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Evidence of D&T from our cultural heritage

Last updated: 13 Nov 2008

The national curriculum subject which we call 'Design and technology' actually comprises the personal qualities for purposeful and skilled activity which the human race has employed since time immemorial to:

  • create its environment
  • grow
  • harvest and prepare food
  • build living accommodation
  • devise creature comforts
  • harness the power of animals, minerals and the weather
  • express feelings through art and the creation of monuments
  • defend itself
  • maintain its health
  • achieve all other purposes involving the physical world

In more recent millennia, these purposeful activities have evolved, through both peace and war, to increasingly sophisticated levels through the application of experimental sciences and the development of practical skills in the use of natural and man-made materials.

In the 21st century man is reaching previously unbelievable levels of achievement. Space exploration is enabling us to understand the beginning of the universe. Electronics has enabled us to communicate with each other with increasing range and precision; equally it has enabled us to control our manufacturing, travel, financial systems and our homes and communities.

Our understanding of materials, their behaviour and methods of processing them has led us to be able to design and build structures, towers, bridges and vehicles which only a short while ago would have been regarded as futuristic and from the pages of science fiction. But designing and making is also part of the down-to-earth life of the individual, both in our working lives and our private lives. It is neither esoteric nor mundane.

From existing examples of prehistoric civilisations and anthropological evidence of ancient man's lifestyle it is clear that man has always been a practitioner of design and technology in the sense that we now understand it. What is more, it is evident that the great practitioners of the past, from Archimedes, Vitruvius, and the bridge, irrigation and water supply engineers of classical times, to Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Agricola, and the architects of the Renaissance period were, increasingly, developing and using the knowledge and understanding of the technologies necessary for their work.

More recently, from Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren and Isaac Newton in the 17th century and the canal and railway engineers such as Brindley, Brunel and the Stephensons of the 18th and 19th centuries, to the pioneers of electrical power and communications such as Faraday, Maxwell, Bell and Edison, the development of scientific understanding has become part and parcel of the evolution of engineering capability. Each one feeds off the other.

A major change in all fields of creative engineering has been the increasing opportunities for innovation and creativity brought about through scientific development. However, even now the scope for flair and imagination is enormous when science plays only a supporting role. Personal communication systems illustrate this combination and interaction of scientific advance, innovative design, and original purposes and contexts.

One of the consequences of these recent changes has been the enabling of the private individual to contribute to developments at the frontiers of knowledge and understanding, particularly in the fields of microelectronics and customised materials.

Thus the cultural heritage of design and technology should be seen both historically as a vital part of human evolution and currently as the means whereby man may monitor, control and develop his environment in the pursuit of health, wealth, welfare and happiness of the whole human race into the distant future. The understanding of this heritage must be part of the aims of education for everybody.

The opportunity to develop an understanding of, and a capability in using design and technology should be open to all, recognising the aptitudes, talents, and enthusiasms of the individual.



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