an academic discipline.
Archer spent most of his working life in schools of art and design, including more than 25 years at the RCA. He promoted the use of systems-level analysis, evidence-based design, and evaluation through field testing within industrial design, and led a multi-disciplinary team which employed these methods in practice, including most notably their application to the design of what became the standard British hospital bed.
He went on to become head of a postgraduate research and teaching department where he identified that scholarly inquiry in design was just as vital as it was in the arts, the humanities, and the sciences, and argued that design warranted its own body of scholarship and knowledge no less than conventional academic disciplines. He proposed that modelling be recognised as the fundamental competence of design, just as numeracy underpins mathematics (and literacy, the humanities) and he believed that – like both literacy and numeracy – it should be widely taught.[2]
Archer trained a generation of design researchers, showing them how the procedures of scholarly research based on well-founded evidence and systematic analysis were as applicable in design as in the more traditional academic subjects.[3] For design practice he argued there was a need for method and rigour, and for decisions to be recorded and explained so they could, if necessary, be defended. In the modern day, practitioners are familiar with these issues through the requirements of quality assurance, while in academia the Research Assessment Exercise has pushed even the art and design community into taking research seriously.
Archer's ideas were radical and pioneering, and the very existence of his research department – in an art college – controversial. It was his own force of character and his persuasive ability to argue his case with absolute clarity and conviction that ensured the department's survival, and provided him with the opportunity to demonstrate that design is not just a craft skill but a knowledge-based discipline in its own right.