13
LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA,
1996
Support from some friendsAmpelio Bucci
Strategies design consultant
From product
design to design direction
Is there still any need, today, for new products in our affluent nations? and does the need still exist for «well-designed» products? These questions, which only a few
years ago would have certainly been answered affirmatively, raise new issues
today. In fact, we might assert that the initial phase of the post-industrial
era has come to an end, accompanied by the achievement of two levels of saturation:
1. The first of these levels has been evident at least since 1985, in most production sectors. Here we are dealing with a quantitative type of saturation. Markets, in the affluent countries, are no longer in growth, remain static. In practice, each new product, in order to enter the market, must shoulder aside an existing product, taking its place. As a result, in recent years, the
design of new products has been predominantly oriented toward their immaterial
aspects: service, on the one hand, and aesthetics, on the other.
When needs have been saturated, new
products must stimulate desires. But the design of services and
product/services has, in many cases, gone beyond what actually serves.
Customers begin to reject such pseudo-services, and to seek simpler products,
those which truly respond to real needs.
Moreover, we can say that the eighties represented a boom in the consumption of aesthetics. Added aesthetic and multi-sensorial value was one of the favoured areas of design in many sectors: from the automobile to furniture and housewares, from domestic appliances to the fashion. Faced with and increasingly redundant, competitive supply of products, the criterion of choice is shifted toward aesthetic factors, which appear to constitute the only differences among products. 2.
But at this point, in the early years of the nineties, an ulterior, much
more complex saturation has developed: this is a qualitative, semiotic
saturation, regarding communicative, aesthetic, immaterial signs. The barrage
of forms, looks, images, colours, styles, novelties, in products but also in communications, information, advertising, has led to a decreased
interest, on the part of the consumer, in such aspects, a kind of «marmalade»
effect in which differences are confused, a form of «visual rejection» which
calls for repose, almost an ecology of the senses.
Thus in just a few years product
design, which was one of the most important strategic tools for the
manufacturer, has become an element which is taken «for granted». It is still «necessary,
but it can no longer suffice» as a means of creating a competitive advantage.
The type of product design which
focusses on function/service and the aesthetic form of products runs the risk,
today, of closing itself off, perfecting the range of existing products, and
further improving —without any real need to do so— their performance and their
image.
The achievement of quantitative
saturation required two centuries of industrial history, but semiotic
saturation has been achieved, in the affluent countries, in only the first two
decades of the post-industrial era.
Therefore, today product design is
faced with significant problems. In this new phase it must go beyond
superficial aesthetics, beyond a superficial conception of service, toward a
new level of quality. Therefore, today it is no longer sufficient to rely upon
product design for the strategy of differentiation, to operate only in terms of
design management. And this is especially true in a period in which the
sciences of management and organisation are in crisis, seeking new directions
for development.
The problem, today, is not that of
managing design; it is that of designing new corporate strategies. Creativity
and risk-taking capacities must be present, first of all, in management, in
order to find their way into products. On the basis of these considerations, we
believe that we are developing a new professional figure, which we call the
«design director», in which the capacities of vision and design are not
focussed only on products, but regard all the possible «ties of relation» among
the corporation, its potential clients and the living environment.
We have defined this new
professional skill as «design direction», the capacity to design corporate
strategies. Thus the design director represents a new professional figure
capable of mediating between classical management culture and the culture of
design and communication. The objective is to develop a design approach in
managerial activity: «corporate strategic design» rather than «product design».
A new managerial approach, operating
alongside the traditional deductive method (analysis/deduction/
strategy/action), in order to propose new design-oriented
(idea/design/testing/action). The leading companies today in the fashion and
design sectors, as well as others, all have a spontaneous design director, who
is often also the proprietor: someone who develops and articulates visions and
lines of development.
But today the time has come to
consider a managerial turnover, given the increased size of such corporations
and the increased complexity of the problems involved.
Today there are two priority areas
of operation for the design director: that of the personality of the
corporation, and that of relations.
Working on the personality of the
corporation means, first of all, understanding the role and the value of its
presence on the market, not in keeping with a logic of image, but with one of
identity. Therefore it is necessary to identify plusses, positive qualities,
the elements which constitute the strong, recognisable nucleus of the
corporation, justifying its existence, representing the values which form the
basis for the development of strategies and products.
Working on relations means, beyond
products, services, pricing, communication, etc., considering the encounter
between the system of supply and that of demand. Significance is thus
transferred from the product to the relation, from objects to relationships.
This encourages the proposal of products or services only when and if they are
realy needed, when they can actually be of use to someone. It encourages design
reasoning which follows through, all the way to the moment of exchange, progressing
from a static concept of «design» to a more dynamic, interactive concept of «designing».
Finally, considering relations in
these terms also opens the way for a new, more conscious type of design. A
design which will no longer be able to only deal with the non-needs, desires
and whims of the wealthy societies, but will also have to come to grips with
the larger issues of sustainability and —if it is capable— with some of the
true, pressing needs of the majority of the inhabitants of our planet
Emma Dent Coad Design historian
Object/subject
If you live in the middle of a dense forest, and if you have little knowledge of the outside world, it is hard to understand the notion of «forest». And the immediate concerns of main tracks, pathways, different types of ground cover, plant life, flowers, bushes and what is on the lower branches of trees, tend to dominate your life. Your experience of trees consists of what is prickly, what smooth, types of bark, types of leaves. Over your head the sky is simply something light and blue against which the pattern of branches can be discerned. The sky is not in itself blue, but you don't know that, tach tree is an independent unit, but you don't know that. What you cannot see does not exist for you. So it is in the world of design and
architecture. The immediate concerns of daily life obscure the sense of what it
is, and how it could be, and how it might be changing. Because you have to work
on your project, you cannot go to a lecture, you cannot read a book, you do not
have time to think. Your work suffers because your times is all output, not
enough input. Your concern with surfaces, obstacles and boundaries prevents you
studying effects, results and consequences. Because it is easier, you look
objectively, rather than subjectively. You produce objects, not subjects.
An object is passive. An object is
complete in itself, it could be a kettle whose cultural significance is more
important than its functionality. It could be a piece of graphics more visual
than legible. It could be a car designed for the city which accelerates too
fast and pollutes too much. It could be a chair that is not comfortable to sit
on. A chair is not intrinsically comfortable or uncomfortable. It can, only be
comfortable or uncomfortable for certain people to sit on at certain times. A
chair is not an object, whose functioning is vestigial. A chair is a subject.
A subject is active. A subject is
complete only in use, in relation to a human being. The end products of design
should be subjects, not objects.
One way to ensure this is to educate
our designers better. While technology may make it easier or quicker to write,
or to access information on a database or to communicate with others on
Internet, there is no technology yet available which makes it quicker to read,
or quicker to think. It is therefore up to the critics knowledge to the students,
rather than simply to make knowledge, and hide it in libraries for students to
find. The design of availability of knowledge for students should be
approached, not as an object which must be mastered or tamed or dominated, but
as a subject, in relation to human use.
And this may be the mot interesting
design problem we evet have to face.
Ezio Manzini Architect and design theoretician
The solid side of
a changing world
1. Matter seems to have lost its inertia and stopped placing limits on its transformation: form and function multiply, change, and continuously add on. The world of things no longer seems a solid support with lasting meaning, but rather a liquid in permanent change. Also, information and communication technology allow (and promise) the opening of a new dimension of experience in which not only matter but also space stop making up a barrier to the continuing variability of the world we face. The stability of memory itself is put to the proof by the extent of fiction, by the possibility of re-elaborating information and images and creating a potentially infinite variety of «credible» pasts, presents, and futures. All this can fascinate and frighten:
its anthropological and social implications make up a completely open subject.
The only certainty is that the process of consumating change can in no case be
denied or undervalued. New cultural instruments are necessary to face a new
phenomenon whose positive potential runs the risk of being eclipsed by the
negative. We can already confirm this: what was to be communication and,
therefore, an intersubject link is translated into a new sort of isolation;
what was to be information becomes noise. We discover that words and images are
consumed, become waste, and contaminate our language and our symbolic space.
2. But the matter we have described
thus far, dissolved in a variable flux of information, reappears at other
moments of our experience: the evidence of growing quantities of waste is
before our eyes and speaks to us of a matter which returns, mute and obtuse,
and reappears, weighty and lasting. A «used» material,
divested of the meanings of what it had meant, which invades our space and our
time, and is proposed as a tangible sign of the irreducible physicality of our
environment. Here, we discover that the fluid world of information and fiction
requires powerful scenery machines to work, that tey consume and are consumed,
and that all this is an immanent entropic system which absorbs resources and
creates degradation.
Our experience thus moves between
two contrasting worlds: on one hand the fiction of a reality without matter or
history, and on the other, an environment where bothersome and lasting residues
accumulate.
Faced with this contrast, the risk
is hiding in the former to avoid the latter, and forgetting that between the
immaterial world of information and the «dead matter» of residue, there is
another: the world of bodies, things, or images which change and transform, but
do so in times and ways compatible with our deepest human nature; that is,
living beings in an ecosystem, and cultural beings always searching for
meaning. This world of «living
matter», biologically and semiotically alive, demands permanence as well as
change, repetition as well as novelty, and solidity as well as fluidity.
3. The working hypothesis I wish to
propose is, therefore, the following: this intermediate world, squashed today
between the «inexistent matter» of fiction and the «dead matter» of residues, is the field where we must
concentrate our attention, the field where central questions are asked
referring to the construction of meaning and, thus, to the answers for problems
brought up by semiotic pollution, and also the questions referring to
preserving life and, therefore, problems brought up by physical pollution.
This first hypothesis call for specification. As I have said, the world of «living matter» is made up of changes and permanence. Figuratively, we can imagine it as a fluid entity with a solid component. My second hypothesis is that, today, attention must be concentrated on this «solid side»: the side being eroded by transformations taking place, that on which depth of spirit is built, and that which, by its nature, slows down consumption and reduces residues (both material and semiotic). In a world blinded by the promise of
immaterialism, reflection on the solid side of things can even seem out of
place and out of time. But perhaps this is not so. Perhaps it is precisely
here, at the discovery and revaluation of the «solid side» of things, where the possibility
arises of reconstructing its meaning. And of doing so without nostalgia and
ingenuousness. Knowing that the solid world of the past whose solidity was
based on the inertia of matter and traditions, no longer exists and cannot be
proposed, and knowing that solidity (of products, relations, and ideas) we can
pursue today is only the solidity of forms established in a context in
permanent change. A solidity which is no longer an intrinsical property of
things and thus, to exist, must be the result of an action with intention, a
project: the project of what has to remain so that the rest can change without
losing meaning and without destroying the planet.
Victor Margolin Design theoretician
The world is in turmoil. One way to make sense of this turmoil has been to construct models of the world situation in order to identify problem areas. A major effort of this tupe was initiated by the Club of Rome, which was formed in 1968. Its premise was to view the world as a system and analyze it as a whole. The studies of the Club of Rome, along with those of other international commissions have resulted in the promulgation of what I will can an «equilibrium model» of the world. The premise of this model is that the world is a system of ecological checks and balances which consists of finite resources. If the elements of this system are damaged or thrown out of balance or if essential resources are depleted, the system will suffer severe damage and possibly collapse. In opposition to the equilibrium model, world business and many consumers operate according to what I will call an «expansion model» of the world. This model postulates the world in terms of markers rather than nations, societies, or cultures. The differing agendas for social development that are central to the equilibrium model and the expansion model are not only in conflict, they are on a collision course that has already led to considerable fallout. The tension between these two models is extreme and must be addressed if we are to overcome the unattractive aspects of both. Equilibrists call unrealistically for a radical reduction of consumption while expansionists consistently minimize the precarious ecological state of the planet and the political dangers of increasing the difference in income levels between rich and poor. As a result, we are involved in a massive denial of the need to bring into relation the conflicting values of these two models. There is a vacuum in the development of ways to reconcile them which a rethinking of design practice and education may help to address. Design is the activity that generates plans, projects, and products. It produces tangible results which can serve as demonstrations of or arguments for how we might live. Design is continuously inventing its subject matter so it is not limited by outworn categories of products. The worlk expects new things from designers. That is the nature of design. Design incorporates methodological
techniques for devising productive courses of action. Good designers possess
honed skills of observation, analysis, invention, shaping or giving form, and
communication. By regarding design as a practice that ranges from visual
communication to macro-environments, we can endow the profession with more
flexibility as well as additional authority to engage with a wide range of
problems. When design is not limited to material products, designers can
intervene within organizations and situations in a greater number of ways.
Given the extreme difficulties of
reconciling equilibrist and expansionist differences at the discursive level of
ethics and values, it may be possible to move forward more fruitfully through
projects and products that demonstrate new values in action. These could prove
more inviting to the public than an argument that remains propositional rather
than demonstrative. The question that we who reflect and practice in the field
of design face is how to widen design's traditional sphere of action from
serving manufacturers to a more proactive involvement with the problematique of
the Club of Rome and other groups who are concerned with the worl situation. By
following this course, designers can seek through the art of demonstration to
reconcile the best aspects of the expansionist and equilibrist models and
thereby make an important contribution to the fruitful continuance of life on
Planet Earth.
Extracted from an article that was
originally in Stileindustria (Milan)
and in a longer version in Design Issues.
Alessandro Mendini Architect and designer
After the wild functionalism typical of times of technological progress, design has to face the conception and production of objects which give importance to private use, individual motivation, and even intimate evocation. But too often, the object is still thought out, designed, and enjoyed from the narrow limits of functionalist reduction. In this sense, objects only live as instruments and its objective horizons are curtailed by narrow finalities. Thus, we must recover and develop,
even in contemporary advanced design, that ancient anthropological matrix which
made use of objects according to ritual behaviour. Perhaps it is just that
matrix of «decorum», in the sense that each object requires specific «decorous»
gestures, a formality of movements, a ritualism of postures.
Some great cultural traditions keep
up this link with ceremoniality, and there is no ceremoniality which does not
foresee its specific objects. The Far East, especially, keeps up a clear
enthusiasm for ritual which combines religious and spiritual significance, and
takes great care of body gestures. The West, with a functionalist ideology,
places the ritual value and the ceremonial resonance on time, subtracted from
the object. So, today the effort to be carried out consists of re-introducing a
certain ceremonial slowness and a more mediative rituality into the
functionalist realm.
Objects must be respected while
going beyond instrumental limits, so as to turn into small discreet priests of
the many daily rituals which contemporary experience also needs.
Today's world fascinates and
frightens. Modernity is perceived as seduction and menace. As the world becomes
more uniform for science, technology, and information, certain movements and
cultures searching for traditional, ethnic, religious, and local identities
become more wide-spread.
The distance between media
integration and social identity widens till it expresses this conflict
violently. Consumption also has an ambivalent value: on the one hand, it is
searched for, desired, but on the other, it is fought against as an enemy of
social usage, custom, and tradition.
Today's world seems to be a
two-headed monster speaking two languages: one head speaks of technology and
consumption, while the other has a language of ethnicity and tradition.
In this context, the design project
can contribute to a reduction of the distance between abstarct scenarios of
late modernity and social imagination, progressively seduced by ethnic and
traditional identity.
A parallelism without conflict
between craftwork unity and serial industrialism; playful but not cynical use
of electronic and media instruments; reality reconquered for domestic use, but
without ethnic stereotypes; coexistence between technique and very new and very
old materials in anthropological eclecticism; a narrative multiplicity to enrich
and domesticate the menace of the technical universe. These are some of the
ways in which design can contribute to dialogue between the two faces of the
modern world.
John Thackara Director of the Nederlands
Vormgevingsinstituut
On design, connectivity and
sustainability
Although some people use «design» as a noun —to describe and object, a building, or a document— design can also refer to «processes» by which wuch things are produced, or the way things are organised. Design in that sense is as much about people, infrastructures, materials, energy, matter and information, as it is about «things». So when you look at the accepted principles
of sustainability —minimising
the waste of matter and energy; reducing the movement and distribution of
goods; using more people and less matter; they entail re-designing «Systems» to
make them much more efficient, much less damaging to the environment.
This is not exactly the same as
green design or eco-design. These tend to be concerned with so-called «end-of-pipe» activity —re-designing existing products to be
recyclable, or less wasteful. This is important work, but end-of-pipe is only
half the story when it comes to achieving sustainability. For that, we have to
design completely new ways of living —new products and new services.
The aim of our work here in
Amsterdam with the programme Doors of Perception is to explore scenarios in
which connectivity is used to dematerialise economic activity that damages the
planet. We are saying to a multidisciplinary audience: given known eco or
sustainability objectives, how might we re-design processes using information
technology as one of the ingredients?
Let me give you an example. Consider
the eco principle «Replace nationally and internationally produced items with
products produced locally and regionally». We know that information networks
can connect the maker of something directly to the user. We also know that
logistics technologies —the use
of information networks to optimise distribution and storage— have become amazingly
sophisticated. So we ask; in what way could we harness information networks to
the eco objective of producing locally, without requiring the world's
international businesses to shut up shop?
One of the themes that has emerged
strongly from our recent work is «Collective intelligence». The basic thrust of
information networks is to join up with each other, and people are asking
whether connectivity means that the sum will be grater than the parts. So we
ask: will the new communication networks help us achieve a new level of
collective intelligence, and if so, how?
Doors is about new uses for
multimedia and the Internet, but it is «not» about emigrating from this physical world
into cyberspace. On the contrary: the root of the eco crisis is that we do nor
take «enough» care of the planet. So one of our
long-term themes is about re-sensitising ourselves to physical things such as
our bodies and the planet.
In plain language, Doors of
Perception is about «turning ideas into activity» —although environmental policy makers use a
ghastly word, "Opcrationalisa-tion, to describe the same thing. Designers
can play a catalytic role in this literally «vital» process.
It is easy to forget how wide a gulf
separates thinking and doing in the environmental context. For twenty years
researchers, think-tanks, governments, and global organisations, have analysed
the eco problem. They understand only too well the nature and scale of the
dangers we face. But all this information somehow does not connect with the
world. It floats above us like a dark cloud in the sky. We know the cloud is
there, and half-consciously wonder if rain is on the way. But we don't change
our day-to-day behaviour, even if, intellectually, many of us know that we're
heading for disaster. In helping to know the world, and in helping to
re-organsie manmade systems, designers have a vital role to play.
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Sobre l'autor
AMPELLO BUCCI
Assessor
d'estrat è gies de disseny
EMMA DENT COAD ENZIO MANZINI
Arquitecte i Enginyer pel Polit è cnic de Mil à . Vice-president de la Domus Academy, de Mil à , i professor de Tecnologia dels Materials al Polit è cnic. Ha estat conferenciant en diversos seminaris i cursos internacionals.
Col·laborador en diverses revistes de disseny, ha estat autor, entre d'altres
llibres, d'Artefatt i i La mat e ria della invenzione.
VICTOR MARGOLIN
Professor d'Història del Disseny a l'Escola d'Art i Disseny de la Universitat d’Illinois.
Fundador i director de revistes de disseny. Autor d'American Poster Renaissance (New York, 1975) i The Great Age of Poster Design 1890-1900 (1975). Editor de The Art of Persuasion. World WarII
(1975), Design History Bibliography (Icograde, University of Illinois, 1987) i Design Discourse; History,
Theory, Criticism (Chicago,
1989).
ALESSANDRO MENDINI
Arquitecte, Fundador i Director de la revista MODO i Director de DOMUS.
Actualment col•laborador del grup Alchimia, Autor de Paesaggio
Casalingo,Archittetura. Addio Projeto infelice. Premi Corapaso d'oro i
membre del Comitè Científic de Domus Academy.
JOHN THACKARA Relacionat 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 JOAN TRIADÚ Al cap de 35 anys 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 Elisava TdD Plans d'Estudis 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 JULI CAPELLA, QUIM LARREA 35 anys d'Elisava. Una vida excitant 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 JORDI PERICOT Una permanent experiència pedagògica 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 Relacions internacionals 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 ANNA PAPIOL CONSTANTÍ El servei de publicacions 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 JORDI PERICOT Introducció 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 MARIA ROSA FARRÉ La reflexió dels professors 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 JOSEP MARIA MONTANER Fills d'Elisava 13 LA CULTURA DEL DISSENY, PAS A PAS. 35 ANYS DE L'ESCOLA ELISAVA, 1996 ENRIC BRICALL Elisava, la continuïtat d'una presència renovada |