Establishing Design as a Discipline in Civil and Environmental Engineering

Design is considered to be a sub-discipline in many engineering fields which hire dedicated design faculty, organize design research and education communities, run deisgn conferences and publish design journals. Design as both a professional activity and a research field is at least as important in civil engineering, where changes to infrastructure and the built enviornment have far-reaching and long-lasting implications for society, the economy and the environment, as it is in other engineering specialties. But design has never been considered a discipline in civil and enviornmental engineering in the same way that it is in mechanical and aeronautical engineering. This paper briefly outlines the current status of design in civil and environmental engineering and other disciplines and some of the challenges for establishing design as a discipline in CEE.