Designing in the absence of sight: Design cognition re-articulated

•We question the strong attention to ‘visual thinking’ and sketching in design research.•We raise questions about how design research has been and is being produced.•We demonstrate the importance of allowing for alternative articulations of design.

Starting from the study of an architect who designs in the absence of sight, we question to what extent prevailing notions of design may be complemented with alternative articulations. In doing so, we point to the cognitivist understanding of human cognition underlying design researchers' strong attention to ‘visual thinking’, and contrast this with more situated understandings of human cognition. The ontological and epistemological differences between both raise questions about how design research is produced, and consequently what design can also be. By accounting for how a blind architect re-articulates prevailing notions of design, we invite researchers to keep the discussion open and call for an ontological and epistemological re-articulation in design research.