Abstract: “Cognitivism” pursues the design activities’ certainty from scientific studies’ models, but it misses the social orientation. So it is difficult to implement effectively in reality. Design methodology has turned from cognitivism’s paradigm to STS paradigm, which puts the design activities in social studies and reveals design activities’ social factors. The STS paradigm is not to criticize the scientific nature and autonomy of design in essence but to provide a new framework for the sociological analysis of design activities. The design of NanJing Yangtze River Bridge’s “clearance” shows that design and society are mutually constructed. On the one hand, the political and economic factors in society affect the construction and formation of design; on the other hand, design also reacts to the reconstruction of social orders.