Sociology and design can cover two separate kinds of social situation: the situation of designing and the people concerned with it and planning for it; and the situations for which designs are carried out — what might be called the user requirements area. I shall try to show how different relationships work by referring later to an example of the briefing of an architect of a large teaching hospital, in which I had a hand. This will show some of the kinds of problem which occur, though there will be some, such as the way fashions are initiated and catch on, which I shall not touch on.