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0 Master of Design MDes - Carleton University

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An Interdisciplinary Design Journal

FIELDS An Interdisciplinary Design Journal Volume 0, Spring 2012

FIELDS An Interdisciplinary Design Journal DIRECTOR Lorenzo Imbesi (Professor, Coordinator, MDes, Carleton University) SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE Rafik Goubran (Professor, Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Design, Carleton University) Thomas Garvey (Professor, Director, School of Industrial Design, Carleton University) WonJoon Chung (Professor, School of Industrial Design, Carleton University) Lois Frankel (Professor, School of Industrial Design, Carleton University) Bjarki Halgrimsson (Professor, School of Industrial Design, Carleton University) EDITORIAL BOARD SECTION COORDINATORS John Di Palma (Student, MDes, Carleton University) Miao Guo (Student, MDes, Carleton University) Natalie Shalmon (Student, MDes, Carleton University) ART DIRECTORS David Craib (Student, MDes, Carleton University) Vance Fok (Student, MArch, Carleton University) Ann Le (Student, BArch, Carleton University) Akil Worrell (Student, MDes, Carleton University) PRODUCTION MANAGERS Steph Bolduc (Student, MArch, Carleton University) Evan Mullenf (Student, MArch, Carleton University) Kehinde Oyelola (Student, MDes, Carleton University) PHOTO MANAGERS Vance Fok (Student, MArch, Carleton University) Phil Savignac (Student, MDes, Carleton University) Philipp Stäheli (Student, MArch, Carleton University) PROOF READERS Vance Fok (Student, MArch, Carleton University) Michael Grigoriev (Student, MDes, Carleton University) Benoît-Simon Lagaçé (Student, MArch, Carleton University) PUBLIC RELATION MANAGER Martine Gallant (Student, MArch, Carleton University) FIELD. An interdisciplinary Design Journal ISBN 978-0-7709-0553-8, Issue #0, Spring 2012 is published by: Master of Design MDes - School of Industrial Design - Carleton University Azrieli Pavilion, 1125 Colonel By Drive, OTTAWA, CANADA K1S 5B6. http://www.id.carleton.ca http://www.id.carleton.ca/graduate/about-the-mdes-program/overview-objectives/ Contact the Director: lorenzo_imbesi@carleton.ca Contact the Authors: sbolduc@connect.carleton.ca, dccraib@connect.carleton.ca, jdipalma@connect.carleton.ca, vfok@connect.carleton.ca, mgrigori@connect.carleton.ca, mgallan6@connect.carleton.ca, mguo6@connect.carleton.ca, bslagace@connect.carleton.ca, ale3@connect.carleton.ca, emullen@connect.carleton.ca, koyelola@connect.carleton.ca, psavigna@connect.carleton.ca, nshalmon@connect.carleton.ca, pstheli@connect.carleton.ca, aaworrel@connect.carleton.ca Printed in Ottawa, Canada

Contents EDITORIAL NOTES Challenging the Fields – Lorenzo Imbesi

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KEYNOTES Strategic Design: from Designing Objects to Designing Ideas – Loredana Di Lucchio The Designer as Social Entrepreneur – New Design Approaches in the Global Marketplace – Patty Johnson Designing the Services – Daniela Sangiorgi

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CONCEPT Graphical Symbols in Interface Design – Philippe Savignac Can Design Save the World? – Michael Grigoriev Interview with Emily Pilloton – Michael Grigoriev From Tool Craft to Meta Meaning - David Craib The Design of Information: A Timeline - David Craib The Lifecycle of the Built: Removing the Mechanics – Martine Gallant Quality Control Steps – Martine Gallant From the Inside Out - Steph Bolduc Interview with Markus Berger – Steph Bolduc The Organizational Power of Design Methods – John Di Palma Locating Transformation Design – John Di Palma

16 20 23 26 31 32 35 36 38 40 45

CONTEXT Places for People – Natalie Shalmon Dimensions of Public Design – Natalie Shalmon Strange Mutt – Benoît-Simon Lagacé Constructing Events – Evan Mullen Mark Fisher and Setting the Stage – Evan Mullen Mise En Scène – Ann Le The Structural Integrity of Design – Philipp Stäheli Interview with Hermann Blumer – Philipp Stäheli

48 54 56 62 66 68 72 75

OBJECT Retail Design: Innovative Technologies and Customer Experience – Kehinde Oyelola The Role of the Package Designer - Akil Worrell The Changing Role – Akil Worrell National Cultures and Automobile Design – Miao Guo Cross Breeding Grounds for Designing for the Senses – Vance Fok A Mind Map for Design for the Senses – Vance Fok

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80 84 88 90 96 100

SCHOOL NOTES A Time of Great Promise – Thomas Garvey 106 An Evolutionary View of Interdisciplinarity in Industrial Design – Lois Frankel 107 What is Interdisciplinarity in Design? - Wonjoon Chung 108 Interdisciplinary Design and Prototyping - Bjarki Hallgrimsson 109 Contributors 111

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INNOVATION PROCESS COMPLEXITY SCENARIO IMMATERIAL SCALES ARTIFACT KNOWLEDGE COLLAPSING OF THE DISCIPLINES TIME STRATEGIC DESIGN MANAGEMENT SERVICE DESIGN EXPERIENCE DESIGN INTERACTION DESIGN PARTICIPATIVE DESIGN SUSTAINABILITY TANGIBLE THE INTANGIBLE DIVERSITY MULTIPLICITY CROSS-FERTILIZATION CREATIVITY CONNECTIONS INTERDISCIPLINARITY THINKING DIFFERENTLY POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES CREATIVE PROFESSIONS Challenging COGNITIVE PRODUCTS HYBRID KNOWLEDGE INthe FIelDs INNOBETWEEN SOCIETY OF KNOWLEDGE VATION PROCESS COMPLEXITY SCENARIO IMMATERIAL SCALES ARTIFACT KNOWLEDGE COLLAPSING OF THE DISCIPLINES TIME STRATEGIC DESIGN MANAGEMENT SERVICE DESIGN EXPERIENCE DESIGN INTERACTION DESIGN PARTICIPATIVE DESIGN SUSTAINABILITY TANGIBLE THE INTANGIBLE DIVERSITY MULTIPLICITY CROSS-FERTILIZATION CREATIVITY CONNECTIONS INTERDISCIPLINARITY THINKING DIFFERENTLY POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES CREATIVE PROFESSIONS COGNITIVE PRODUCTS HYBRID KNOWLEDGE IN-BETWEEN SOCIETY OF KNOWLEDGE

EDITORIAL notes

Lorenzo Imbesi

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Design is changing its role in our contemporary society along the crisis of industry and the systems of production. At the same time, Design turns to be a critical activity looking towards innovation for the management of processes and strategic scenarios. Contemporary products come to be the result of complex projects, involving a number of expertise, skills and fields, while paradigms of industry and seriality can no longer explain the complexity and the plurality of the experiences connected.

On another note, Design has expanded its territories of action and developed its methods to the point to constitute complex and cross-border fields, while introducing a vast collection of objects, inventive projects, as well as highly specialized researches.

The transition from the old twentieth century “industrial design” to the contemporary “360 degree Design” has led to the multiplication and expansion of its fields of expertise. Design had to constantly innovate its tools and approaches in order to face a different scenario every time, in search of always producing new outputs on the line of innovation, while redefining its tasks and boundaries every time.

These are new roles to discover, inbetween material and immaterial factors, interaction and communication, service and product, experience and scenario vision, local and global, Design provides sense and direction to production, communication, interface, service, image, while reaching new challenges and playing new roles.

The Collapsing of Scales

The academic model developed around the disciplines of Design we have inherited until now, is the result of a process of cutting the project (and the reality we experience everyday) into scales.

The product designer shapes the small objects and artifacts of everyday life; the

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graphic designer draws the illustration or the commercial design of any twodimensional layout; the furniture designer looks after the movable articles to fit any built environment for living; the interior designer is the one who set the living spaces; then, the architect is the one who moulds the inner spaces and the built shapes; next will be the urbanist, collecting buildings into a wider organic layout and, again following an increment of scale, the landscape designer would be the one who is in charge to turn the built skyline into an harmonic scenario.

In the former cases, it does not seem to be the practice of design itself and the knowledge skills involved in the process of transformation, to establish the methodology and the tools to organize a discipline and a knowledge approach. Rather, it is the consideration on what is big and what is small, often even with the presumption that the first is more ‘complex’ than the second one – as if the project of a building would involve more features than a spoon, without mentioning the contemporary technological artifacts.

And in fact, it is just the multiplication of contemporary artifacts, many of them including very complex technological or social characteristics, to imply the gathering of different scales and the meeting of a large range of specialism. This is nowadays seriously undermining all the operational and epistemic borders we used to rely on our Universities and Schools.

Then, nowadays we may state how different disciplines are seamlessly blurring one into the other and this can be said even easier for Design knowledge.

Should a museum should be considered a deposit for absolute conservation or a place to access the communication of culture? Or furthermore, should packaging be considered a product or communication design?

Along with the end of the “Grand Narratives” (Lyotard, 1979), as we’re liv-

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ing an era of redefinition of the meaning of ‘knowledge’, we can state the collapsing of the categories, the scales, the fields: can we consider the project of a Nike shoe an industrial product, communication or fashion? Moreover, can we consider a website as a big or small scale?

Blurring

As a result, we can state a form of blurring of the disciplines according to the overcoming of the new technologies in every sector, which has repercussions both in the approaches, as in the methodologies and knowledge itself: can we consider interaction design connected with urban studies, architecture, product or communication? And what about info-design?

Moreover, can we consider communication just as a form of graphic design or as a directorial practice?

The blurring of the boundaries is also due to the collapsing of the disciplinary concepts that once were the flagships of Architecture (such as the concept of ‘scale’) and the question started to become already critical facing the huge mass production of the Ford T Model (just think about how this influenced not just the mobility of people, but the design of contemporary built landscapes in North America through highways and shopping malls).

In opposition to another idée fixe of architecture and to the static notion of space, the liquefaction of the borders is also due to the rupture of the axis of time.

This is finally imposing as a constitutive and leading parameter for the project, while being required in every form of planning and process oriented design, strategic design and design management, but moreover for the bursting of service design, experience design and interaction design, as well as for the affirmation of participative design and sustainability.

The emergence of the process in design in every form has given the chance of

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opening its borders not just in the hermeneutic or semantic sense, but also more factually in the everyday perspective as profession and as academic discipline.

The organization of time becomes the main material to design: with the entrance of digitalization in every sector of production, it is no longer the manipulation of raw materials as the main activity, but the management of the relations between the different actors involved. The designer becomes a knowledge worker who is dealing with signs and interfaces, but also the complexity of the organization and the management of any process of transformation requiring creativity and vision.

The action of designing itself is becoming indifferent to the shaping of the object to transform: form is still relevant, but it is just the crystallization of a number of activities coming together, where the designer assumes the role of facilitating and enabling the conversation between different disciplinary languages. Design becomes the science to make “tangible the intangible” connections between disciplines, rather than opening separations or including the differences.

An Un-Disciplined Discipline

While studying the birth of the discipline, Michel Foucault remarks how the encyclopaedic knowledge of the age of enlightenment resulted in the development of specialized practices through classification and objective categories in order to allow the division of knowledge: “the disciplines characterize, classify, specialize, allocate along a scale, divide around a norm, hierarchize and, ultimately, disqualify and invalidate” (Foucault, 1975). As a result,

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the disciplines coming with the modern societies take on the task of stabilizing the blurring shapes into clear and tidy geometries, normalizing the multiplicities, classifying the diversities, containing the change. The outcome is a catalogued and cataloguing space of knowledge, able to measure the differences and to map an increasingly mobile reality.

While connecting reason and imagination out of any “hard” and “pure” disciplinary border, Design is Un-Disciplined while looking outside itself and developing a hybrid way to investigate reality.

This is due to its proper nature of being ceaselessly “in-between”, dealing with knowledge and techniques from other disciplines, taking them into everyday life and translating into scenarios, communication, real and virtual artifacts, rather than elaborating its own principles.

Design always had the power to build relations with technology and materials, but also innovation and social practices; therefore its cultural evidence. Its specific complexity constantly implied a spread net of theoretical and methodological contaminations flanking design thinking through time. If innovation has to face the unknown, often hybridizing different factors and making connections which seem unlikely, design challenges the disciplines by opening structures and blurs the recognized borders of knowledge, often falling beyond the conventions.

Design develops a structurally open field, which is at the same time flexible and has no fixed rules or inner need to be defined too rigidly in its various divisions.

While contaminating skills and practising cross-fertilization, Design displays a

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large capability through creativity to allow the perception of diverse and unexpected connections of ideas. In addition, similar to the methodology of science programs, the proper way design operates is interdisciplinary and is out of the strict logics of the fields, playing out that kind of “thinking differently” from which innovation occurs. Then, Design becomes a boundary or border field without a given character: if this can imply some lacking of recognisability or identity, at the same time its flexibility empowers to face the challenges of the new condition of life, while developing new tools every time.

FIelDs is Mapping

Here comes the need to analyse and map the change that contemporary post-industrial societies are bringing into the creative professions, while developing new tools to understand the cognitive products which come to be more immaterial, informational and virtual.

FIelDs would like to challenge the disciplinary fields to understand the hybrid knowledge which is growing “in-between”.

Strategic design, service design, experience design, design orienting scenarios, brand design, design for social innovation, urban design, stage design, design for sustainability, critical design, interaction design, sound design, game design, packaging design, biodesign, public design, food design, etc., are just a few of the new hybrid areas coming from the merging of design with other fields of inquiry (such as anthropology of techniques, sociology of science, economy, marketing, socio-semiotic, cultural studies, knowledge economy, cybernetics, cognitive sciences, etc.)

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Any young designer cannot aim just to be a designer anymore, moreover she/he has to take a position in the new markets of labour and understand the kind of interdisciplinary profile she/he may develop for her/his own career.

Here comes the need to investigate the specializations which are multiplying in Design and which are increasingly more sophisticated and contextual, blurring each other without close and rigid divisions. Understanding the new emerging creative professions means looking into the plurality of languages and methodologies, which interact and make the Design field even more pervasive and articulated.

It is an exploration of a disseminated net of theoretical and methodological contaminations, which Design is experimenting, so implying the development of new professions, which are considered in detail.

What are the new scenarios of design and production along with the occurrence of the post-industrial society of knowledge? What are its epistemological assumptions? What are the new fields to be developed? What are approaches and methodologies?

References Bell, D. (1973) The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. New York: Basic Books.

Castells, M. (1996) The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Vol I, The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

De Bono, E. (1992) Serious Creativity. Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas. Des Moines: The McQuaig Group Inc. Foucault, M. (1966) Les Mots et les Choses. Une archéologie des sciences humaines. Paris: éditions Gallimard.

Foucault, M. (1969) L’Archéologie du savoir. Paris: éditions Gallimard.

Foucault, M. (1970) The order of things. New York: Pantheon Books.

Foucault, M. (1975) Surveiller et Punir. Naissance de la Prison. Paris: Gallimard.

Florida, R. (2003) The rise of the creative class: and how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. New York: Basic Books.

Gilmore, J. H. Pine, B. J. (1999) The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

Gorz, A. (2003) L’immatériel: connaissance, valeur et capital. Paris: Editions Galileé.

Imbesi, L. (2010) No More Lonely Heroes. From the culture of project to spread Creativity. In: “Design Matters. Designers too. Designers

Imbesi, L. (2010) Hybrid in Design. Design as a Cultural and Collective Process. In: “Borderline - pushing design over the limit”, Conference Proceedings of Cumulus Genk Conference. Katholieke Hogeschool Limburg, Media & Design Academie.

Imbesi, L. (2009) Design_Studies: Design inbetween Theories and Project. In: “Design Education 2050”, Icsid Design Education Conference Singapore 2009, Section Future Epistemology. Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore.

Imbesi, L. DESIGN POWER. (2008) Design cognitariat at work in the organization of the knowledge capital. In: “Design Thinking: New Challenges for Designers, Managers and Organizations”, Conference Proceedings of the International DMI Education Conference. ESSEC Business School, CergyPontoise, Paris.

Lyotard, J.-F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: Univ.

Of Minnesota Press.

Rullani, E. (2004) La fabbrica dell’immateriale.

Produrre valore con la conoscenza. (The Factory of the Immaterial. Proucing Value through Knowledge). Roma: Carocci.

Touraine, A. (1969) La société post-industrielle.

Naissance d’une société. Paris: DenoëlGonthier.

as Human Resources”, edited by Cumulus Think Tank Antwerpen: De Boeck.

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PROD U CTI ON B R A ND CULT URE STR ATEGY COM PA N Y I DENTI TY CO NSUME RS DES IRES M A R K E T I N N O V AT I O N C O M M U N I C AT I O N R E L AT I O N S H I P K N O W L E D G E C R E AT I V I T Y G LO B A L M A R K E T P L A C E S O C I A L E N T R E PREN EU R NEW TE CHNO LO G IE S INTERN AT I O N A L I Z AT I O N O F C O M M O D I T Y E T H I C S OF M A N UFACTURE DE MO CRAT IC D ES IG N CR A F T P R ODUCTIO N INDIG E NO US A RTEStrategic FACT S O CI AL DES IG N SPEDesign: CIAL IZAT ION MICR O- MA N UFACTURE RS GObjects LO BAL from Designing to D ES IG N C U LT U R E C ODesigning L L A B O Ideas R AT I V E A P P R O A C H SERVICE DESIGN VALUE CREATION INNOVALoredana Di Lucchio TION EXPERIENCE INTERACTION POLICY HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN PLATFORM URBAN TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT DSIGN THINKING PERFORMANCE CO-CREATION

KEYNOTE

Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Design, Technology of Architecture, Landscape, Environment, Italy

Until some time ago, there was a common sense of the word Design that was basically related to the production of objects. More recently, this word has been connected especially with those products with a high aesthetic quality, like furniture, fashion, cars; while the development of the rest of the products - in particular electronic devices - has been attributed to the engineering activity.

But, in recent years, due to a crisis/ complexification of the operational and cultural boundaries, the word design has assumed several meanings: not only it is in the collective imagination, but it is part of a wide lifestyle. Product design, component design, fashion design, lighting design, graphic design, web design,

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packaging design, eco-design, retail design, design management… Today, every action and any profession may be recognized as a design activity! And all of this can be justified if Design is recognized as a culture of ideation: if designer is the one who implements a creative action, from a known present to an envisaged future which is transformed by what it does.

Therefore, if according to the Latin root of the word, Design means plan, wherever there is a “plan” from an idea to a concrete action, in that extent Design happens. Along with this positive amplification of the Design meaning, we are also assisting to a sort of disciplinary displacement. In fact, the job of the designer is no more a coded profession and those who choose this learning path, may find themselves designing a website, managing a sales company or, even, organizing a cultural event.

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According to this large blend of knowledge and skills, there is also particular attention pad to the activity of the project which is not directly related to the material sphere of production, but to the immaterial one. In fact, in contemporary society, objects are losing their importance in relation to their technical and functional performances; they are increasingly transformed into concepts, communication and meaning. According to the so called ‘knowledge economy’ - an economy based more on communication than on production - the ultimate resource to challenge the current crowded and hypercompetitive market seems to be Creativity.

In this economy made of big corporations - which push their pervasive penetration in almost every sector - and ‘no-brand companies’ – which invest only to copy – a lot of companies are forced not only to maintain their market position, but above all to improve a cultural production, as they understand that functionally and aesthetically perfect products aren’t any more a certainty of success in the marketplace.

The knowledge-economy requires products and brands to hire a social meaning. This is the reason why new forms of mass communication are being developed within the processes of production and dissemination of products, leading to a form of innovation of aesthetics, languages and contents. In this regard, the creative act becomes dispersed in a form that may be called “low-design”, while offering new opportunities for designers, artists,

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copyrighters, marketers or for everyone who is able to operate in unusual and open fields of experimentation. This is a widespread activity that has been referred to as Strategic Design, which is a process of innovation all along the supply-chain, reaching the product through production, from reverse-engineering to communication, to corporate identity and marketing strategies, to the final product promotion and its commercialization.

Strategic Design develops every step of the product development in an innovative and creative way, where the imperative is not working in isolation. The required skills and capabilities are useful to interact in multidisciplinary teams, according to a versatile approach to creativity. Finding a market niche to head towards; evaluating the competitors and their strategies; envisaging a product that fulfils the consumer’s desires (even the unexpressed desires); making production consistent to the philosophy of the brand; or rather, building a new philosophy around to new product; launching and communicating this on the market; transmitting its values. Only then, the product and the company will have a chance of success, which ultimately depends only on the consumer’s judgment.

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This is what some of the brands that have become emblematic of our times, have done from the mid-nineties. Think about the anti-racism campaigns of Benetton which brought together every race and culture under its “united colours” (meeting the almost infinite range of coloured products); or the “think different” that Apple launched, which introduced a different idea of personal computer and, nowadays, a different concept of telephone. Think even to Starbucks that developed the same familiar “flavours” (from Canada to India!) which help us to feel at home anywhere in the world.

Therefore, it is no more a matter of product, communication or advertising; it is all together and something more.

They are “exercises in vision” with which companies envision their future in innovative, alternative, critical and creative terms.

It is the creation of special products, not because they simply offer new features, but because they anticipate peoples’ needs, create a possible world and offer a real dream.

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The Strategic Designer is a professional who can play a role in planning and managing the creative process and innovation. It is a character that has a very clear integration between the three components of brand’s value: products, services and communication. He can be considered someone who considers at the same time the identity of the brand and the consumer’s needs; which works with managers and technological researchers in order to define and evaluate marketing opportunities; which interacts with marketing experts and with sociologists to identify new targets and new needs; which collaborates with product designers, graphic designers and copyrighters to develop new styles, signs and identity.

This was the profession that Stefano Marzano has designed and experimented with their first project ‘Vision of the future’ in 1996, when he was head of Philips Corporate Design (PCD). This was a project aimed not just to develop ‘simple products’, but possible scenarios of usability that objects may provide. The same project that led Philips to a new brand philosophy expressed by the claim: ‘Sense and Simplicity’ (which was used for the first time in 2003, seven years after “Vision of Future”!). From the time Marzano founded the team of “Vision of Future”, Philips committed to designing and offering products which are built on the desires of people (designed around you), easy to use (easy to experience) and technologically advanced. Since then, these three

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concepts have become the heart of Philips mission: to improve the quality of people’s lives by introducing innovations that add value and ease of use.

This was also the profession of Martí Guixé when, in 1998 he began to work with Campers not only to design the corporate identity, but also its concept-stores around the world and all the communication materials (from gadgets to shopping bags), while focusing on the Camper philosophy: the emotional involvement of customers.

An example is the system called “Walk-in-progress” for the setting of the shops where, next to the stacked boxes on which the shoes are on display, there is a wall where customers can draw or write all their impressions with a red pen, the same colour of the Camper’s logo. Or else, the first project food-store profect opened by Camper in Barcelona called FoodBALL, where the customer is not invited simply to enjoy a new place, but a different concept of food, designed for social and nutritional habits of people nowadays. As another example, the hotel project called Casa Camper, still in Barcelona, designed as an oasis of peace in the chaos of the metropolis, while offering alternative and environmentally friendly accommodation with shared spaces and services for the families.

However, this is a profession that cannot be learned through a unique training course but that may start from different backgrounds, such as economic, design and sociological fields. Nonetheless it is

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also a profession that is enriched through the indirect knowledge of the occurrences, thanks to multiple experiences.

Therefore, Strategic Design should be considered not only a different profession, but also a different meaning of the same word ‘Design’: which means, in this scenario, a capability of unceasing creation and innovation. This is a capability that becomes a mindset, a different way of behaving and communicating, where it is necessary to subvert the stereotypical convention of design as “a styling feature”, where the result is the design of ideas.

References Antonelli, P., (2008) Design and Elastic Mind, U.S.: The Museum of Modern Art Brown,T. (2009), Change by Design, U.S.: HarperCollins Di Lucchio, L., (2005) Il design delle strategie, IT: Gangemi Editore Di Lucchio, L., (2008) Creativity&Business, DIID vol.30, IT: RDesignPress Dru J.M., (1998) Disruption, U.S.: John Wiley & Sons Godin, S. (2007) Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, U.S.: Penguin Gorb, P., Dumas, A. (1987) “Silent Design”, in Design Studies, vol.8 n°3 July Verganti, R. (2011) Design-driven innovation, U.S.: Harvard Business Press

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PROD U CTI ON B R A ND CULT URE STR ATEGY COM PA N Y I DENTI TY CO NSUME RS DES IRES M A R K E T I N N O V AT I O N C O M M U N I C AT I O N R E L AT I O N S H I P K N O W L E D G E C R E AT I V I T Y G LO B A L M A R K E T P L A C E S O C I A L E N T R E PREN EU R NEW TE CHNO LO G IE S INTERN AT I O N A L I Z AT I O N O F C O M M O D I T Y E T H I C S OF M A N UFACTURE DE MO CRAT IC D ES IG N CR A F T P R ODUCTIO N INDIG as E NO US A RTEthe designer FACT S O CI AL DES IG N SPE CIAL IZAT ION MICR O- MA N UFACTURE G LO BAL D ES IG N socialRS entrepreneur C U LT U R E C O L L A B O R AT I V E A P P R O A C H newVALUE design approaches in INNOVASERVICE DESIGN CREATION the global marketplace TION EXPERIENCE INTERACTION POLICY Patty Johnson HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN PLATFORM URBAN TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT DSIGN THINKING PERFORMANCE CO-CREATION

KEYNOTE

North South Project, New Caribbean Design, Canada

I believe the design guru is finally dead!

Contemporary design and craft practice is rapidly changing in response to new technologies, global marketing, environmental concerns and the internationalization of commodity flows and channels of production. Design, craft practitioners and researchers need to address how these social, economic and political shifts will affect the conditions of innovative production and distribution and how the “life histories or biography” of the objects they design and make will be received by consumers increasingly aware of the ethics of manufacture. Design and making need to be developed and promoted as positive engines of change in a context of contemporary cultural and social concerns.

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The modernist and utopian ideals of democratic design drive me. When I was a younger designer I defined this as accessible, affordable and pared down. But as my practise and research has evolved it has taken on a broader meaning and has come to include the idea that regional initiatives can sometimes rebalance the often lopsided free flows of globalization.

Many of my projects, like New Caribbean Design and North South Project, suggest that designers look beyond the individualism of Western consumer philosophies that currently drive craft and design practise to include investigations of craft production and indigenous artefacts in developing countries and to be inclusive of those partners and makers. I think it is especially urgent that craft practise takes on the issues of globalization and social design and renewable resources and

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sustainability. For example Ivelyn Harris makes extraordinary baskets in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. As a direct descendant of Nanny of the Maroons she seeks to combine traditional approaches with hand production to create an unusual contemporary object that reflects the historical and cultural biography of her region and peoples.

New cross disciplinary groups like the Danish art collective Superflex brings the skills of artists, designers, engineers and scientists to bear on the social and environmental problems and through an associative effort create lighting new programs that can change livelihoods for people.

Superflex takes these outcomes and exhibits them in galleries and museums.

I’m inspired by the idea that the best products of the next decades will be the result of a reconciliation of what have

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previously been understood to be opposition: specialization and generalization: the individual and the collective; globality and locality; the avant-garde and the popular. Everything relates to everything.

Accepting this without losing ourselves or sacrificing the quality of the things we make will be the great challenge.

Young designers and makers, the first generation of the information age, should be inspired by mobility and by the idea that they can work anywhere and combine the strengths of complementary groups to build new linkages, new cultures and new ideas. It is this smallness and the under dogged-ness of these manufacturers that creates for me a new energy in design – a fresh shot, a subversive frisson.

More urgently, I’m driven by the impact of a changing global design culture on micro-manufacturers like the Wai Wai in Guyana and I believe that these issues demarcate a contemporary frontier of craft and design practise. Cross-cultural collaborations and projects can provide a challenge to our common exclusion of things on the edge and help to protect marginalized communities from destabilising political and global market forces.

Above all I love that these collisions of culture can strike a new balance between redundancy and relevance and explore the friction between the “preservationist” view of the handmade as intangible heritage and its real status as living tradition, and therefore, inherently and constantly innovating and adapting. And I love the creativity and resourcefulness that you can see in the most difficult of places

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and circumstances. The immediacy and simplicity of these scenes are part of those free floating ideas and images that all designers carry around with them that at some point synthesize through the design process to re emerge as a new product.

I am interested in the interchange between research and design, and, commerce and culture. And so are many of the people I work with. Their dedication to research, design principles, and, their willingness to share knowledge with other groups often make them models of best practice principles. So, if sometimes designers and makers have assumed that the nature of “first world” practise and problem solving is appropriate for application in all situations with little regard for the local context, the people I work with are there to remind us that good product frequently does not just begin with market research and that a collaborative approach can re-invigorate the design process.

I think three of the most important issues which face the global community as we enter the new century are unemployment, the exploitation of labour and the environment. If the great thinkers and motivators of the Arts and Crafts movement were still with us, these are the issues they would focus on. And I think we should too. Western approaches can often overlook the values of the other “90%” as the Cooper Hewitt exhibition proclaimed. The other 90% where in the

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real futuristic world we live in everything is indeed made by hand. Historically in the “West”, design education has trained practitioners to operate autocratically as key decision makers in the development of products in very much a “top-down” process. The limitations of this approach are clear, especially in relation to craftbased economies, and, historical and social structures in other places.

My experience designing for these manufacturers and creative communities is one of the most enriching of my life and profoundly changed the way I think about design. The exchange has been a rich one.

It is my belief that craft and design practitioners need to urgently address real world issues and place these new engagements within broader debates regarding sustainability and ethical production, micro- economies and livelihood, and contemporary practise and globalisation. I learned that people-centred design has a middle component, living between ethnography and interface. Hand manufacturing is the reality in much of the world, and designers, sitting at their desks sending off PDFs to unknown destinations, may be a modern paradigm, but ultimately a hollow one. I would encourage designers to go and visit where their products are made, and, especially, with the people who make them.

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PROD U CTI ON B R A ND CULT URE STR ATEGY COM PA N Y I DENTI TY CO NSUME RS DES IRES M A R K E T I N N O V AT I O N C O M M U N I C AT I O N R E L AT I O N S H I P K N O W L E D G E C R E AT I V I T Y G LO B A L M A R K E T P L A C E S O C I A L E N T R E PREN EU R NEW TE CHNO LO G IE S INTERN AT I O N A L I Z AT I O N O F C O M M O D I T Y E T H I C S OF M A N UFACTURE DE MO CRAT IC D ES IG N CR A F T P R ODUCTIO N INDIG E NO US A RTEdesigning the FACT S O CI AL DES IG N SPE CIAL IZAT ION MICR O- MA N UFACTURE RS G LO BAL D ES IG N SERVICE C U LT U R E C O L L A B O R AT I V E A P P R O A C H Service design SERVICE DESIGN VALUE CREATION INNOVADaniela Sangiorgi TION EXPERIENCE INTERACTION POLICY HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN PLATFORM URBAN TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT DSIGN THINKING PERFORMANCE CO-CREATION

KEYNOTE

Lancaster University, Imagination Lancaster, UK

The concept and role of services in the economy and society had gone a long way since its first definitions and studies.

Services moved from being the dark side of a manufacturing-centred economy, to become an engine for the growth and development of nations to lastly being described as a new way of thinking for value creation and innovation.

The recent development of Service Design as a subfield of Design, mirrors this evolution. Service Design emerged in the ‘90s as a contribution to a changing economy and to what a certain group of informed scholars in Italy, UK and Germany started to describe as a new design agenda. Since 2000 Service Design emerged as a profession, with the

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first service design studios opening in London (Livework and Engine) and an international network of academics and practitioners organizing various initiatives to develop this emerging field: Service Design Network, Service Design and Innovation conference (ServDes), Service Design Research blog, Service Design Drinks, etc.

UK has been in a leading position in the development of this field, mainly driven by design practitioners (Engine, Livework, Think public, Participle, Snook, etc.) and organizations such as the Design Council, Demos, Young Foundation, NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement.

At the moment in the Service Design Network there are more than 70 design agencies registered as practicing (or declaring to practice) globally in vari-

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ous forms Design for Services. In reality Service Design is a necessary evolution of existing fields of Design like Interaction Design, Experience Design, or Product Design that, because of the current nature of business and innovation, have to deal increasingly (in some way) with designing for service offerings.

In a recent publication (Design for Services, edited by Gower), together with Anna Meroni, we identified – based on a number of case studies - four possible job profiles or specialisations in the growing field of Service Design. These profiles should be understood as descriptions of possible roles within both design studios and/or organizations. I report below some extracts from the book:

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“Designer for service experiences: designers can work for and within organisations to observe and evaluate service experiences and interactions as a way to improve existing services or suggest new functionalities and ideas. They work to engage users and staff within service improvement processes, designing the conditions that will stimulate more empathic interactions among service participants […]

Designer for service policies: when designers enter in a more strategic position, they can contribute to the development of a more human centred design approach to service development and innovation.

Their work is to verify that organisational policies and configurations are in line with people’s experiences and demands. They can work to improve service interactions (at different levels), suggesting minor or radical changes to existing business models and service configurations […]

Designer for service transformation: designers can work with institutions, communities and/or service organisations to foster and experiment with new service models that rely on more collaborative and democratic patterns […] Designers here facilitate the shift toward this new paradigm by creating platforms and tools for collaboration to engage people in cooperative actions and to prototype new ways of doing and living […]

Designer for service systems development: designers can support urban and territorial development agencies and institutions as well as single organisations in imagining future directions for their sector and/or region. Designers work with local communities to generate visions of the future, introducing design thinking methods and imagining new services as a way to translate wide scenarios into everyday life experiences” (Meroni and Sangiorgi, 2011: 211-212).

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Recently from an organizational perspective the distinction between products and services is losing significance as the real focus is becoming one of designing for valuable and meaningful ‘offerings’, these often being a mix of tangible and intangible goods. In this sense the focus is not on what the firm produces as an output but how it can better ‘serve’ customers. Services are then becoming a way to generally describe the act of co-creating value among various stakeholders. In this sense designers – experts in thinking in terms of services, meaning interactions and performances – could use their capabilities in a wider sense. Designers can work with any kind of organizations to deepen their understandings of where value is actually co-created, to support them to actively look out for it and to reframe their offerings around it.

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Social Innovation Participatory sponsibility Research Co-Design tional Development Sustainability nities A id T ra N sformation Organizational Strategic Design Activity Design Thinking Management rience Design Intelligence Consultancies Methods Activity Involvement Ecodesign sive System Lifecycle Renewable Form Performance Durability I plinary Design Process Strategies Thermal Quality & ComforT Interior tecture Flexibility densify interiors act structured adaptive micro accommodate integration adaptable metric re-use re-programmed configura tions modifying intersection transforma tion diversity typologies Human interaction Ethnography Meanings cal Symbols Values Meanings Semiotics aphors Human Computer Design Interactive Design INFORMATION DESIGN COMPRE TY INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION GRAPHIC D TISTICAL DESIGN INFORMATION ARC C O R R E L AT I O N M U LT I V A R I AT E D A 14

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Design Reesign Internaustainability Commusformation D esign esign Design anagement Expeonsultancies codesign Pasenewable Energy Interdiscitrategies Balance nterior archiinteriors intermicro-urban adaptable voluconfiguratransformauman-compUter eanings Graphiemiotics Metnteractive EHENSIBILISTRUCTURE DESIGN STACHITECTURE ATA S C A L E FIELDS

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CONCEPT

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Human-compUter interaction

GRAPHIC SYMBOLS IN INTERFACE DESIGN Philippe Savignac

Graphical symbols play a key role in Human Computer Interaction as a form of visual communication; but designing effective graphical symbols is not a convoluted task. Therefore, designers take into account numerous factors such as shapes, colors and sizes, while understanding the cultural content behind symbols in order to create more meaningful and effective solutions for the user. Is there such a thing as a universal design solution or guidelines appropriate for all users when designing graphical symbols for HCI application?

What is HCI? Human Computer Interaction Design: employs the study, planning and designing of interactive digital products, systems and services which deal with the interaction between the user and the computer, often achieved through a digital interface. Because human-computer interaction studies a user and a computer in conjunction, it draws from supporting knowledge on both the user and the computer side. On the computer side, techniques in computer graphics, operating systems, programming languages, and development environments are

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relevant. On the user side, communication theory, graphic and industrial design disciplines, linguistics, social sciences, cognitive psychology, and human factors such as computer user satisfaction are relevant.

Due to the multidisciplinary nature of HCI, individuals with different backgrounds contribute to its success.

This article will focus on the graphical elements found in HCI application which draws from graphical design, cognitive psychology and anthropology.

Going back to our main question; Is there such a thing as a universal design solution or guidelines appropriate for all users when designing graphical symbols for HCI application?

According to Audrey Bennett, this is no longer applicable since “Universal design solutions were sought to solve universal needs across cultures” (Bennett. 2006). This universal design process was seen as a method to make one design solution appropriate for all users. In his Book Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design, Bennett states that there is no such thing as universal design when it comes to designing graphical symbols in today’s society of mass production and multicultural. Due to society, the change went from universal design to user centered

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What are graphical symbols?

> Figure 1: Pictogram

design, where designs are now tailored and channeled to meet the users need. The challenge now for designers who are creating graphical symbols for HCI application is to take an anthropological approach to understand people’s needs and values, to create graphical symbols that have meaning and value to the user.

Graphical symbol’s role is also capitalized on their information-carrying capability by unifying individual symbols into a collective metaphor. Therefore the symbols in an interface have a form which corresponds to actual objects in the real world, with which users are familiar. The metaphor uses the established attributes and associations of the real word objects, carrying them over into the model of the system presented to the user in a form of an interface. However, this approach can only be applied in circumstances where the real object and system objects all coincide in some way.

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Graphical symbols are one of the oldest forms of visual communication and have been evolving as long as humans have been. Cave paintings found in the cave system are some of the oldest references to visual communication. Now, icons used in HCI are a fairly new form of visual communication. There are many different types of graphical symbols.

Pictograms: a pictogram is an image that represents an object. Therefore they are used for conveying information through visual languages which users are able to understand regardless of their native language. Meaning that anyone familiar with the symbols used should understand the object it represents.

Rebus: a rebus is a pictorial image which represents a spoken sound. The IBM rebus is an example designed by Paul Rebus.

^ Figure 2: Rebus

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Ideograms: an ideogram is a symbol representing an idea or message. The ideogram illustrated below demonstrates the danger of tipping a vending machine Logos: logos are symbols that people are more familiar with due to their popularity and familiarity. A logo is a symbol used by companies or individuals with which they want to be recognized by. In order for a logo to be successful, the logo must be competitive; therefore the symbol being used must create a positive association with the consumer. This is important because the symbol is crucial in how the consumer classifies the logo, which will determine if the consumer will choose to interact or not with the logo chosen by the company.

The following are five things to consider when incorporating symbols in logos and brands. The first is storytelling: choosing a symbol that tells a story is important since not all symbols are created equal. It is important to choose a symbol that conveys a clear and concise representation. The second element is the international perspective: what a symbol represents in one culture, may not be what it represents in another. This is to avoid misinterpretation of symbols .The third

is the conflict of interest: since a symbol represents an idea, avoid using multiple symbols that represent conflicting ideas.

Fourthly, clarify the communication: a logo should communicate something; therefore it is up to the client to determine and the designer to execute. The designer needs to be careful to express that idea well rather than many ideas poorly. Finally the fifth element is symbols that interact: “Everything that visually represents the company comes to define it. This is the general idea behind the brand and its logo.

The hope is that people understand who the company is and want to incorporate the brand into their lives”. The designer’s responsibility is to be able to recognize how the symbol will affect the overall impact of the logo (Guerrini, 2010).

The final form of symbols in discussion are icons, made popular by Susan Kare (designer of the Macintosh interface), they are “The visual language of point-and-click” icons in human computer interaction using pictographic symbols to represent objects in a computer system.

An important feature of icons is that they may be used to indicate characteristics of the system’s object by sharing graphic elements, even in the event where the user is unfamiliar with the icon. Unlike texts or commands, icons provide a more usable dialogue due to their capability to carry better descriptive information using the same or even less real-estate on the display screen.

^ Figure 3: Ideagram

^ Figure 4: Logos

^ Figure 5: Icons

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Metaphor and semiotics when designing icons

One method of icon design is capitalized on their information-carrying capability by unifying individual icons into a collective metaphor. Therefore the icons in an interface have a form which corresponds to actual objects in the real world, with which users are familiar. The metaphor uses the established attributes and associations of the real word objects, carrying them over into the model of the system presented to the user in a form of an interface. However, this approach can only be applied in circumstances where the real object and system objects all coincide in some way (Gittins, 1986). Metaphor is itself a semiotic sign providing meaning obtained from what is referenced. Semiotics is the study of signs and sign processing. According to Littlejohn, “semiotics focuses on the way the producers create signs and the way the audiences understand those signs (Littlejohn, 1999).

Meaning and value

Symbols can be interpreted to have different meanings among different cultures and can be used to express different ideas to different people. Designers are trained to understand each of the users by understanding their values and speak and read the consumer’s language, even in the literal sense. “Specialized consumers often communicate in vernacular languages or technical jargon. Rhetorical styles vary radically from low key to in your face, from colloquial to formal. This is true for visual style languages and symbolic visual codes as well” (Bennett, 2006). If

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References

^ Figure 6: Metaphor

designers are to create meaningful and resonant graphical symbols they must give appropriate new character to a more varied, idiosyncratic and even eccentric design expression.

To be able to understand the user’s value, design has discovered ethnography. Designers have now incorporated ethnographic research methods in their design process. However, designers have a narrower and somewhat different meaning for the term ethnography than most anthropologists (Wasson, 2000). With designers the ethnographic research is done quickly and “given less theoretical contextualization, than on academic projects” (Wasson, 2000). Since anthropology is the study of humanity, this brings up a new area of understanding people’s cultural background, thus creating new meanings with the use of symbolism in HCI design.

Design and anthropology both have to do with getting involved in social settings and the gathering of data. There are different levels of intervention in the field with users, but design is always a social activity.

Involvement in situated practice is about people and their activities, and understanding ones social intervention through a piecing-together.

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Bennett. A (2006) Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design. pp200 – 205 DesignBoom. (2011) laduma ngxokolo: xhosainfluenced knitwear http://www.designboom. com/weblog/cat/8/view/13705/laduma-ngxokolo-xhosa-influenced-knitwear.html Accessed March 18th, 2011 Desmet (2002) Designing Emotions, Doctoral Dissertation presented at: Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, http://www.designingemotion.nl: Accessed September th, 2010 Feijs. L (2008). Design and semantics of form and movement. pp 50-56 Gittins D, (1986) Icon-Based Human-computer interation, Human-Computer Interface Research Unit, Department of computer studies, University of Technology, Laughborough. UK Guerrini. S (2010). Symbols & Its Impact in Logo Design, http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/symbols-impact-on-logo-design. Accessed March 20th 2011 Littlejohn S (199) Theories of human communication Russel (1980) A Circumplex Model of Affect, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, No. 39, pp. 1161-78.

Sperschneider.W, (2001) Design Anthropology – When opposites attract, pp 1-2.

Teng. C, (2007) The Appraisal Factors and Evaluation of Emotional Design, International Association of Societies of Design Research, (pp.1-14) Wasson.C (2000) Ethnography in the Field of Design. Human Organization. The Society for Applied Anthropology vol 59. No 4

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Design for Social Innovation

Can design save the world?

Michael Grigoriev

The growing interdisciplinary relationship between the world of design and social innovation has led to new opportunities, responsibilities, and challenges for the designer to better understand how their processes can be employed to spark meaningful, positive social change. Design cannot escape responsibility for the current state of affairs and challenges we face as a society, and as a result must embrace its intrinsic abilities to create powerful social impact.

“There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few of them” (Papanek, 1972).

These harsh yet prophetic words were spoken in Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek, one of the first philosophical advocates for the social and ecological responsibility of design in shaping our world. He describes design as the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environment, yet criticizes design for using this power to put murder on a mass-production basis. According to Papanek (1972), designers share responsibility for nearly all of society’s products and tools, and as a result all of our environmental mistakes.

Papanek isn’t alone in his criticism of design. Ezio Manzini, one of the eminent speakers and thinkers on the role of Design in Social Innovation and Sustainability muses that designers have been, and still are “part of the problem” with the present conditions of our planet and the catastrophic nature of changes

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that are still ongoing (2007). He is one of a growing legion of thinkers calling for design to not only own up to its ability to harm on grand scales, but improve on grand scales as well (Papanek, 1972). As Victor Margolin (2007) puts it, design is in a unique position and must begin to “occupy the space between the world that is and the world that could be”.

If design helped get us in this mess, can it help get us out?

Just as design shares responsibility for the growing crises of our time, it has the ability to devise solutions to those very same issues it helped create. While the world’s issues become increasingly polarized and magnified, designers stand to become part of the solution. As Manzini puts it, it is within design’s genetic code, its raison d’être to improve the quality of the world. Designers above all others take into account the everyday relationships of human beings with their artefacts and as a result they possess the tools that are needed to help shape the future with these services, scenarios, systems and objects (Manzini, 2007). The designer’s build-and-fix instincts that Emily Pilloton discusses in her influential book “Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People” must begin to address and heal these global social issues as they take on greater urgency.

It is with these considerations and call for action that a growing field is emerging within the design world.

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Introducing Design for Social Innovation

Design for Social Innovation is a maturing field that is born from shifting the efforts of designing solely for consumerism towards the process of using design to address social, cultural, economic and environmental challenges. It is practised by individuals, groups, or organizations to varying degrees of effectiveness and ultimately seeks to shift perceptions and behaviours for positive change. The field is broad, and seeks to apply the designer’s abilities, insights, and sensitivities towards more socially beneficial ends while we struggle with societal challenges that are constantly growing in complexity. It is generally appreciated that the role of a designer must shift from that of an operator who develops for a final user, towards one who acts within a more complex network where the client may be an institution, a local authority, or a community (Manzini, 2007). As such, it becomes critical for design to consider itself part of the community it is collaborating with, rather than attempting ill-advised ventures of researching and designing remotely.

While society as a whole is beginning to shift its efforts and abilities towards social and environmental goals, many challenges exist with regards to determining appropriate ways of applying this ambition in the most effective manner, particularly in the field of design. This growing excitement surrounding design for social innovation requires an introspective look at the core issues that exist, namely:

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^ Bertie County Farmer’s Market, Emily Pilloton and Studio H, USA, 2011

1) A lack of accountability in social design initiatives and outcomes 2) Ambitious designers lacking necessary knowledge to guide their passion 3) Empathy gaps between program administrators, designers, and beneficiaries Design has an undeniably significant role to play in shaping a more harmonious and sustainable future, yet we are still coming to grips with what specifically designers have to offer, and in what ways they should apply these abilities to Social Innovation. In the second part of this series on Design for Social Innovation, Emily Pilloton, a leading practitioner and educator on the topic shares her thoughts.

References Manzini, E. (2007). Design, social innovation and sustainable ways of living. Milan: DIS Indaco.

Margolin, V. (2007). Design, the Future and the Human Spirit.

Design Issues, 23(3), 4-15.

Papanek, V.J. (1972). Design for the real world; human ecology and social change. New York: Pantheon Books.

Pilloton, E. (2009). Design revolution: 100 products that empower people. New York, NY: Metropolis Books.

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^ HippoRoller, Johan Jonker and Pettie Petzer, South Africa ,1991. www.hipporoller.org

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Interview with Emily Pilloton Michael Grigoriev Many individuals, firms, organizations, and NGO’s are beginning to appreciate the potential of design to foster social innovation, yet few are as informed and culturally attuned as Emily Pilloton and her organization Project H Design. With an educational background in design and architecture, Emily was frustrated with the design world’s scarcity of meaningful work. Knowing that when design combined with other disciplines it had the power to genuinely change the world she founded Project H and wrote the book “Design Revolution”. Project H is a nonprofit organization that seeks to develop effective design solutions for communities that need it most by focusing on integrating design into education. Her book “Design Revolution” showcases 100 products that are examples of humanitarian product-design with an emphasis on empowering people.

More recently, in 2010 Emily ran a Design Revolution roadshow, where she brought 40 humanitarian design solutions on an America-wide traveling exhibition and lecture series to 35 high schools, universities, and cities. The goal of the roadshow was to demonstrate the tools of design for social impact in an attempt to enable and empower the next generation to apply their skills to the world’s most challenging issues. Her work with Project H now has her teaching design to high school students in one of the poorest and most rural communities of North Carolina, Bertie County. She has spoken at

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TED in 2010, and has even been a guest on The Colbert Report.

Emily has been kind enough to find the time in her hectic schedule to share her perspective on the role of Design in Social Innovation.

MG: In your words, how would you define social innovation, and why do you feel design is well-suited to incite it?

EP: For me it just boils down to using whatever tools or skills you are trained to use, with the intention of creating social impact. I think the key is intention, and that you’re going into your own work with the specific goal, or one of your metrics being social impact. Whether that’s economic or human rights or any other type of social element, you’re using whatever you have in your toolbox specifically for social purpose.

I think design is well suited to be a tool for social innovation, but with a caveat. In order for design to truly make long lasting social impact it has to be a catalyst with something else. I don’t think that design single-handedly is necessarily the be-all end-all answer but I do believe it is most powerful when combined with unexpected other disciplines like public policy, education or global health. I’m particularly interested in how design butts up against these other non-design fields and the power that the fields have in combination to address social issues.

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> Figure 3: Emily Pilloton

MG: Since the publication of your book “Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People” how do you feel the field of Design for Social Innovation changing?

What indications are you seeing that we might be turning a corner as a society towards finally beginning to address the pressing social issues that we are faced with?

EP: I see the biggest change in design for social innovation being the sheer number of people who are coming to it and seeing that there is value in it. There is more attention, effort, and interest in this field of design.

I don’t know whether we’re getting better at it, or not. I hate to say it, but a lot of the work is not great and if we’re designing with and for groups that have a lot on the line when looking at public health, or water supply and safety, these are life and death situations.

Because of that we have to have a higher standard for what our designs can do and not just sketch something mediocre and say “It’s good enough for them”. I think it’s very dangerous. While some groups are really starting to hone in on the metrics and the requirements for doing this type of work, as a group we need to get better about being far more critical of ourselves. Not just saying “Oh we’re doing this for the greater good”. Yes we are, but we actually have to be much more critical of it than any other type of design.

I also see a change in the number of design students and young designers coming out and wanting to do this type of work. When I was in Graduate School, no one was doing it. We were just starting to talk about sustainability and now we see it take on a broader meaning that by sustainability we also mean social sustainability. The conversion has really changed to include more social components, and not just the environmental side of sustainability.

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MG: When it comes to design for social innovation there is obviously a significant gap that exists between the ambition of many designers to get involved, and the responsibility and knowledge that is necessary to undertake this critical work. How might you suggest ambitious designers get informed to ensure their energy is used in the right places?

EP: It’s all about just being humble and being a good listener and citizen first. We are often a little bit too eager to go into situations with our “designer hats” on before we even think about the design process or what product is going to come out of a situation. I think we really just have to be fully immersed in it, and fully committed to it. I really hope that people stop doing design for social innovation projects from afar. I really think that the best projects are the ones that come from the place you are in, and from the place you understand. From the place you consider yourself to be a citizen of. There are a lot of projects I see that operate totally on the charity model and there’s a little bit of imperialism to that because you can tell the interest and concerns of the designer are so different from the needs and desires of the beneficiary. That gap is very tough to bridge unless you’re really in it, and you yourself are a beneficiary.

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MG: You have previously mentioned the critical importance of co-designing with a community versus disingenuous trips to “the field” and poorly guided research initiatives.

For firms or individuals that lack the resources to physically immerse themselves in communities for an extended period of time, are there techniques that you might suggest they can employ in order to try and reduce these gaps in empathy and understanding?

EP: From my personal experience, I just don’t think there’s a good way to do it. The biggest question is how far are we willing to go as designers? How much are we willing to commit ourselves? If you’re not willing to immerse yourself in a community for an extended period of time, you probably shouldn’t be doing the project.

I’m not saying you need to move to some far-off place for three years, but I do think that whatever that amount of time is for you to identify part of yourself in that community, I think that’s absolutely necessary. If you’re just getting into this work, you have to start by taking that risk and being fully immersed. As you come to terms with what your own process is, maybe you’ll get better about doing it from afar, but I think that especially from the beginning you really have to push yourself to be uncomfortable, live in places you wouldn’t normally live and not be a designer 24 hours a day but just be a good citizen.

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MG: Finally, a talented designer was often seen as one who was an expert giver of form, an excellent sketcher or model-maker who was attuned and sensitive to user needs. As the role of design evolves in the 21st century and becomes less product-centric, what do you feel are the skills that will make up the toolkit of leading designers in the field of social innovation?

EP: You have to be a jack of all trades and a master of one. I said one, not none.

Tim Brown (IDEO) talks about “T” people, people that are very wide and have a lot of broad knowledge. They know a little bit about a lot, but then they also have a lot of expertise in one or two particular areas, and I think that’s absolutely spot-on. As we take on more projects that have social implications far more complex than just giving something form we have to understand global politics, the economics of poverty and many other factors.

Of course we can always do research to find out more, but I think even just going into a project we have to cultivate a lot of different skill sets in order to literally drop into a project and have a good sense of the greater social implications of it. I always encourage design students (especially these days) to be double majors. I think seeing design as an enhancement of so many other social sciences is probably

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the best skill that we can bring. While we have to be jacks of all trades we also need to just check our egos at the door a little bit more. So much of design is usually all about us as designers. It’s all about, “I want to be able to put my name on that thing” and that’s not necessarily the case.

If we really want to say we designed this thing with the community instead of for a community we have to be able to take ourselves out of it.

I talk about designing with, not for but I think a more accurate phrase is that we’re designing by the community. That it’s coming from them, and we are the mediators that help bring their ideas to reality. We can help them visualize and then execute the things that they maybe never would have come up with before.

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INFORMATION DESIGN

FROM tool craft to meta meaning DAVID CRAIB

A new form of design professional has emerged; one whose focus is to convey information meaningfully and accurately.

It may seem obvious that the critical information clients wish to convey should be valued by the designers tasked to convey it, and that the information should be designed to be comprehensible to the end users of their designs. Due to the misconception that design is an aesthetic task–a misconception held by much of the design community–some designers have chosen to reaffirm their vows; to convey the information entrusted to them by their clients, to the best of their ability. These Information Designers are found within several design disciplines, most commonly within graphic design, technical writing and web design.

What is Information Design?

Definition of Information

The Oxford Dictionaries (2012), online resource includes the following as a definition of “information”.

Facts provided or learned about something or someone.

Definition of Design

The Free Dictionary (2012) includes the following within the list of definitions of the word “design”.

To formulate a plan for; devise To plan out in systematic way, usually in graphic form Using these definitions we may view Information Design as the act of devising a plan “in systematic way” to communicate “facts provided or learned about something or someone”.

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A more thorough definition comes from The Society of Technical Communicators (STC, 2005).

The Information Design Special Interest Group of STC addresses application of design principles to translating complex, unorganized, or unstructured data into valuable, meaningful information.

The practice of information design requires an interdisciplinary approach combining skills in areas including graphic design, writing and editing, instructional design, human performance technology, and human factors.

project was termed the Document Design Project, yet its use of the word ‘design’ primarily meant document content, organization and writing rather than visual design (Redish, 2000).

In Statistics

The following is a brief historical perspective of the term, Information Design, as it surfaced within 5 design disciplines.

Statisticians design and format data presentations.

In the mid 70s, Edward Tufte began his research into statistical representations of data, publishing his book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (1983) (Tufte, 2000). In the introduction he described his book to be about “how to communicate information through the simultaneous presentation of words, numbers and pictures.” Tufte is one of the first to extensively describe the challenge and discipline of conveying information, publishing 3 more books on the subject, between 1983 and 2006.

In Graphic Design

In Architecture

Graphic Designers design the appearance of visual presentations of information.

The term “information design” was coined by Pentagram Design in the 1970s. Although the term is relatively new, the “genres”, so to say, of information design are a lot older, even if they weren’t always thought of belonging to the same discipline (Koponen, 2011).

Information Design’s first coinage as a term, by Pentagram Design, a large multi-national design firm based in London, England, was through the perspective of graphic design, yet the discipline of information design is much older, 100s if not 1000s of years older than the first coinage of the term.

Richard Saul Wurman, chairman of the 1976 national convention of the American Institute of Architects, named their convention, The Architecture of Information (Wurman, 1996). Twenty years later (1996), he compiled the book, Information Architects, a multidisciplinary collection of 20 designers’ works focusing on conveying complex information (Wurman, 1996). It featured architecture, communication design, exhibit design, statistical design, illustration, wayfinding and web design. Soon after this, designers of websites adopted the term Information Architecture to describe the design process of website structures. (1)

History of the Term, Information Design

In Web Design In Technical Writing

Technical Writers design the content structures of documents. During the 1970s, the discipline of technical communication was becoming focused on content design of educational and instructional materials (Redish, 2000). In the late 70s a project was funded by the National Institute of Education (U.S.A.) exploring how to develop documents that communicated more effectively than the norm. This

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Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld published Information Architecture for the World Wide Web in 1998. This book looked at the complexities of designing large scale sites, and approaches the topic of organizing vast amounts of information in methodological ways (Morville & Rosenfeld, 2006).

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^ Figure 1: Website structure (Craib, 2012)

> Figure 2: Haeckel’s Tree of Life, one of the first geneologies of life (1866)

Within the book, the authors often referred to the structure of websites (Figure 1) as architectures, or taxonomies (Morville & Rosenfeld, 2006). Derived from the ancient Greek words for “arrangement method” taxonomies are groups of biological units (taxa), describing biological hierarchies. Visually, these may bear resemblance to the hierarchies designed by web designers (Figure 2).

Within these five disciplines of graphic design, technical writing, architecture, statistics and web design, we see a growing, synchronous perception that information needed to be conveyed with consideration and expertise. This movement became evident in the mid 1970s, and began to be popularized through the 1980s and 1990s, preceding the World Wide Web.

The Information Continuum

One of the issues confronted by Technical Writers in defining information design, is that they feel it has 2 meanings. First, it is the complete process of developing a document or group of documents.

Secondly, information design is the way the information is presented on the page or screen (Redish, 2000). To the technical communicators, the magnitude of the design task affects their definition of information design.

This occurs in other disciplines as well. Graphic Designers work with page elements and with complete information systems, Web Designers design buttons to navigate, and navigation systems. Information Design exists on a continuum, where the design of single elements play a role within larger components, which play a role in complete systems.

Meta Meaning, Information Design’s Ultimate Goal

Through a review of various approaches to Information Design, it becomes apparent

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that there are two simultaneous goals that skillful Information Designers aspire to achieve.

First, through a disciplined and sensitive view of their communications challenge, they use tools (such as typography) to build systematically planned out, ordered sequences of text, images and other graphic elements. This goal is to increase the conveyance of meaning through the use of systems and craft.

The following are the components of this Information Design task: 1) the Information Design approach to tool craft (typography, syntax, etc.), 2) the Information Design approach to content (order of information, meaning of images, veracity of data, etc.), 3) the Informational Design approach to correlation (how information is juxtaposed to achieve higher meaning), 4) the Information Design approach to overall structure (tailoring to target audiences, ethnographic considerations, the overall value to all users of the information, etc.).

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In Minard’s diagram, the light brown line depicts the movement of Napoleon’s army from Poland into Russia, while the black depicts their retreat. The width of the line depicts the number of men within the army at any given point. The graphic shows the position of the army on a map, and also shows the temperature the army experienced while retreating and the dates of each temperature reading. The skillful correlation of data tells a story of the brutal fate that befell the men in Napolean’s assault on Moscow, and how an army of over 400,000, dwindled to 10,000 men.

By glancing at this map, the viewer can understand a complete experience that is not well defined by data and description alone. It is the correlation of various information (multivariate data) on the visual plane, that reveals to the viewer a narrative of higher meaning—meta meaning—achieved through expert Information Design technique.

A more eloquent description is found in Edward Tufte’s Envisioning Information (1990).

To envision information – and what bright and splendid visions can result – is to work at the intersection of image, word, number, art. The instruments are those of writing and typography, of managing large data sets and statistical analysis, of line and layout and colour. And the standards of quality are those derived from visual principles that tell us how to put the right mark in the right place.

The second goal of Information Design is its loftiest goal. Information Designers aspire to correlated data and ideas to illuminate new understandings that users would not otherwise see.

Below is a statistical graphic designed by Charles Joseph Minard from Tableaux graphiques et Cartes Figuratives de M. Minard, 1845-1869. According to Edward Tufte, this may be the best statistical graphic ever drawn (Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information).

^ Figure 3: Minard’s diagram of Napoleon’s march

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Conclusion

References

Although the term, Information Design was coined in the 1970s, the practice of information design is much older.

Information Design is practiced within many disciplines, Its paradigm chooses function over form, defining function as the effective and successful conveyance of meaningful information to its intended recipients.

Information designers work at various scales (Redish, 2000), from small scales such as the design of a website navigation button, a letterform, or a corporate logo, to a complete online environment, a complete set of type families, or a complete visual branding system.

Information designers have two key goals. The first is to use their tool craft to increase the effectiveness of information transfer. The second is to correlate information in new ways to effect new understanding and create new insights within complex sequences of information.

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The Free Dictionary (2012). Design. Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/design (Koponen, J. (2011). What is Visualization. Presentation at Open Data Breakfast at PICNIC Amsterdam. Retrieved from http://informaatiomuotoilu.fi/2011/09/presentation-what-isvisualization/) Oxford Dictionaries (2012). Information. Retrieved from http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ information Redish, J. C. (2000). What Is Information Design?

Technical Communication, Second Quarter 2000, 163-166.

Society for Technical Communication (2005). Information Design and Architecture Special Interest Group. Retrieved from http://www.stcsig.org/ id/id_definitions.htm Tufte, E. R. (1990). Envisioning Information.

Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Tufte, E. R. (2000). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Second Edition. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Wurman, R. S. (1996). Information Architects.

Zurich, Switzerland: Graphis Press.

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the design of information: A Timeline DAVID CRAIB

Humanity’s desire to communicate complex ideas has spawned many inventions which now form the basic toolkit that Information Designers use. The following diagram charts approximate dates of some of these inventions.

0-35,000 YEARS AGO

0-3,000 YEARS AGO

TODAY

TODAY

-3,000 years

<Written phonetic alphabet: Sinai Peninsula <Technical drawing: Sumer ≤Written symbolic language: Sumer

≤ Internet: World Wide Web popularized <Computers: personal computers popularized ≤“Information Design”: term is coined <Charts: multivariate data displays, Europe ≤Photography: Niépce, France

<Printing: moveable type, Gutenberg, France ≤Perspective drawing: Brunelleschi, Italy -10,000 years

<Bookkeeping system: Mesopotamia -1,000 years

<Printing: moveable type, Bi, Sheng, China

<Mapping: star maps, Lascaux Caves, France

-20,000 years

-2,000 years

<Logic system: Aristotle, Greece <Numbering system: Sumer -30,000 years <Illustration: paintings, Chauvet Caves, France -35,000 years

<Counting: tally marks on baboon leg bone, Swaziland

-3,000 years

<

Spoken language: 100,000–50,000 years ago

References Bookkeeping system: retrieved from http:// knol.google.com/k/the-history-ofaccounting-part-i# Charts: Tufte, E. R. (2000). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Second Edition. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Compters: http://inventors.about.com/ library/blcoindex.htm Counting: retrieved from http://www. learner.org/courses/mathilluminated/ units/1/textbook/02.php Illustration: retrieved from http://www. oddee.com/item_93915.aspx Information Design: retrieved from http:// informaatiomuotoilu.fi/2011/09/presentation-what-is-visualization/) Internet: retrieved from http://sixrevisions. com/resources/the-history-of-theinternet-in-a-nutshell/ Logic System: retrieved from http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/miscellaneous/ history-of-logic.pdf

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Mapping: retrieved from http://www. spacetoday.org Numbering System: retrieved from http:// www.storyofmathematics.com/sumerian.html Perspective Drawing: retrieved from http:// www.webexhibits.org Photography: retrieved from http://photo. net/history/timeline Printing China: retrieved from http://people. lis.illinois.edu Printing Europe: retrieved from http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/ Gutenberg.htm Spoken language: retrieved from http:// www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/ science/15language.html Technical drawing: retrieved from http://pdf. directindustry.com Written phonetic alphabet: retrieved from http://www.ancientscripts.com/protosinaitic.html Written symbolic language: retrieved from http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/oldest.cfm

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ecoDESIGN

THE LIFECYCLE OF THE BUILT: REMOVING THE MECHANICS Martine Gallant

Ecodesign is a term that has invaded all fields of design for many years. In general, its meaning and intentions remain independent from its various forms. All products share the same design consideration and concerns for the ecological impact on the environment. As an architectural approach to the concept, the design process transforms into strategic systems. Passive Building design being one of these strategies, aims to optimize. A building’s lifecycle impact is minimized through implications of longevity and durability of its thermal qualities on renewable and inexhaustible sources of energy by utilizing non-mechanical systems.

Product design with consideration for its environmental impact is not a new concept.

Ecodesign has been around for many years in various forms. The idea is designing with special consideration for a product’s lifecycle impact. The assessment of such is a response to our growing concerns for our ecological footprint on the environment. This ‘green’ movement is a reflection of consumer values and their solutions towards product reduction in material and energy consumption.

Design strategies and material considerations have a great influence on the impact of Ecodesign. The implications of the smallest details of product design can have a direct impact on global warming and an increase in CO₂ emissions. Ecodesign is a response to choices made during the design process and their lifecycle implications. Such implications entail the type of energy consumed and waste disposal.

While the concept is a general definition for all design products, the two main design strategies of Ecodesign in buildings are the active system and the passive system.

The principle of the active system relies on the idea of harnessing power generated from renewable and inexhaustible energy sources. Passive system, also referred to as

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bioclimatic, relies on energy systems utilizing nonmechanical methods. While both are aiming to better the environmental impact of building design, the passive system aims to optimize on natural resources by eliminating mechanical system requirements. For the sole purpose of the article, let’s concentrate on defining the passive system, which will be referred to as passive design.

Passive design, also known as climate adapted design or climate responsive design, aims to construct buildings to minimize energy consumption, and improve thermal comfort and quality. The approach of the design focuses on the building elements through its form and thermal performance. It proactively works with the design’s architectural, structural, passive mechanical and envelope elements. Each factor is carefully considered to optimize its potential and reduce building energy usage with consideration of the surrounding environment.

How it differs from other sustainable approaches

While the sustainability issue has been a global trend, the concept is very broad and even superficial.

‘Designing green’ gives the initial idea of conserving an ecological balance of the environment, yet what happens after the construction phase of the project?

Can the built environment be designed in a way to maintain or reduce its environmental footprint in a lasting matter?

Passive building design addresses the growing sustainability trend through specific consideration for the project’s lifecycle impact. The idea is not to aim for only the present state of sustainability, but for the building’s entire environmental impact, from cradle to cradle.

An important aspect of the passive design approach is the durability of the building performance.

While some sustainability approaches are viable during the construction and the initial occupational phases, they don’t necessarily imply performance durability.

Passive design aims to distance itself from extensive and costly mechanical systems. Typical systems require replacement regularly and can prove to be costly and have an overall wasteful impact on the

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environment. Such complex systems are not feasible in an ecological design.

Passive design strategies

Each individual passive element has its own natural state. When these are combined through their inherent synergies, they have the possibility of producing different combination of building performance improvement. With each individual quality, there are risks of an unbalanced combination. Certain elements have the possibility of creating a negative impact on the building performance and energy efficiency (Colbalt & Hughes Condon Marler, 2009).

Thus, there are important strategies that must be noted to distinguish the possible impact of these different combinations. Strategies depend on the building type and operation. Such strategies are passive heating, passive ventilation, passive cooling and daylighting (Passive Buildings Canada). Strategic measures are important to help ensure a balance between the heating and the cooling performance of the building.

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> Figure 1: ‘Interdisciplinary Design Process team

Passive Building Canada created a reference tool to help understand the variant strategies of Passive Design (Colbalt & Hughes Condon Marler, 2009).

Passive Heating • Orientation • Building shape • Buffer spaces and double facades • Space planning • High-performance windows • Mixed-mode heat recovery ventilation • Low window to wall area ratio (N/E) • High window to wall ratio (S/W) • Operable external shading • High-performance insulation • Thermal mass • Minimized infiltration Passive Cooling • Fixed/operable external shading • Thermal mass • Low window to wall ratio (S/W) • Passive ventilation • Nocturnal cooling • Stacked windows • Passive evaporative cooling • Earth-tempered ducts Passive Ventilation • Operable windows • Buffer spaces and double facades • Building shape • Space planning • Orientation • Strategic architectural features • Openings to corridors and between otherwise separated spaces • Central atria and lobbies • Wind towers

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Daylighting • Space planning • High ceilings paired with tall windows • Window size and placement • Interior surface colours and finishes • Strategic architectural features • Light shelves • Skylights and light tubes • Clerestories Interdisciplinary connectionIDP

Passive design requires the integration of diverse sources of expertise. To achieve and optimize full potential of the design, interdisciplinary teamwork must be implemented. The concept concerns various performance and environmental issues that are not field specific to one sole profession. Collaborative team integration helps ensure all concerns affecting the environmental performance are addressed throughout the entire design-built phases (Colbalt & Hughes Condon Marler, 2009).

Passive Design proactively focuses on the building performance rather than relying on the complexity of engineering systems. It is achieved by combining energy efficient building envelopes with the potential renewable energy of its surrounding environments. Overall, the con-

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cept addresses human comfort and quality in regards to the environmental impact of its lifecycle (Passive Buildings Canada).

Though this basic idea of removing mechanical systems from building appears unfeasible for some Canadians, Europeans have been creating passive design buildings for numerous years. With their diverse climates and conditions they have created many alternative, efficient solutions to the concept. Yet, all were designed with the sole purpose to provide the ideal comfort and energy efficiency with sustainability and durability in mind.

References Colbalt Engineering, Hughes Condon Marler: Architects. ( July 2009). Passive Design Toolkit [PDF publication]. (http://vancouver.ca/ sustainability/documents/58345PassiveKitBo okPrt3.pdf ).

Edwards, W. (August 2008). Passive Solar Design [Blog]. (http://www.buildgreen.ca/2008/08/ passive-solar-design/).

Maxxwell, S. (2012, January 14). Passive house offers comfort, efficiency. Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved from http://www.ottawacitizen.com/ Passive Buildings Canada (http://www.passivebuildings.ca/).

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Quality Control Steps Based off Passive Buildings Canada standards

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Interior Architecture

From the Inside Out Steph Bolduc

In the world of architecture, numerous circumstances, scenarios and dualities are faced. It is of the architect to work through these challenges and turn idea into reality, one that serves to improve the lives of the people who inhabit the design manifested in its physicality.

Our modern 21st century world is constantly changing and evolving, adapting to new socio-economic developments. Because these changes are often newly emerging in their own right, they bring to life new fields or disciplines in order to adequately respond to the growing demands. One of these disciplines making great strides in the world of design is the profession of Interior Architecture, a result of combining three distinct design disciplines: Interior Design, Architecture, and Industrial Design.

The merger of these three disciplines aims to achieve better integration of all aspects of interior space by allowing flexibility for each to interact with one another, and is thus concerned with how humans utilized structured spaces.

Though definitions may vary, as stated by the National Center for Educational Statistics, it is the application of architectural principles in the design of structural interiors for living, recreational, and business purposes. Professional Interior Architects make use of knowledge and practice in architecture, structural systems design, heating and cooling systems, occupational and

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safety standards, interior design, specific end-use applications, and professional responsibilities (National Center For Educational Statistics, 2012).

To give some context on the formation of interior architecture as a specific discipline, as our cities begin to densify, high rises follow suit by growing in height and in numbers. With this drastic shift to tall urban structures comes a growing need for their interiors to properly respond to the diversity of their inhabitants and their changing needs as dwellers.

As these interior spaces grow both in need for change and complexity the profession of the architect has now seen a shift in specificity, thus creating the profession of interior architects. The merger of the three disciplines of Architecture, Interior Design, and Industrial Design aims to achieve better integration of all aspects of interior space by allowing flexiblility for each to interact with one another. Interior Architects are thus concerned with how humans utilize the interiors of structured spaces.

As previously mentioned, Interior Architecture is by nature a specialized profession which draws from Interior Design and Industrial Design to provide a more refined and well rounded design scheme. Applications of Interior Architecture can be seen in many different types of scenarios ranging from, urban residential units and adaptive re-use projects, to the design of interiors of city buses.

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^ Figure 2: Gary Chang Apartment, Marcel Lam, Hong Kong, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/ 2009/01/15/garden/20090115_HONGKONG_8.html ^ Figure 1: Gary Chang Apartment, Marcel Lam, Hong Kong, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/15/ garden/20090115_HONGKONG_2.html

Focusing on the urban residential sector the inter-disciplinary nature of interior architecture could help remedy some of the issues relating to dwelling by providing spaces at the residential scale that are adaptable to the changing needs of its occupants.

Aspects of Interior Architecture at the micro-urban scale can be broken down into numerous specific uses. These uses can range from the initial design and plan for use, the later redesign to accommodate a changed purpose, or a significantly revised design for adaptive re-use of the building shell. The intensive focus on designing adaptable personal spaces will also investigate the integration of adaptable furniture. Furniture is often an afterthought in architectural design, or is merely a place holder in the design process, thus often creating a disjuncture between the two.

The dialogue between adaptable furniture and the capability of altering the volumetric characteristics of space should create dwellings which are fully adaptable to various scenarios.

It is often hard to envision that any building can be used for anything but its originally intended purpose. Many older buildings are now in decay or becoming vacant for various reasons, demanding to be re-thought and re-adapted in order to be used for a different purpose. It is inevitable that buildings will age and human needs will change over time, thus increasing the need for the adaptive re-use of these structures. Whether it is for conservation reasons or public campaigns, numerous buildings must be left in their original state on the exterior but its interior can be left to

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be re-programmed. Interior architects are specialized architects that deal solely with the architecture of a building’s interior, thus have the ability to sensitively respond to the buildings history, site context and fitting new programming elements into the older structure (Linda, 2009).

An instance of how Interior Architecture is used in the re-adaption of aging infrastructure can be seen in architect Gary Chang’s redesign of his 32 m² apartment in Hong Kong. The space changes into 24 different configurations allowing him to custom tailor his dwelling to suit his needs and adapt to various living scenarios. The flexible interior is made up of elements that slide on tracks, fold down from walls and down from the ceiling that shape various arrangements. He illustrates and describes the process of the renovation in his book “My 32m² Apartment - a 30 year transformation”.

References Berger, Mark us. Int|AR: Interventions|Adaptive Reuse Journal, Vol 01, 2009 Linda, 7 Excellent Examples of Adaptive Reuse, http://www.archi-ninja.com/excellent-examples-of-adaptive-reuse/, last updated 2009 National Center For Educational Statistics, http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/cipdetail. aspx?y=55&cipid=87968, last updated 2012

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Interview with Markus Berger Steph Bolduc

Markus Berger is an Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Interior Architecture at RISD. He holds an MArch (Diplomingenieur für Architektur) from the Technische Universität Wien, Austria and is a registered architect (SBA) in the Netherlands. Prior to coming to the US he practiced as an architect and taught in Austria, India, Pakistan and with UN Studio in the Netherlands. He co-founded and co-edits Int|AR and currently also heads his own design studio in Providence, InsideOut Design.

SB: Interior Architecture is an emerging discipline with its roots seeming to stem from Architecture, Interior Design, Industrial Design and Adaptive Re-use.

How would you define what Interior Architecture is and how does the field distinguish itself and draw from these different disciplines?

MB: The recent interest in the field of Interior Architecture and Adaptive Re-use may make this field appear as a new discipline. I see Interior Architecture as an age old practice, because as soon as humans started to build, they had to start altering-, extending-, modifying their buildings and structures. Interior Architecture can be defined as the art of “transforming an unused or underused building into one that serves a new use”(Berger, 2009).

It is essentially a field at the intersection of architecture, conservation and design of the built environment that takes an innovative approach on interior interventions and the reuse and transformation of existing buildings.

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^ Adaptive Reuse, Eun Lee, Rhode Island School of Design, 2011. Markus Berger

SB: The densification of our urban centers is on a continuous rise. Along with this comes an increasing demand for spaces that are more adaptable to the diversity of human conditions. With specificity placed on the domain of urban residential units, how do you see the field of Interior Architecture changing the way we design these spaces both in new construction and in adaptive re-use?

MB: Every built structure eventually faces three possibilities: demolition, preservation or adaptive reuse. A study in the UK (APR database in1994) has shown that 34% of office buildings have been converted to residential use. Given the speed and amount of changes taking place in and within programmatic typologies of urban centers, we will experience a growing demand of appropriations of these spaces for new use.

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SB: What kind of strategies are commonly used to determine the proper level of intervention on the interiors of older infrastructure both at the structural level and material level?

MB: I argue for individual and tailored intervention strategies that entail issues of preservation, conservation, alteration and interventions through design. We may aim to keep interventions on infrastructure, structure and material to a minimum, while expanding the qualities of spaces and functions. The designer needs to discover the potential of the existing and then be able to expand this potential through the right interventions.

MB: Unfortunately your question targets one of the biggest problems we face in Architecture. The essential qualities of indoor spaces have been neglected in centuries of architectural education and accreditation. We need a multi-sensual, qualitative experience and understanding of our indoor environment and it needs to emerge from a discipline that takes a holistic approach to spatial qualities, socio-economic issues and highly reduced energy needs.

SB: Interior spaces are of great importance as they are the areas we inhabit and use the most. What is your take on the level of importance these spaces have and their potential to effect human conditions through the experience they convey?

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Transformation Design

The Organizational Power of Design Methods John Di Palma Transformation Design is the use of a facilitated design approach – involving usercenteredness, rapid iteration, and tangible prototyping – with traditionally nondesign projects to catalyze change in organizational culture. Transformation Design consultation with the client project team of “non-design” professionals forces the project to be reframed. Intentional involvement with design activity develops design intelligence, and participatory design techniques foster an appreciation for the user as a critical stakeholder. This process is intended to develop adaptable capacity within the client organization, which can be considered a design project in itself. It advocates for the value of design methods, which are well suited for the increasingly complex systems that organizations must consider in the development of their offerings. The emergence of this discipline is related to the increasing recognition of unique designerly ways of thinking within the business community, evidenced by the proliferation of Design Thinking literature.

Design is described as a distinct form of intelligence in Nigel Cross’ collection of important works titled Designerly Ways of Knowing (2007). Cross argues that we all possess some degree of design intelligence and ability, because they are required and developed by the everyday tasks of arrangement and selection.

However, he also stipulates that this ability must be developed, nurtured, and maintained through experience with design activity. At the higher levels of the practitioner and professional, design activities are integrated into unique processes that support constructive and abductive reasoning, which are particularly appropriate for addressing complex and uncertain problems. These theories were essential to the formation of the modern framework of design as an academic discipline, and they continue to be highly regarded in this growing field of research. By transposing Cross’s ideas from the context of the individual to that of the organization, we gain fresh insight that proves the continuing relevance of his work.

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Transformation Design is an emerging discipline that does just that – it recognizes the critical role of design methods in the development of organizational design intelligence.

The markets and problems faced by today’s organizations are increasingly complex, and are likely to benefit from the holistic, system-based, and user-oriented approach that is characteristic to design.

However, these same organizations may not have traditional design departments that they can look to for such insight.

Furthermore, their offerings may not be regarded as the consumer-oriented products that are typically associated with design. Regardless, Transformation Design seeks to reframe an organization’s offerings from a user perspective, which necessitates the redefinition of the organization’s clients – whether they are patients, employees, or other businesses – as end-users. Transformation design strives to ingrain this designerly mindset within client organizations through the facilitation of a non-traditional design project.

The client organization receives the dual benefit of the transformation designers’ consultation pertaining to the immediate project as well as the development of widely applicable designerly capabilities.

In 2006, The Design Council of the UK set out to crystallize the discipline by defining its characteristic methods and applications with the publication of their document RED Paper 02: Transformation Design. They described the paper as a call to action, and hoped that it would attract

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designers to this growing but underserved discipline. RED was an interdisciplinary research and development team initiated by the Design Council in 2004 and terminated shortly after the publication of RED Paper 02. This small group conducted first-hand research through its projects as a design consultancy for both the private and public sector, as well as research of other groups such as IDEO’s Transformation Practice. Their earlier work, RED Paper 01: Open Health (2006), illustrated their focus on participatory design methods that remained central to their perspective on Transformation Design. A case study involving the development of a simple health service tool to facilitate communication between diabetes patients and their doctors was documented in

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both of these publications. In the first, it served as an example of the strategic value of design methods and co-creation in nontraditional areas. In RED Paper 02, the co-creation with front-line healthcare service providers was reframed as a transformative process for the client organization â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a public healthcare institution.

Considering that it is external consultants who conduct Transformation Design, it becomes clear that a certain level of pre-existing appreciation for the strategic value of design is required within potential client organizations. The issue of acceptance may have been simplified for REDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s projects because of the government affiliation and not-for-profit nature of the Design Council. Fortunately, traditional corporate strategy acknowledges the importance of the product offering in the creation of corporate value, which can serve as a point of reference for the

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valuation of design. Managers seek to understand how potential customers perceive their products, and how their offerings relate to the preferences and priorities of key demographics. Traditionally, market research has been utilized for this purpose, but design consultancies have been able to leverage this aspect of corporate strategy to help define and establish the role of design strategy.

The ethnographic and investigative methods of design are naturally aligned with the insights desired in this area. Design may be traditionally associated with styling, the incorporation of new technology and materials, or brand identity, among other things.

The value of imbuing these diverse roles with a strategic purpose through their close integration, as a design department or consultancy does, should be increasingly obvious to the managers that are responsible for the development of corporate strategy.

The paradigm of Design Thinking has helped to foster an appreciation for abductive and holistic thinking within management, which helps to give rise to design-friendly environments.

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Design Thinking attempts to advocate for design intelligence at the executive level while largely neglecting the inextricable link between design intelligence and design activity. The majority of case studies used throughout The Art of Innovation illustrate the power of design intelligence through design projects at traditionally product-oriented organizations such as Apple, Phillips, and NEC. The lessons gleaned from these studies pertain largely to the design groups, where the design activity takes place, while other departments are left to simply “think like designers”. Unlike Transformation Design, this perspective does not encourage the reevaluation of organizational behavior beyond that of the design department. Design activity continues to be removed from management, and the fundamental issue of adapting to a complex market is not addressed.

Transformation Design involves a greater portion of the organization in design activity by framing the client organization itself as a design project. Whereas traditional design projects

Management may have gained familiarity with some aspects of design intelligence – as well as exposure to basic design lexicon – through this framework. In the book The Art of Innovation (2001), author Tom Kelley discusses the benefits of rapid prototyping as a means of making problems tangible and failing early and often in order to reach truly innovative solutions. He also asserts that creativity in groups is more productive, and beneficial to the organization, than the lone creative genius. This encourages the development of a collaborative environment, which is critical to a successful design department, and represents a step towards a design-led corporation.

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References

may seek to co-design with users, a Transformation Design project will do so with various stakeholders within an organization. Similarly, the Transformation Design consultancy might also employ ethnographic methods to study the client organization. The team will use the design project as a means of assessing and developing the design intelligence of the organization. This process is intended for organizations and managers that would not otherwise be involved in a traditional design process, and for their involvement to rely on design activity that is directly applied to the project. This illustrates the universality of design intelligence to management, like Design Thinking, while respecting the critical link to design activity.

The clientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; personal experience with design methods develops pride in the project, and an appreciation for the value of design activity and intelligence that is more powerful that simply receiving the deliverables from a design consultancy, no matter how strategically-minded they may be.

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Burns, C., Cottam, H., Vanstone, C., Winhall, J. (2006). RED PAPER 02: Transformation Design. Retrieved January 15, 2012, from Design Council Web site: http://www.designcouncil. info/mt/RED/transformationdesign Burns, C., Cottam, H., Vanstone, C., Winhall, J. (2006). RED PAPER 01: Open Health. Retrieved January 15, 2012, from Design Council Web site: http://www.designcouncil.info/ RED/health/REDREPORT01OpenHealth.pdf Coughlan, P., Suri, J., & Canales, K. (2007). Prototypes as (design) tools for behavioral and organizational change: A design-based approach to help organizations change work behaviors. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 43(1), 122-134.

Cross, N. (2007). Designerly ways of knowing. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag AG. Hands, D. (2009). Vision and Values in Design Management. Lausanne: AVA Publishing.

Kelley, T. (2001). The Art of Innovation. New York: HarperCollins Business

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LOcating transformation DESIGN John di Palma

DESIGN LEADERSHIP

Human Capability

DESIGN MANAGEMENT

Personal

Professional Task

Individual

society

Methods / Process Awareness

DESIGN STRATEGY

services

products

Transformation Design

Intelligence Organizational

KNOWING

culture

Cultural Reflection

DESIGN THINKING

Corporate Competence

Disruptive Innovation

DESIGN-DRIVEN

Figure 1: John Di Palma

This diagram illustrates the spectrum between the seed of narrow design awareness and the all-encompassing worldview of designerly ways of knowing. A selection of practices and ideas, including Transformation Design, are located along this spectrum.

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Public design urban environment public culture community installation interdisciplinary design collaboration Fun Palace Utopian Dymaxion House Plug-In City Cedric Price Dome Collaboration Buckminster Fuller Architectural Association Warren C gram Mark Fisher Ron Herronâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Walking ity Visual Effects Technological I The Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Amplification Pneumatics Pink Floyd Machine Aesthetic Disassembly Road Crew Mass Production ized Parts Tour Logistics Transport Trucks uling Efficiency Entertainment Architecture Audience Profit Gathering Pop Culture Stage Event City Travel No Site Site scenography scene stage theatre design event design mance imaginary narratives constructed tions exhibition designs relational art tive audience action space agitprop spatial mise-en-scène Engineer Design knowledge focus stability structure appearance tion coherent sophisticated infrastructure context necessity development opportunity bon-neutral environmental-thinking istics space material integral-consciousness veloping-process collaboration responsibility correlation construction transformation ence stage theatre film german expressionism theme abstract expression theatricality 46

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public space interdisciplinary topian Living rice Claverton uller Peter Cook Chalk Archialking City MobilInnovations mplification esthetic Assembly/ roduction Standardrucks Schedrchitecture ulture Performer scenography design perforconstructed situaart participaspatial agency knowledge merging appearance collaborainfrastructure opportunity carcharacterconsciousness deresponsibility transformation audiexpressionism style theatricality FIELDS

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p u b l i c

d e s i g n

P l a c e s f o r p e o p l e

Natalie shalmon This essay aims to understand and analyze the current condition of public design. It examines various spheres of public design, the intention of its projects and its interdisciplinary connections, and discusses two case studies of public design.

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What is Public Design?

The word “public” implies all members of society, rather than a specific group or individual. Therefore, public design can be understood as design that is intended for social uses and is accessible to all members of society. It includes goods that are public in themselves, or private properties with a “public nature”, such as billboards and building of the exteriors, that have a physical and psychological effect on the members of society. Public design may be permanent or temporary, outdoors or indoors. However, indoor public space tends to have more restrictions on whom may use the space and in what manner it may be used. Public design can be approached from a wide variety of disciplines and affect the aesthetic, symbolic and functional characteristics of all public spaces.

Interdisciplinary Connections

The subjects of public design are diverse and widespread, and can be approached from a range of disciplines, from industrial design to architecture to urban planning. However, public design differs from disciplines such as urban planning, in that it focuses on design features of a smaller, more intimate scale.

The interdisciplinary nature of public design also calls on public designers to collaborate with professionals in different fields. A public designer may work with an architect to design a public building, with a landscape architect to create outdoor features or fixture; with an urban planner to situate the design within the greater urban infrastructure; with a community designer to work on a project with specific social concerns; with a communication designer to design signage; with a fine artist to create a public exhibition or artwork; or with a government employee to ensure compliance with laws and regulations. As public design draws on a multitude of disciplines, Figure 1 outlines various dimensions of public design and some of the design features they include, as suggested by the Korean Society of Public Design, as well as other sources.

Aims & Goals

While each public design project has its own definitive aims, in general, public design is meant for all members of society to use and benefit from, while addressing issues of community, culture and economy in urban spaces. Public design plays a significant role in establishing a

< Circular Bench, Esterni, Jair Straschnow & Wouter Nieuwndjik, Bronx, NY, 2011

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city’s identity, differentiating it from other cities and increasing its cultural value. By enhancing the quality of public facilities and goods, public design has the potential to stimulate the regional economy and contribute to the development of the tourism industry. Design in the public sector also contributes to a society’s cultural foundation, by addressesing aspects of everyday life, such as the urban environment and public information, thus encouraging urban growth and the development of culture.

Public design aims to change the way citizens experience the urban environment, making it more beautiful, functional and playful, while contributing to building a sense of community.

Rather than emphasizing quantitative principles, such as mass production, public design emphasizes quality, focusing on cultural and social elements of design. This means that the practice is driven more by service than by profit, and targets people that do not fit the standard definition of a client. This focus creates opportunities to build relationships between individuals and their surroundings. “Now, cities around the globe seek to promote the value of life with rich creativity, and add culture to their unique histories. Thus, public design has emerged as a way to express urban identity, and establish a creative cultural environment.” (Public Design 2011, 2011) Design in the public sector often promotes inclusive and universal design in order

^ Aerial view of Heritage Field – the former Yankee Stadium outfield is marked in blue, Bronx, NY, 2010.

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^ Bull Durham’s quote runs along the fence, Heritage Field, Bronx, NY, 2010.

to allow equal accessibility to all members of society, regardless of ability or age. Public design may also help communities address social, economic and environmental problems, encouraging new forms of public engagement.

Due to the diverse and broad scope of public design, there are very different kinds of organizations that advocate for public design, including City design commissions and international design festivals.

NYC Public Design Commission

New York City’s Public Design Commission has been operating as a design review agency since its establishment in 1898. The Public Design Commission reviews proposals for permanent works of art, architecture, landscape architecture and street furniture, on city-owned property. Projects include installations and the conservation of artwork as well as “buildings, such as museums and libraries; bridges and other infrastructure projects; parks and playgrounds; and lighting and other streetscape elements, including distinctive sidewalks, bollards, and newsstands.” (NYC Design, n.d.) Proposals are reviewed and approved during the Public Design Commission’s monthly public hearings, wherein

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members of the community are encouraged to testify and voice their opinions. The Commission also curates and maintains the City’s public art collection and historical archives of public works.

New York City’s Public Design Commission consists of eleven members, includeding an architect, landscape architect, engineer, communication designer, fine artists and representatives of the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library. The multidisciplinary background of the members of the Public Design Commission ensures that public design is considered from a variety of perspectives.

Since 1982, the Public Design Commission of New York City has recognized exceptional public

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design projects with its Annual Awards for Excellence in Design.

Hundreds of submissions are reviewed every year and the Commission is members select those of the highest standards to receive awards.

Heritage Field is a commemorative project that received the Design Award in 2010. The installation is located in and around the original Yankee Stadium, which is now a community park, and evokes the history and legacy of the former stadium. A baseball diamond mimicking the original one is installed to allow park visitors to run the bases. “Momentous events in history are inscribed on benches and pavers and brought to life through contemporary viewfinders that offer snapshots in stereoscopic 3D. Large-scale graphics on the outfield fence remind visitors that baseball is a simple game: ‘Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains’.” (NYC Design, n.d.) The Heritage Field installation was a project of the Economic Development Corporation, the Department of Parks & Recreation, Doyle Partners (a communication firm), Cozzolino Studio (a product design firm), Stantec (a design and consulting firm), Thomas Balsley Associates Landscapes Architecture and van Geldern Machine Company. The breadth of the design team speaks to the interdisciplinary nature of public design projects.

collaborators esterni devise the projects presented in Public Design Festival, along with international designers.

Aiming to transform the way that people experience and live in the city, the Public Design Festival redesigns the city around citizens’ needs and investigates ways that design can make the urban environment more beautiful, comfortable and functional. The festival proposes that in order to improve peoples’ relationship with their city, they must be open to sharing ideas, opinions and information and to developing new collaborations. “It means getting to know each other, your neighbours, and your city, with its little squares, lanes, and hidden corners. It means experiencing the city, rather than just crossing it, imagining how it could be, and trying to awarely re-design it.” (Public Design Festival, n.d.) The Public Design Festival aims to inspire administrations, companies and design studios to rethink public spaces and develop cultural identity in the city.

Circular Bench, presented in the 2011 Public Design Festival, is a collaborative work by esterni and Dutch designers Jair Straschnow and Wouter Nieuwendjik. An innovative take on street furniture, each seat of the Circular Bench can be flipped inward or outward, giving users the choice of socializing or not. This freedom of choice encourages socialization and building relationships between people, but also respects a desire for solitude. Circular Bench is now

Public Design Festival

Public Design Festival is an annual festival held in Milan, Italy, that presents public design ideas and projects, ranging from interventions to installations and services, throughout the city. The festival is organized by esterni, a cultural association that designs public spaces and services, produces collective events, and develops communication campaigns. Employees and

Viewfinder and a selection of images that visitors can

^

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^

browse, Cozzolino Studio, Heritage Field, Bronx, NY, 2010.

Wall installation, Heritage Field, Bronx, NY, 2010. 2

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industrial product that can be distributed on a large scale and installed in parks and public spaces.

Public design is a field that spans a diverse range of activities and practices, but its goal remains a constant: to improve peoples’ quality of life through the design of public space and facilities. The increasing complexity of urban environments requires design professionals that can incorporate concepts from various fields to develop projects that contribute to the city’s culture and encourage relationships between people and the urban environment. In order for public design to effectively attain these goals, the design must address the context of the specific place being addressed, including its history, environment, unique culture and characteristics.

References ^ Circular Bench, esterni, Jair Straschnow & Wouter Nieuwndjik, Bronx, NY, 2011. > Circular Bench, esterni, Jair Straschnow & Wouter Nieuwndjik, Bronx, NY, 2011.

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Gamboni, M. (2011). Public Design Festival 2011: Esterni Design Moves the City of Everyone.

Milan: Public Design Festival.

Lee, S.-I., Yoon, S.-K., & Kang, H.-M. (2007). A Study on the Revitalization of Public Design for the Reconstruction of City Identity. Paper presented at IASDR07 International Association of Societies of Design Research, Hong Kong.

NYC Design: Public Design Commission of the City of New York. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2012, from http://www.nyc.gov/html/artcom/html/home/home.shtml Perkes, D. It’s Time for Us to Elaborate on “Public Design”. Gulf Coast Community Design Studio. Retrieved February 10, 2012, from http://gccds.org/blog/?tag=public-design Public Design 2011: Korea’s Leading Public Design show + Forum. (2011). Retrieved February 10, 2012, from http://publicexpo.co.kr/index.html?TPL=en_01_01.tpl Public Design Festival. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2012, from http://www.publicdesignfestival.org/portal/EN/contents/generic_home.php?& Yoo, E.-H., Park, J., & Kang, H.-J. (2009). Current Status and Issues of the Public Design in Korea. Paper presented at IASDR2009 International Association of Societies of Design Research, Seoul, Korea.

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BENCH / CHAIR SHELTER GARBAGE / RECYCLING BIN WATER FOUNTAIN ASHTRAY BATHROOM STORE / KIOSK

PEDESTRIAN LIGHT FENCE / GUARD RAIL BIKE LOCKING POST BUS STATION PARKING LOT ESCALATOR

CONVENIENCE FACILITIES

TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES

PARK PLAYGROUND CEMETERY PLAZA SIDEWALK GROUND ATTACHED TO PUBLIC AGENCY

VENDING MACHING

MANHOLE UTILITY POLE PEDESTRIAN LIGHT

PUBLIC FACILITY & PRODUCT DESIGN

SUPPLY FACILITIES

MAILBOX FIRE HYDRANT PHONE BOOTH CLOCK

LAWS & REGULATIONS ADMINISTRATION & POLICY

PUBLIC DESIGN POLICY

OUTDOOR PUBLIC SPACE

PUBLIC SPACE DESIGN

PUBLIC DESIGN

PERMANENT / TEMPORARY INDOOR / OUTDOOR SCULPTURE MURAL INTERACTIVE

PUBLIC COMMUNICATION DESIGN

PART OF FESTIVAL

PUBLIC ART INSTALLATION

EXHIBITION

ADVERTISING MEDIA

CONSERVATION PERMANENT / TEMPORARY

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FLAG BANNER SIGN BOARD

INDOOR / OUTDOOR ART GALLERY / MUSEUM CITY HALL

POSTER PLACARD BILLBOARD

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TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES SPACE

AIRPORT PORT RESTING SPACE FOR DRIVERS

TOWN HALL PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE MILITARY SPACE

COMMUNITY CENTRE RESTING PLACE MEMORIAL

PRISON

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GYMNASIUM ATHLETIC FIELD PERFORMING SPACE WELFARE FACILITY MEDICAL FACILITY DAYCARE CENTRE

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MUSEUM ART GALLERY ROAD PARKING LOT TUNNEL RAILWAY

INFRASTRUCTURES SPACE

ELEVATED ROAD BRIDGE IRRIGATION / WATER SUPPLY FACILITY

EDUCATION / RESEARCH SPACE

WATERWORKS & SEWAGE POWER PLANT

TOWN HALL PUBLIC INFO. OFFICE MILITARY SPACE PRISON

ENVIRONMENT APPEARANCE UPGRADING MEDIA

GOVERNMENT OFFICE FOREIGN MISSION BUILDING

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INSTRUCTING / GUIDING MEDIA

STREET NAME SIGN TRAFFIC POST SUBWAY MAP BUS ROUTE MAP TOURIST INFO. MAP

GOVERNMENTAL ADMINISTRATIVE MEDIA

NATIONAL SYMBOL GOVERNMENT SYMBOL CERTIFICATE OFFICIAL DOCUMENT / FORM PUBLICATION PUBLIC AGENCY WEB PAGE

DISTRIBUTION MEDIA

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scenography

S t r a n g e m u t t s benoit-Simon lagacĂ&#x2030;

While still mainly associated in vernacular language to its previous calling in America, the term has particularly enjoyed a wider and broader definition in Europe as a field concerned with exhibition designs, public event design and relational art installation design. As its breadth and scope have widened and deepened over the years, a series of new pedagogical programs have emerged in architecture and design faculties in cities such as Berlin, Zurich, Paris and Brussels, while new conferences, biennales and publications have increasingly attempted to solidify the fieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new mandates. Contextualizing and understanding the boundaries and activities of this new field is becoming increasingly important in order to truly unlock and comprehend the potential of this blossoming practice; one that attempts to create a new type of designer that is at once a spatial organizer of scripted narratives, an author of constructed situations and an agent of interaction and communication.

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Once referring to the activities stemming from the art of staging theatrical scenes and later evolving into the framing of cinematic settings, the practice of scenography is enjoying a renewed attention in recent years. In response to the general and widespread dissolution of the fields of knowledge and design characterizing the rise of postindustrial societies, scenography has undertaken the task of redrawing its boundaries to define itself as a new design scenario concerned with the spatial creation of events, performances and imaginary narratives.

^ Atelier BrĂźckner, Philosophie, Stuttgart, 2012

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< Vicenzo Scamozzi, Teatro all’antica, La Sabbioneta, 1590

and accessories of more ephemeral and temporary use that would be able to communicate a wide array of abstract concepts. Scenography even from its early beginnings was therefore as much an exercise of pure spatial design of scenarios as it was an instrument of communication.

ARCHITECTURAL MIRROR WORLD

SPATIAL WRITING OF NARRATIVE SCENARIOS

Originating from the Greek words σκηνη (skene) or scene and γραφειν (graphein) or writing, the practice of scenography from the onset referred to the act of writing theatrical scenes in space. The practice in ancient Greece was directly related to the spatial translation of imaginary scenarios found in the plot outline of plays. It is thus important to understand that at its core, the practice was fundamentally responsible for rendering visible both the concrete settings of the actions and events in the play, as well as more abstract notions such as emotions and moods. More than simply being concerned with a series of fixed spatial arrangements, the practice was thus actively involved in the design of props FIELDs

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As the early forms of theatre predominantly tied the scenes of a play to the rudimentary limits of the physical stage, the practice of scenography was intrinsically linked with the field of architecture and subject to its domination. However, this spatial confinement did not stop the evolution of the practice in regards to the creation of increasingly complex spatial constructions and situations. Multiple examples exist throughout history characterizing these elaborate and sophisticated spatial arrangements on stage, but perhaps none are more famous and seminal than Andrea Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza built in 1585 and Vincenzo Scamozzi’s Teatro all’antica in La Sabbioneta 57

constructed in 1590. In both instances, a whole other cityscape was created in perspective behind the proscenium that elevates the act of scenography as a pure extension of architecture and successfully ascertained the discipline as one able of opening up new parallel worlds in space. The spaces created in perspective on the stage of both theatres became almost heterotopic and began to invoke the power of scenography to mirror, distort and modify the fabric of reality. (Foucault, 1967) SHAMAN ORCHESTRATOR OF MULTIPLE FIELDS

In addition to its intricate links to architecture, scenography seems to have established itself as a practice capable of orchestrating an almost infinite array of fields of design that affect the perception and construction of events in space. In opposition to other perhaps more unyielding and dogmatic design fields, scenography has always been profoundly concerned with the discoveries of new methods of conveying meaning and setting.

Understanding how to coerce and orchestrate together a rich and wide variety of elements emerging from the realms of architecture, interior design, lighting design, furniture design, fashion design, special effect design and graphic design is one of the key mandates of the field. The activities of a scenographic designer can therefore almost be more closely related to that of a mediator or shaman, harmonizing a series of forces and elements together, than to that of totalitarian and intransigent author. (Matthews, 2007)

< El Lissitzky, Meyerhold Theatre, Moscow, 1928

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^ Unknown Artist, Krasnyi Kazak Agit-Train, Unknown City, 1920

RUPTURE FROM THE STAGE

In attempting to frame the contemporary field of scenography, it is also paramount to understand the seismic shifts experienced within the profession as a result of the radical changes in the theoretical realm of theatre during the twentieth century. Crucial in framing scenography as the practice of staging scenes in public places, it is important to note the shift away from the stage as the space of scenic happening that was brought about through the works of Viktor Shklovsky and Berthold Brecht. Their redefinition of the form of the theatrical play and theirconceptions of the role and interactivity of the audience fundamentally changed the understanding of the stage and the scene as they had been traditionally understood for centuries. Through concepts such as estrangement and defamiliarization, the fifth wall created by the proscenium was destroyed and began directly involving the audience within the play to bring theatre into reality. This destruction of the border between the scene the and audience that propelled the exercise of scenography within the public sphere was materialized through two major watersheds. The first was the conception of fundamentally new theatres such as El Lissitzky’s “Meyerhold Theatre” and Walter Gropius’ “Total Theatre”. These theatres placed the spectators all around the actors while a series of new dynamic and interactive architectural elements within the theatre created fully immersive and interactive environments.

The second, was the advent of the agitprop following the Bolshevik revolution. Agitprops – or objects serving to agitate the masses to disseminate propaganda – began appearing in an attempt to corral crowds with flamboyant and eye-catching objects and messages. The development of such objects and the thirst of the population for public festivals and plays in the USSR lead to the creation of a wide array of de-centralized and ephemeral performances in the streets and squares of cities through mobile and FIELDs

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^ Liubov Popova, Earth in Turmoil, Moscow, 1923

interactive stage props. As a result, scenography had now become a medium for new interventions, possible in any context, where the audience became actors. Traditional pieces of stage design were orchestrated in new and innovative ways to propose the stimulating ‘mis-en-scène’ of a series of events and actions to a new accidental and public audience.

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In recent years a series of interesting new offices such as Raumlabor, Exyzt, Mésarchitecture and Recetas Urbanas, have all begun to operate in the blurred boundaries between art, architecture, landscape design, urban design, event design, furniture design and graphic design to create scenographic spaces that, not only open up new imaginative and fantastic spaces in society, but also promote a new sociopolitical spatial agency. The projects of the Canadian office spmb [São PauloManitoba] also concentrate on the construction these types of interactive scenes in public space through a wide array of more ephemeral techniques. Founded by the duo of Karen Shanski and Eduardo Aquino, their latest project realized in the context of the “Nuit Blanche” in Montreal, “Mutts On A Leash”, continued to explore ways of creating scenes in space that incite public interaction. The project provided a space along the Montreal Souterrain for flânerie and encouraged people to sit and discuss in an unexpected scene within their urban environment. The title of the project – in reference to a type of informal roadside benches found along the countryside of Brazil or “cachorrinhos” for little dogs in Portugeuse – also acknowledged the hybridity of the object and of the intervention’s formal practice. Much like a dog of many and uncertain breeds, the project aimed to negotiate the links opened up by a design field such as scenography between: private and public spaces; imaginary scenes and real scenarios; and performative

spaces and exhibition spaces. It is the demonstration and confirmation of a growing area of design that is starting to validate Cedric Price’s claim that in our contemporary societies, buildings might indeed not always be the best solution to certain spatial problems. Rather, punctual and more ephemeral interventions that operate under the banner of an inclusive and adaptive discipline such as scenography are often capable of providing much more imaginative and radically new types of spatial solutions and experiences.

< spmb, Mutts on a Leash, Montreal, 2012

References Foucault, M (1997) Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias. in N. Leach (Ed.), Rethinking Architecture (p.352) London: Routledge Mathews, S. (2007). Cedric Price as Anti-Architect. In T. Anstey, K. Grillner, & R. Hughes (Eds.), Architecture and authorship (p. P.142). London: Black Dog Publishing.

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entertainment design

c o n s t r u c t i n g e v e n t s Evan mullen

In 1964, Ron Herron, a member of the design collective Archigram, envisioned cities walking on their own, touring the world and linking to one another and to fixed infrastructure. At the time it was argued that Archigram’s “technological and science fiction fantasies” (Phillip Drew, 1972) were unrepresentative of concrete knowledge and were contradictory to known science and possibility.

But by the late 1980s, Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) graduate, Mark Fisher, had begun to realize Herron’s visions of city-sized, transportable vessels capable of traveling the globe and enveloping hundreds of thousands at each stop along the way.

At the AA, Fisher had been a student of Archigram collaborator Peter Cook, designer of the Plug-In City, and Cook’s influence can be seen in much of Fisher’s work from the 1970s all the way through to the present day. Fisher has taken the Plug-In City’s ideas of machine aesthetic, mobility and prefabrication while subtracting the unrealistic notion that people would actually live in these constructions. He’s also realized what makes these portable megastructures economically feasible - people will pay money to go to rock shows.

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the designers of these places have became not saviours of the world but people who simply make the world more enjoyable through the orchestration of events and the construction of physical structures to house them. The designers of these places and events are entertainment architects.

What is the role of the entertainment architect?

Mark Fisher and his team tackle everything from adapting standard industrial parts into custom configurations, to sound and lighting design, to creating narratives, to organizing tour schedules with maximum efficiency. Time is a building material as important as steel in the world of rock concerts and each 3 hour show takes 2 to 4 days of carefully articulated travel and set up time. Pink Floydâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Division Bell Tour (1994) alone involved the set up and tear down of three separate 180-foot stages and a crew of 161 people to move the 700 tonnes of steel in 53 trucks across North America.

On top of these tasks, the entertainment architect much be as, if not more, aware than the performers for which he designs of the current state of popular culture and which turn it might take next. The ephemeral nature of these structures allows them to cater exclusively to momentaneous events rather than lasting urban impacts, separating these works from the architecture of the cities on which they land.

The result is somewhere between an architecture

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and an industrial product; a work that gains its permanence through memory, documentation and cultural relevance rather than heavy, durable construction.

Fisher’s style has morphed from the pseudoindustrial aesthetic that was celebrated by Cook to slick, out-of-scale post-modernism as exemplified by his works for U2 in the mid 1990s. While these forms may seem shallow and unauthentic because they follow short-lived trends, they succeed in the original intention of the Plug-In City, creating “architecture as an event that can only be realized by the active involvement of its inhabitants,” (Peter Cook, 1964) catering to and animated by performers and audience alike to form a working whole. Like the rock stars themselves, Mark Fisher’s success has come from doing the right thing at the right time and making it accessible to a wide audience.

References Imbesi, L. (2010, August). Design of Event. diid, n_45, 64-69.

Herron, Ron, and Reyner Banham. The visions of Ron Herron. London: Acad. Ed., 1994. Print.

Holding, Eric. Mark Fisher: staged architecture.

West Sussex: Wiley-Academy, 2000. Print.

Lyall, Sutherland, and Ron Herron. Imagination Headquarters. London: Phaidon Press, 1992.

Print.

Sadler, Simon. Archigram: architecture without architecture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005. Print.

Steiner, Hadas A.. Beyond Archigram: the structure of circulation. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Print.

Mark Fisher, Rolling Stones’ Bridges to Babylon, 1997

^

> Mark Fisher, U2’s Popmart (In Construction), 1997 > Mark Fisher, Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels, Los Angeles Concert, 1989

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mark fisher and setting the stage mind map evan mullen

type of design suBhead

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Mark fisher and setting the stage Evan mullen

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s t a g e

d e s i g n

m i s e e n s c Ã&#x2030; n e Ann Le

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This article will be analyzing design techniques in the occupational field of stage design, primarily investigating the field in two different contexts, cinema and theatre. The elements which this article will explore include creative strategies used in developing and designing a scene, audience perspectives with regards to set design, lighting, space, costume and acting. In cinema the view is controlled by the aperture, it is precise, contained - the audience sees a curated point of view. In theatre, the stage is the scene, it is a phenomenological experience for the viewer, the audience is the personal presence of the performance. Moreover, theatre provides a sensory experience of materials of the set and engages the audience through the performance.

< Town Clerk towering over Dr. Caligari.

Exagerated height gives the expression of dominance and power.

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Stage design is a profession that designs scenes for theatre or film sets. Stage designers re-create representations of a space, faux scenes, a sort of alternate reality that is meant to be used in a performance. The stage designers often works in collaboration with lighting directors, actors, and elements of the stage that affect one another, in order to create a narrative story and a cohesive style throughout the performance.

Conversely, this article will be analyzing and comparing these two different performance based environments in terms of case studies and examples in cinema and theatre. For cinema, Das Cabinett Des Dr. Caligari, where German expressionist painters collaborate under the supervision of director Robert Weinem, and for theatre, Blue Dragon in which Robert Lepage plays a primary role as the mastermind behind the stage design in addition of being the director.

The cinematic example is a German Expressionist film made in the year 1920. Under the production company Delca Picture Corporation. It was written by the theatre writers Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer and the script was written in the way that“every expression, every movement of players was written in detailed instructions in the script.” (Adkinson 1972) Originally it was to be directed by Fritz Lang (who directed Metropolis a few years later) but the position was given to Wiene instead. The scenes were designed to represent the image of a fantasy as a reality. The entire set was painted on canvas, and the ‘objects’ and background were extremely exaggerated for dramatic effect. As a result, the setting was not necessarily a ‘realistic’ representation per se’ but as an abstract expression of the scene which was the graphic style of the film. “Caligaris setting and themes intensified the thoughts and emotions of the characters.” (Robinson, 1997) In one of the scenes, objects are used as expression. “Caligari fumes while waiting for the town clerk” (Robinson, 1997). The town clerk was Volume 0

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placed on an exaggeratedly tall stool and desk that represents his authority. His height gives him a looming condescending gaze over patrons in the room, one of the patrons including a very angry Dr. Caligari.

The paintings were “complex and ambiguous” (Robinson, 1997) accounts for informal shaped to appear - vague representation of the objects - substance because they were no longer being viewed as something “real” enabling a new interpretion by the audience. Realism or reality was no longer a valid representation and was not being read as a reformed and changed in the imagination of the viewers.

The lighting used was very stark allowing for these canvases to standout and the abstract and deformed architecture to come into the foreground. The characters were allowed to become literally lighter or darker, moving them either in front or behind the lighting, to give a sense of a joyful character or a sinister character.

The theatrical example, Blue Dragon, is one part of the Dragon’s Trilogy.

This theatre production began in 1987, originally including all (now divided) three parts. The set of the Blue Dragon is built as a two level section with divided panels or rooms. The set is dynamic and changes with each scene. Lepage allows for physical collaborations between the actors to take place and creates objects that express the atmosphere and different experiences. Parts of the section can be isolated to create multiple scenes simultaneously and enabling the transformation of the sets from scene to scene: “converting the space as tangible materials and a physical resource for the actor to engage with”(Dundjerovic, 2007).

In Blue Dragon, the only object that is fixed is the framing. The theatricality is developed over time and the characters and actors become a part of the transformation and the scene. The “language of the stage starts with the space and the ways the performers’ action defines it” (Dundjerovic, 2007), the stage thus becomes dynamic. The characters are sometimes expressed in multiple layers, using the stage as a form of representation of the character. Lepage often uses projections, silhouettes, and the actors as props 70

^ Canvas painted background. Exaggerated, surrealist perspective > Colour Poster for Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari

to create multi layered representations, metaphors and characteristics of the characters which are shown simultaneously.

The audience participates in the transformation; the transformation becomes a part of the experience and a part of the performance. It creates a textual experience for the audience, no longer purely visual, allowing them to see the stage change and the actors changing from scene to scene. Transformation thus becomes a visual theme, as well as the phenomenological experience in Lepage’s Blue Dragon, through the collection of elements of the stage; lighting, stage, actors.

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setting, a visual frame that the audience is meant to remain fixated on. The dissimilarity however in the methods how they try to achieve their experimental style, which is dictated by the differences of their medium; cinema and theatre. Through the visual lense of cinema, the audience view is controlled by the director,. Weine uses Caligari as metaphorical expression of reality through the painted canvas which is methodically framed for a specific view.

Lighting is controlled and is harshly lit. With blatant lighting a different substance is created in the way the stage is presented, and the starkness of the paintings, that is an aggressive yet playful.

Blue Dragon expresses through performance and stages a textual experience where the transformation is a part of the performance and becomes the scene. “here, matter is transcended through stage transformation and growth” and the audience is part of the performance, because of their physical presence.

Though both of these examples are very different in their visual style, they are able to achieve an experiential substance that is quite different from their predecessors. Instead of trying to portray what is necessarily “real”, or anything that is closer to a physical reality, they both play with what is real through experimentation. rather than to fixate on reality, they play with different forms of representations which allow the designers to create depth and layers which create a stylisitic visual experience. In Blue Dragon and Das Cabinett Des Dr. Caligari it is more important to achieve an experience with the audience, than it is thus to represent a reality. The stage is used as alternate state of reality that contains meaning and substance; not just used as a background, but as a part of the performance and representation. Both classifications of stage design create a mise en scéne, a visual style, where the stage becomes a part of the narrative and directly participates in the telling of a story.

^ Blue Dragon - Two scenes displayed simultaneously Silohuetted characters, layering of characters

^

References Adkinson, R. (1972). The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari a film by Rober Weine, Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz. London, Great Britain: Lorrimer Publishing.

Eyre, R., & Wright, W. N. (2000). Changing Stages: A View of British Theatre In The Twentieth Century. London, Great Britain: Butler & Tanner Limited. dundjerovic, a. s. (2007). Theatricaltiy of Rober Lepage. McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Robinson, D. (1997). Das Cabinet Des Caligari. London, UK: British Film Institute.

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Wood engineering

The s t r u c t u r a l i n t e g r i t y of d e s i g n philipp stäheli

Making it work: that s generally seen as the sole preconcieved purpose of an engineer. Architects take care of the visual design and engineers the structural design. But great work comes into being when professions work hand in hand and knowledge is thoughtfully merged. A row of virtuosic engineers like Santiago Calatrava, Pier Luigi Nervi and Peter Rice have proven so.

Often the engineer’s work will not receive as much attention as a designer work since the engineer‘s primary focus is on the structural stability of a construction or a building and not it‘s formal expression. This commonly renders work more of a necessity than as an improvment in quality. The architect or designer on the other hand, will often try to camouflage structural elements in benefit of the clear appearance of their designs and to hide their lack of understanding for structure. A close

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collaboration of the two professions is therefore the key to a coherent design.

An architect should embed structural thoughts into his designs from the very first moment in order to reach a profoundly sophisticated design. On the other hand, the engineer be sensitive to the visual considerations in order to lift general structures and infrastructures out of their context of necessity and turn them into an experiential spaces.

Since the beginning of structural engineering, steel and concrete engineering has always dominated the profession. And, even if it is a lot more acessible and workable wood has always been seen as the material for small scaled projects, as it was not thought of as suitable for heavy loads. Only in the last twenty years, especially for the building industry in Switzerland, has there been strong lobbying for wood and an increased development of wood engineering. New technologies like CNC (Computerized Numerical Control) or the welding of wood have allowed for an increased development of wooden structures but will also enable new design opportunites. Even in

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^ Expodach Hannover, Germany > Lake Hills Suncheon Country Club, South Korea, 2008, Ken Sungjin Min

the future though an engineer is primarely responsible for calculations concerning the structure, the impact of their work can go far beyond that. The choice of carbon neutral wood and its sophisticated appliance leads to the solution of problems that are concerning our society as a whole.

Hermann Blumer represents a rare type in the profession that does not know any limits in their technical designs. (see interview). He has worked with world-wide famous architects such as; Shigeru Ban, Peter Zumthor, Herzog & DeMeuron and Norman Foster. He introduced the beauty of wood engineering to the world but also includes system-relevant and environmental thinking in his constructions. The characteristics

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>Metla, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Finland, 2004, SARC Architects >Perez Cruz Winery, Chile, 2002, Architect Unknown

of wood are so diverse that a wood engineering is confronted with a plethora of opportunities but also problems which allow him to design constructions that can perform in far more ways than just providing a structure or shaping a space. Wood allows the engineers to address the fields of insulation, noise transmission, acoustics, humidity regulation, heat storage and visual appeal with only one material. Wood is an organic material that reacts and changes according to its surroundings.

This is not to mention that fitting this many tasks in one wall or ceiling is not an easy endeavour; even more so when architects and investors get involved as well. The same way the architect joins the design with the construction, the engineer joins the construction with the design, just from the other end.

Engineers and architects have to meet in the middle. Many architects will try force construction constraints into their design afterwards. This is something that lead to an incoherent design. A clear design can only be accomplished by an integral consciousness of both the design 74

^ Perez Cruz Winery, Chile, 2002, Architect Unknown

and the construction from the very beginning of the development process. Since the engineer is responsible for a project’s structural security they are more likely to be interested in a efficient and secure construction design, rather than in the design’s visual appeal. When architecs stress their design wishes they rely on the engineer to design the construction in a safe and effective way, since the design of the construction has a high impact on a project’s costs, which the architect takes responsibility for in the end. Therefore there is a direct correlation between design and cost as well as the need for a close collaboration between architects and engineers.

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an interview with herman blumer philipp stäheli Stäheli: Hermann Blumer, you are one of

the leading wood engineers and developers of wood-systems in the world. In 2011 you lectured at the first wood conference in Cape Town, what did you learn?

Blumer: The interest in wood is increasing again around the world. Green Building have become the solution. The time has come to share experiences and knowledge around the issue of wood in a broader fashion than up until now.

Stäheli: What are the advantages of working with wood as an engineer and in what way is it different from working with concrete or steel?

Blumer: At the start of the designs for the new Tamedia building I was asked the same question by Shigeru Ban. For a long time I did not know the answer until I said one would be closer to nature. Steel and concrete have a higher performance but specialise on a few functions. Wood performs less in specific category but is better in comparison. Thanks to this,

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one can use it for almost any application.

Wood is just more attractive, more feminine. It becomes your closest companion if you have worked with it for a long time. Working with wood therefore is teamwork with all kinds of characters.

Stäheli:What developments do you see in wood-engineering? What are we moving towards?

Blumer: At the moment we can see development in free-form construction.

Wooden buildings become more comfortable and soon we will not need any more external energy. Houses become higher but will not reach the sky. Working with wood becomes worthwhile for the young generation.

Stäheli: Are there upcoming problems?

Where are the limits to wood engineering?

Blumer: This is where I am a bad interviewee. I never see problems but only chances. There are never limits to me but only challenges to overcome the limit.

Building with wood on Mars would be a challenge for me. To freely span a roof over 500 meters.

Stäheli: Many of the techniques that brought wooden constructions back into the mind of the profession are based on hybrid materials like glued-laminated products which contain a high percentage of glues.

Will we be confronted with a new kind of rejection towards glue in the near future?

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Blumer: To begin with; glue is something entirely natural. Nature uses a big palette of glues that ecologically are no less good than the wood itself. Wood only becomes a structure when single pieces of wood are connected or when wood is coupled with other construction materials.

Therefore we have to develop the glues so that they are as ecological as possible. In the past one showed with bone glue how that could work. The science and the glue producers are working on this, they have no place for trash in their business model.

On the remark of rising glue usage and its correction we try to find the way back to hard wood with new forms of building. One example is Topwall (R). To build with hardwood was successful with our Büttenhard project.

Stäheli: What are the important aspects in the collaboration between engineer and architect?

Blumer: They are common destinies, unless one is extensively strong in both disciplines. The keenest buildings arise from a pingpong game between the two professions. Not everyone masters the game of back and forth with the ball. Many beat the ball over the table, others are too hesitant and the ball is caught by the net.

Stäheli: You concentrate your work on product development and its manufacturing processes but also on the realisation of new construction designs. To what extent has the work with famous architects like Shigeru Ban or Peter Zumthor influenced the perception of your profession?

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Blumer: The architects gave me a tasks and I promised to realise the designs but would not know how to most of the time. The presure to perform made me think hard, relentlessly and in the end creatively.

Stäheli: Do you think that your own work has changed after these collaborations?

Blumer: The method of working has not changed, but their effects and results have. For this, I am thankful to the architects.

Stäheli: You once said that (Interview Werk, Bauen + Wohnen, 2001) “...to follow an [architect’s] wishes demands tolerance. But it is fascinating in a way.” What role do artistic thoughts play when you develop products, solutions or new structures?

Blumer: To me as an artistic layman too, the appearance has to be harmonious. Who does not like to build something beautiful, I do not know such people. I broaded my knowledge during the work with architects and I can realise quite beautiful designs myself. I am proud about it. The elegance of the golfhouse in Yeoju was realised in a close collaboration with the architects. At the opening I almost fell into a trance.

Stäheli: Did you ever have ambitions to be artistic yourself ?

Blumer: No, I am missing the talent.

Stäheli: You developed two wood construction systems, Lignatur© and TopWall©, which will allow for wooden buildings of significant size to be constructed in cities. What is your position on wooden buildings in the city? Many architects will decide to hide a wooden project behind an “urban façade”.

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Blumer: With our ambition to conquer

the city we will have to hide wood for a long time. Wood in the city ws common at a time. Unfortunatley played a trick on us.

May our advance not end up in smoke fires.

Stäheli: It is your wish to use the current social conciousness to promote wood as a building material. If we assume that in thirty years the majority of all new buildings are realised in wood, do you think that Switzerland and other countries will be able to cover the demand for wood in a sustainable fashion?

Blumer: To create this balance will be the task of the present and coming generations. More is possible than what we can imagine now. Maybe it is possible to realise the 2000 Watts Society simultaneously.

Stäheli: What important challenge have you yet to realize in your work as an engineer?

Blumer: I am passanger on a ship of dreams, everything is good, everything is accomplished. More is extra, but not an ambition.

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^ Haesley Nine Bridges Golf Clubhouse, South Korea, 2009, Shigeru Ban Architects

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SCENARIO DESIGN

RETAIL DESIGN: INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE KEHINDE OYELOLA

Over the years, Retail design has evolved to become a medium for enhancing customer experience. This has helped elevate various brands like Nike, Apple, Prada, etc.

Since the consumer is the main focus, the retail design pattern has been modified to engage the customer by creating a personal relationship with the brands and retailers. This bond can be achieved by creating memorable experiences which appeals to the customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s senses, emotions and help showcase their values and give a sense of belonging. This article will focus on the contribution of technology and innovation in retail design.

Taking Prada as a case study, it has been able to win the confidence of its customers by applying innovative technologies THE PRADA EXPERIENCE

Founded by Miuccia Prada, Pradaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aim is not just to make profit and be a leading brand in fashion but to sell lifestyle and art through their store environment and user experience. This reflects in their retail store design around the world. This was achieved by employing prominent architects like Rem Koolhaas (OMA) who designed the New York City and Los Angeles stores and Herzog & de Meuron who designed the flag ship Prada Aoyama Tokyo Store.

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Rem Koolhaas

Rem Koolhaas, is the internationally acclaimed and award winning author, theorist, urban planner, cultural researcher and architect behind Prada flagship stores in New York and in Los Angeles. Co-founding his design, and research firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), he embarked on series of principal projects from residential, commercial to urban design projects. A few of these major works include the Bordeaux House, the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, the Euralille complex in France and the Prada transformer which will be discussed later in detail.

Remment Lucas Koolhaas was born in November 17, 1944, to a renowned Dutch writer and a film critic father, Anton Koolhaas in Rotterdam, Netherlands. As a child of eight to twelve years, Koolhaas moved with his father and siblings to Jakarta, Indonesia. Growing up there greatly influenced his career.

THE TECHNOLOGIES

Most of the designers and architects of the Prada retail stores both in Japan and USA, employed the service of IDEO, An award-winning, innovative global design firm that designs products, services, spaces and interactive experiences for organizations and company brands based on human centered design approach. IDEO achieves this by using three space AN INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN JOURNAL

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^ Prada retail store Tokyo, Source - Herzon & de Meuron (2003)

^ Prada retail store New York, Source - www.retaildesignblog.net

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^ Optic Display Table, Source - Herzong & de Meuron (2003)

^ Snorkel, Source - Herzong & de Meuron (2003)

^ Interactive Monitor Snorkel, Source Herzong & de Meuron (2003)

^ Different positions representing different functions, Source - www.prada-transformer.com

models which are: inspiration, ideation and implementation. These three steps can be reassessed, where inspiration is the opportunity or problem that motivates the search for solutions. Ideation is the process of generating, developing and testing ideas. And implementation is the path that leads from the project stage into peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lives (www.ideo.com/about/).

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device, the store information architecture and the interactive dressing room.

The Snorkel

During the design process, there was a need to create a personal shopping experience, so the snorkel system was developed.

This system was an adaptation of a lamp IDEO developed for the office building of Helvetia Patria, an insurance company in St. Gallen where the lamp could be adjusted to different heights and positions FIELDS

via a flexible tube.

This idea enabled data in form of images, sound and light and it can be adjusted to meet the customersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; needs.

Herzog & de Meuron, (2003).

Optic Fiber Display Table

In order to appeal to the consumer, the designers had to come up with a way of making the display come alive, then the idea of optic fiber embedded in a synthetic resins came up which is a cost effective

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^ Interactive Dressing Room, Source - www.ideo.com

^ RFID Staff Device, Source - www.ideo.com

Interactive Dressing Room

This is simply an eight-foot-square booth. These booths contain different sensory technologies in which once the customer is in, the glass becomes opaque for privacy when trying on clothes and it can be controlled from inside to make it clear for people outside to admire. Also these sensory technologies can detect electronic tags on items which triggers a touch screen that displays the item information.

Innovation has been a great tool for ensuring commercial success, and this can only be achieved by thinking in a creative and resourceful manner. Though retail design has come a long way from back in the late 50â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s till now, it revolutionised to involve innovative technologies, and there is still potential for more advancement and innovation.

The Prada Transformer

and innovative way of creating illumination without consuming excessive power (Herzog & de Meuron, 2003).

RFID Staff Devices

This RFID technology is embedded into the merchandise in the store, when scanned immediate access to the database of information is displayed of the merchandise. The wireless device also helps provide information to the sales associate about stock availability and inventory.

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This is another innovation from Rem Koolhaas for Prada, located in South Korea. The concept of the Prada Transformer is a mobile and flexible exhibition space that can be transformed to accommodate different activities, and can exist anywhere it is needed.

This dynamic structure has four distinct shapes which are hexagon, cross, rectangle and circle, covered with an elastic membrane and each shape creates a different experience.

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REFERENCES Frank, I. (2010). Thinking spaces. Zurich: Verlag Niggli AG. Herzog & de Meuron, (2003). Prada Aoyama Tokyo Herzog & de Meuron. Milan: progetto Prada Aerte srl.

Lockwood, T. (2010). Design Thinking. New York: Allworth Press.

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PACKAGING DESIGN

THE ROLE OF THE PACKAGE DESIGNER AKIL WORRELL

Within the last fifteen years great effort has been made to develop and implement sustainable methods in the world’s industrial markets as an attempt to lessen the ecological impact. Corporations and companies have somewhat made an attempt during this timeframe to ensure that their practices, products and services are sustainable and up to date according to quality and service standards. While some have genuinely made an effort to conduct business in more ecologically responsible manner, some have unfortunately been deceitfully jumping onto the “green” bandwagon in attempt to heighten their appeal; green-washing their business practices. Sustainability and an ultimately eco-friendly society cannot be achieved overnight and sustainable methods cannot be implemented immediately to replace current systems and ideologies already in place. The change will only be successful and deemed practical if it is implemented gradually.

However, since then there have been vast improvements in developing sustainable methods of consumer packaging in terms of the use of innovative materials being utilized and the manufacturing processes involved. Manufacturers, and most notably designers, have turned to sustainable materials and methods of packaging as a means of decreasing the ecological footprint which prior consumer packaging materials and methods have caused. Product packaging transportation methods and practices have also been revised, modified and reapplied to help eliminate the carbon footprint however, revisions and improvements still need to be made and implemented if any substantial improvements to be made and deemed successful.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS

Now let’s take a brief look at this fifteen year attempt to eliminate to the carbon footprint caused by the materials and manufacturing processes involved with consumer packaging. For the past fifteen years the most common materials used in packaging manufacturing usually were various types plastic, Styrofoam and paper-based substrates such as corrugated fiberboard/cardboard/ paperboard, foam-cor etc. Many countries have experienced many problems when disposing of their packaging after consumption. Consumer packaging has been a topic of concern for many environmentalist lobbies and organizations for quite some time (Fisher & Shipton, 2009). There have also been strict laws and guidelines implemented by countries to govern and regulate the manufacturing, disposal and recycling of consumer packaging with the number growing from 25 to 30 in the last 6 years.

However, there is still room for improvement and lots to be reconsidered as consumer packaging still accounts for up to 30% of landfill waste (Environmental Packaging Guideline, 2005).

Over the past two decades, efforts have been made to decrease the ecological impact that consumer packaging has had on the environment. Also, consumers have become more conscious about their purchasing choices as they’ve become more knowledgeable of the environmental impact which their customary purchasing decisions have brought about (Unilever Sustainable Development Overview, 2009). Packaging manufacturing processes have also been at fault for adding to the current carbon footprint and ecological concerns which the disposal of consumer. In addition FIELDS

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to using environmentally harmful materials (petroleum based such as plastics and Styrofoam) as base materials mainly for consumer packaging, manufacturing practices and resources used throughout the process have been deemed unsustainable in terms of their energy consumption and waste accumulation during the manufacturing problems. Sure, there have been improvements in manufacturing processes over past 6 years as well as new developments in packaging materials and innovative modifications done to cut down on the quantity of material transported and consumed. These few improvements have somewhat helped to minimize the ecological impact which consumer packaging has on the environment. The introduction of biodegradable (plant-based) plastics from the late 1990s and early 2000s has given us some hope in making a real stand in the battle to eliminate this negative impact which packaging. Also, revising and modifying manufacturing processes and shipping protocols have also done a good deal for the environment and has improved efficiency in transporting/packing/shipping consumer packaging as fewer trips are made when shipping/transporting thus less energy and resources being consumed.

^ Styrofoam Packaging, Source - nexgadget.com

Consumer Responsibility

Consumers have also expressed their concerns about the continued use of plastics in their product packaging, whether petroleum or plant based. However, the blame cannot be solely placed on the companies and manufacturers producing consumer packaging. Consumers also have a role to play in the effort to eliminate the carbon footprint caused

^ Eben Bayer & Gavin MacIntyre

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^ Mycelium Packaging Molding, Source - ww2.hdnux.com

^ Manufacturing Process, Source - www.manufacturing.net/sites/

^ Mushroom Packaging, Source - cdn.humansinvent.com.s3.amazonaws.com

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by consumer packaging. And even after vilifying the use of plastics especially in the use of packaging, consumers have to realize the importance of its use and how it has complemented the life of the user; can you imagine a world without plastics?

Any Suggestions?

Maybe it is possible. Maybe one day we’ll never have to utilize plastics in our consumer packaging. Maybe inventors Eben Bayer and Gavin Macintyre of ‘Ecovative Design’ (http://www.mushroompackaging.com/) have an answer to such a provocative question. Since 2007, Bayer and McIntyre have been developing a new alternative for petroleum based packaging product, not just an all alternative to plastic use but also as an alternative to using Styrofoam which is a common component in consumer packaging. In 2010 Bayer and McIntyre introduced a new mycelium polymer based alternative which had been derived mainly from using feedstock (corn, seeds, shaft, cotton husks etc.) and mushroom roots. The Mycelium root organism was proven to be successful, effective, durable and efficient when put to the test of containing various products such consumer electronics, fragile vessels such as wine bottles, computers parts and even as far as furniture components i.e. table tops, chair legs.

Unlike its petroleum counterpart, Mycelium based packaging does not require vast amounts of energy, resources and machinery to manufacture it’s materials. The Mycelium root organism does most of the construction on its own along with added feedstock. Like plastics, the mycelium alternative can be molded into any shape or form and for any purpose and can be utilized in various climates across the globe. It also gets the job done just as efficiently and effectively as petroleum based plastics and Styrofoam would; maintaining product quality and likeness.

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in small plants/facilities all over the world and does not require any large amounts of capitol, machine or man power. In addition to this the materials used within the mycelium packaging is 100% biodegradable and unlike the typical plastic and Styrofoam counterparts, will not exist for thousands of years after its initial use, eliminating the chance of it harming our ecosystem.

Well it looks like Eben Bayer and Gavin MacIntyre have found a solution to the ecological packaging (material) problem. The methodology, resources and output plan seems coherent with the current ecological crisis, addressing many issues facing the current ecological crisis. But will consumers willingly buy into this packaging? Does it appeal to the current aesthetic tastes (visually/ textually) of companies within various consumer markets? And can it be printed?

Although these seems to be minor issues as the bigger picture is being dealt with, they still remain as issues which need to be resolved.

When focusing on all of these areas consumer behaviour becomes an influential factor in each one these areas as it affects the success/ failure rate of each aspect.

So far, we have seemingly explored the material, manufacturing, transportation and distribution aspects of consumer packaging with and evidence, statistics and market research has shown that we have placed a strong emphasis on materials; revising their usage and modifying the processes and substances which go into producing them. However, the ecological effect has not declined as drastically as we would’ve liked. Maybe it’s not solely the materials we use but the way frequency and rate at which we consume and dispose of them; vilifying plastics and developing/producing new bio-degradable materials for our product packaging purposes will not solve the problem on its own. Maybe be if we looked at all of the influential aspect all at once maybe we can drastically make a change throughout the current ecological crisis.

The Changing Role of the Designer

The role of the package has gradually been changing over the last eight to ten years.

The package designer not only has to consider the materials and structure of the packaging as the sole responsibilities of his role but he/she will also have to pay closer attention to the manufacturing processes of the materials, they use, the transportation and distribution patterns after production but most importantly they will also have to take into consideration the human consumption factor involved within the process in terms of its usage and disposal (consumer behaviour). The contemporary package designer must also take into consideration the retail aspect of the consumption paradigm; being knowledgeable of effective product and brand communication as well as product placement (physically, competitively).

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REFERENCES Fisher, T., & Shipton, J. (2010). Designing for re-use: The life of consumer packaging. London: Earthscan.

Selke, S. E. M. (1994). Packaging and the environment: Alternatives, Trends and Solutions.

Lancaster: Technimic Publishing Company.

Walker, S. (2006). Sustainable by design: Explorations in Theory and Practice. London: Earthscan.

Fiksel, J. (2009). Design for environment: A Guide to Sustainable Product Development. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Wolf, N., & Feldman, E. (1991). Plastics: America’s packaging dilemma. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

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TRANSPORTATION DESIGN

NATIONAL CULTURES AND AUTOMOBILE DESIGN MIAO GUO

The question of how culture could be integrated into the design of a product, or to some extent, redesigned into it, is faced by designers nowadays. Whitney and Van Patter (2004) report that because companies aim to reduce product development time, there is little time left for designers to impress cultural characteristics into their designs. Thereby, accurate and fast integration of cultural characteristics into product design is one of the challenges in the current globalization dominant situation.

According to Don Norman (2012), the relations between products and culture are different with the activities of use. Thus, culture oriented design, in terms of accuracy, could be divided into two different types. One is design for products about traditional activities, which are heavily determined by culture and the other is redesign for product about technology-determined activities, such as the automobile, computer, and cellphone, which are less influenced by culture. In addition, because of time restriction, it is impossible to integrate lots of culture characteristics into design for product of technology-determined activities. Besides, culture itself is a very broad concept, which consists a pattern of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952). Therefore, choosing the appropriate cultural characteristics is a primordial issue.

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^ National Cultural Dimensions, Source - geert-hofstede.com

NATIONAL CULTURAL DIMENSIONS & DESIGN

relationship, modesty, caring for the weak and interpersonal harmony.

Geert Hofstede (1991) engaged 117,000 employees of IBM from 50 countries to respond to a survey on organisational behaviour. As a result the culture was identified by five common dimensions, indexed as follows:

4. Uncertainty Avoidance [UAI].

This is the degree to which the members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations.

1. Power Distance [PDI].

This is the understanding to which less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.

2. Individualism versus Collectivism [IDV].

Societies in which the ties between individuals are loose are considered individualistic. In contrast, people in collectivist societies are integrated from birth onward into strong, cohesive ingroups.

3. Masculinity versus Femininity [MAS].

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5. Long Term Orientation [LTO].

This can be interpreted as dealing with societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s search for virtue, the extent to which a society shows a pragmatic futureoriented perspective rather than a conventional historical short-term point of view.

The National Culture Dimensions have been widely used in cross-culture management and education research, such as cross cultural business strategy and E-learning implementation in education. In design fields, the National Culture Dimensions has also been use in human computer interaction design, such as interface design strategy based on cross-culture. In industrial design field, it also has been used to research culture influence on designer.

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also be a way to support the culture-oriented design in the mass-produced industrial design. It might allow re-design some parts of the product based on cultural diversities to be both fast and efficient.

The following is a case study of the Honda Civic car design. It compares the differences of the Civic for two markets, the Chinese and Canadian market, from three perspectives: the launched models, exterior and interior. Some possible interpretations of these differences are discussed by referring to the five perspectives principles in National Culture Dimensions.

Before we start, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s see the diagram showing the comparison of national cultural dimensions of China and Canada.

As we can see, China gets much higher scores in Power Distance and Long Term Orientation. Canada seems to be an individualistic country while China seems to be more collectivist. There is not a big difference in Masculinity versus Femininity and Uncertainty Avoidance.

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^ Nine generations of Civic 2012, Source - i2.sinaimg.cn

CASE STUDY: HONDA CIVIC

With development of automobile industry, nowadays, vehicles are perfect examples of integration of both globalization and localization. Many corporations have set up a few design centres in different regions to study the local market and human cultures, altering their vehicles to adapt to the local consumers. Today, the Honda Civic is the best-selling passenger car in Canada and a top-10-selling car in China (Honda Civic Canada’s best-selling car for now, 2011). After more than 30 years of it’s debut, the 9th generation of the Civic was launched in 2012. It was designed by Toshiyuki Okumoto (chief designer), who describes the new design as “clean” and “energetic”.

best-selling import car for 28 consecutive months here. In 1988, Honda of Canada Manufacturing (HCM) switched to producing the Honda Civic. It produces the Honda Civic Sedan, Si and Coupe in Plant 1, and the Honda Civic Sedan in Plant 2. The vehicles produced at HCM are sold in Canada and exported to the United States and other export markets (Honda Manufacturing, 2012).

In 1999, Honda established its first joint venture plant in Guangdong in China with the cooperation of the Dongfeng Motor Corporation. In 2006, the Civic was introduced to China and was manufactured there. In 2007, the Civic Hybrid was first imported and sold to China (Honda China history, 2012).

Honda Civic Introduction

Launched Models

The compact and nimble Civic made its debut, with a two-door model in July 1972, followed by a three-door version in September. Its design spurned the traditional obsession with style and took the “maximum value from the minimum mechanical space” concept to the extreme.

From the initial model, the design helped entrench it’s image as a familiar “people’s car” (Honda in Canada began from 1969 with marketing motorcycles and power equipment). Honda Civic was first introduced in Canada in 1973, and between 1976 and 1978 the Civic was the

While the 2012 Civic is sold worldwide, differences in the name and the models exist between markets in different countries. In Canada, the Civic model lineup is comprised of Sedan, Coupe, Si Coupe, Si Sedan and Hybrid with different trim levels, such as DX, LX, EX and EX-L. While in China, the lineup is much more narrowed down with only Civic (equal to Sedan), Type S (Si Sedan) and hybrid with several trim levels, EXi, VTi, VTi Luxury, 2.0 Type S and 2.0 Type S Luxury.

It is obvious that Civic has a wide range of model lineups in Canada, hence it pro-

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vides consumers with more choices. This may relate to dimension of Individualism versus Collectivism. Comparing the score of 20 for China, Canada scores 80 on this dimension (it’s highest dimensional score) and can be characterized as an individualistic culture. This translates into a looselyknit society in which the expectation is that people look after themselves and their immediate families.

From the design perspective, this can be translated to people more likely to get products customizable to fit their own needs. Providing more choices in Canada could be seen as a reasonable way to get use to the culture here. In addition, in the website of Honda, you might also find that the Canadian website provides a direct option button named “build & price” for consumers to customize their own car while the Chinese website shows nothing about this.

Exterior Design

It is said on the official website that the 9th gen Civic embraces the fundamental concept of a “futuristic and distinctive compact,” the direction introduces new values that reach ahead of present day needs and elevates the experience that the Civic represents. There are many different details in the exterior design, but the car door handle and the logos of cars for China and Canada seems to be one of the

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^ Logo of Civic and handles on Canadian model, Source - automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan

^ Logo of Civic and handles on Chinese model, Source - news.xinhuanet.com/auto/

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features related to culture. The handle of two models of Civic is different. The Chinese version uses the chrome door handle, instead of the same colored handle of Canadian vision, it is also recessed with inside the door panel with a surrounded depression. It seems that the Chinese version is miles better than the Canadian version which is plain and lacks any garnishing to lift up the looks. Again, in the Chinese Civic, there is a very delicate, chromed logo at both sides of the car showing the VTi engine, and at the rear end, it also has both VTi and Civic logo as well as the Chinese lettering. The Canadian Civic is much simpler with only one Civic logo the rear end and nothing else. All these might be explained from the dimension of Power Distance. As sitting in the higher rankings of this dimension, China is a society that believes inequalities amongst people are acceptable, while the Canadian culture is marked low in this dimension.

Different from Canada, individuals in China are influenced by formal authority and are generally optimistic about peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capacity for leadership and initiative. This also influenced Chinese consumers to be more focused on expertise, authority, experts, certifications and logos. Thus, in the redesign process of Civic in China, adding logos of both engineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s model and the name of the car might be a way to fit for the Chinese culture of a high Power

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^ Interior of the Canadian Civic model, Source - www.thecarconnection.com

^ Interior of the Chinese Civic model, Source - www.thecarconnection.com

Distance score. All these logos not only show the good quality of civic, but also generate the desire for Chinese people to own this car.

Interior Design

The 9th gen Civic has improved its interactive technologies for personalization and convenience, along with enhancements to the performance, ride and interior packaging. The instrument panel was redesigned the to be slightly inclined towards the driver, with the center console angled to the left. As expected, overall architecture is boxy, with clearly defined edge for all panels. The middle portion of the instrument panel is a lighter hue, painted in dark silver. The same color treatment is found in the gear console too, which now is a simple rectangular design.

The air conditioning control (auto aircon in VTi) is mounted lower and in a simple rectangular black panel. The button for the emergency stop is the only one obvious difference between Chinese model and Canadian model, as well the mechanical or electronic control panels are at dif94

ferent trim levels. In the Chinese model, this emergency stop button is red color with white icon on it, while in Canadian model it is dark grey with red icon.

It is clear that the button in Chinese model is more recognizable than the Canadian model. This can be related to power distance. As mentioned before, China holds the higher score in this dimension, and it can be deciphered as emphasising on importance of security and restrictions or barriers to access. Thereby, this button also should be explicit. However, in the Uncertainty Avoidance, China and Canada have almost the same score in this dimension, but Canada is slightly higher in Uncertainty Avoidance and the Canadian Civic model would emphasize help systems that focus on reducing â&#x20AC;&#x153;user errorsâ&#x20AC;?. This means that cars in Canada should have a clear button of emergency stop. However, it is opposite to the Power Distance say infact.

There are other differences between two versions in different market. For the models of Canadian Civic, there is no fog light only except the very luxury ones, FIELDS

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^ Five models of Civic in Canada 2012, Source - automobiles.honda.com/civic

while all Civic models in China have fog light with chrome surround. This could be due to the slightly different market positioning in two countries. At the rear end, tail light of the Chinese version is also different from the Canadian version. The Chinese Civic has an extra part of the tail light on the trunk, while Canadian version seems to be simpler. It could be seen as the Chinese Civic was redesigned to be more luxurious than the Canadian version. The signal indicator of the Chinese Civic is at the inner end of the headlamp instead of the outer edge like Canadian model. In addition, the Side mirror has a simple integrated indicator also different from the Canadian version which doesn’t even have the indicator on the side mirror.

Therefore, the Chinese version has more lights and signal indicators.

Are there factor all related to cultural differences and national cultures? How much important is culture factor in automobile design? There are still many questions need to be analysed.

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Conclusion

It is interesting to review this Civic car design in different countries by referring to culture factors. National cultural dimensions in industrial design is still in the first few phases and all principles are general and not easy to be used in the really design process, even though the case study explores some national cultural characteristics of the two countries which might related to localized car design. However, although national culture dimensions haven’t been applied in the automobile design, this article explores a close connection between localized car design and national cultures. At the same time, it also provides designers a new angle to review localized product design.

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References Don N. (2012). Does Culture Matter for Product Design? http://www.core77.com/blog/ columns/does_culture_matter_for_product_ design_21455.asp Hofstede, G. H. (1991). Cultures and organizations: software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill.

Jagne, J., & Smith-Atakan, A. S. G. (2006). Crosscultural interface design strategy. Universal Access in the Information Society, 5, 299–305.

Kroeber, A., & Kluckhohn, C. (1952) Culture. New York: Meridian Books.

Moalosi, R., Popovic, V., & Hickling-Hudson, A. (2010). Culture-orientated product design.

International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 20(2), 175-190.

Razzaghi, M., Ramirez, M., & Zehner, R. (2009).

Cultural patterns in product design ideas: comparisons between Australian and Iranian student concepts. Design Studies, 30(4), 438-461.

Whitney, P., Van Patter, G. (2004). Human-cantered innovation, NextD Journal, 3(1).

- (2012). Honda China history. Retrieved March 14, 2012, from http://www.honda.com.cn/ corporate/china/auto/history.html - (2011). Honda Civic Canada’s best-selling car for now. Retrieved March 14, 2012, from http:// www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/10/17/ best-selling-cars.html - (2012). Honda manufacturing. Retrieved March 14, 2012, from http://www.honda.ca/honda-incanada/manufacturing - (2012). Honda targets world market as newcomer in Automobiles. Retrieved March 14, 2012, from http://world.honda.com/

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ART & ARCHITECTURE

CROSS BREEDING GROUNDS FOR DESIGNING FOR THE SENSES VANCE FOK

The elusive sphere of art encompasses many disciplines, this includes architecture. However, definitively they serve separate functions, architecture has it’s pragmatic purpose and art serves a wider abstract function. Different as they may be, the two practices bleed into one another with ease. Although, it is more difficult for art to operate in the realm of architecture, there are still numerous occasions where it does. This fertile ground does not have a name nor do those practicing inside it have a job title (aside from artist/ architect) but they are seen as explorers of a new land and within this new space experiments give way to objects that give a new breath to art, architecture, and ultimately our culture.

In the space between art and architecture there are many venues for exploration and recently an interest in designing for the senses has created a specific ground that artist/architects are exploring.

Dipna Horra, an Ottawa based artist, is one of those exploring this realm especially in her recent works that involve creating aural environments. In Avaaz, Horra experimented in new grounds by meshing art, architecture, and acoustics. Exhibited in the Ottawa Art Gallery, the work brought an aural environment into the gallery space. The dimly lit space was inhabited by simple architectural elements: a dining room table, a subtle air vent, and a hung window. Inhabiting 96

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the table was a tea set, and in the corner was a trolley filled with tea cups and saucers.

Upon first glance the work appears to be a simple arrangement of everyday objects but upon spending time in the gallery space a sharp realization occurs – the objects in the space are emitting sounds. Dipna captured the sounds using a molded silicone binaural microphone appropriately called Dipna’s Ears. The recorded sounds then played back inside the objects: the tea pot told a story of migration, the sugar bowl sung children’s songs, the window clashed with eerily sounds, and the air vent chanted a foreign song along side the clattering of kitchen wares.

Horra’s initial education lies in both art and architecture. She began with a degree in architecture and later with a graduate degree in fine arts. During this time and as well afterwards she located herself in multiple cities, staging exhibitions and completing residencies. At the current moment Horra is a PhD candidate at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism.

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^ Dipna’s Ears, Dipna Horra (2010) Ottawa Art Gallery. Courtesy of Artist, Photo by: Ken Campbell.

AN INTERVIEW WITH DIPNA HORRA

Vance Fok: Can you comment on your approach to the work in general?

Dipna Horra: I am a media artist and I’m multi-disciplinary, some people like that word, some people don’t. I have a fairly holistic approach and I like to work through practice and intellectual research.

I am also a maker, so I approach it first through ideas of making but these ideas are based on some kind of inquiry and I have a social and somewhat political to this making.

I work in ideas of hybridity and transcultural synthesis – trying to understand how the east and west come into my own being and I try to explain that through my work. I don’t always successfully do it, sometimes the topic that comes out is not what it’s going to be.

VF: Any influences or inspirations?

DP: I’m highly influenced clearly by architects and artists. For example, institutions where I’ve seen work that’s really blown me away. When I lived in New York, I would go to MOMA PS1 and FIELDS

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that’s where I encountered the work of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller.

I am also interested in miniature Indian paintings and ancient forms of building. Going to India was one of the biggest inspirations of my life! Just being in the Himalayas and visiting monasteries and temples helped me understand different ways of being and building.

Sometimes I think my inspirations and influences are not that high, it could be something somebody says that I overhear, it could be an action. I was inspired by this sculpture of Gandhi that appeared on campus and then it was the anniversary of his death recently, so I put a garland on the statue, it was inspiring as an action.

But I do look at artists, especially female artists. There was a really great exhibition at the national gallery in 1998 when I doing my first architecture thesis called Crossings, the installations were fascinating, that kind of thing really gets me going.

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VF: Is it about equal that you get inspirations from both sides?

DP: In the last ten years, it’s been more of towards art, but it has always been art with some kind of spatial construct; such as the works of Olafur Eliasson. However, I didn’t abandon architecture during those times, I was simply trying to understand more the artistic side of it. Right now, I think I’m at the best balance I’ve been since I’ve developed the art side and now I’m back for a PhD in architecture, but sometimes one takes over the other. It’s hard to not think like an architect, I think I’m very pragmatic person, but that goes the same when trying not to think like an artist.

VF: You have been trading between those two fields, would you say there is a clear definitive boundary between the two?

DP: People can maybe define their boundaries between the two. I think when someone is observing my art, they may make that distinction. Now that I am doing my PhD, I’m starting to see that there are boundaries but I’m more interested in 97

^ Avaaz, Dipna Horra (2010) Ottawa Art Gallery. Courtesy of Artist, Photo by: Ken Campbell.

^ Avaaz, Dipna Horra (2010) Ottawa Art Gallery. Courtesy of Artist, Photo by: Ken Campbell.

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crossing boundaries. I believe it’s in the nature of how I operate. If I see it, it may be interpreted more as a challenge or even as a system that I have to subvert rather than a boundary. While working through a PhD, the challenge I’m facing right now is that I want to come out with an architectural voice but in my art-making, I come out with an artist’s voice. So, it is a negotiation between one another. What I’m realizing is that through understanding the art-making process, I have a really deep insight into architectural making.

So, ultimately, one is informing the other.

VF: What do you think of what artists/ architects are doing today?

DP: I’m still trying to figure that out.

There are a number of artists that come from an architectural background or a number of artists working within architecture, but I don’t have any specific example in mind. There is Doris Salcedo, a sculptor, who works with furniture, one of her pieces is a wardrobe filled with concrete – or Rachel Whiteread. I’m not sure if they have a background in architecture but those kinds of objects are interesting to me because they comment on the silence of built form.

VF: How has your architectural training affected your artwork?

DP: Well, it’s the training that I make my artwork with. I got into art while I was still working as an architect. I think it is the training of knowing how to read drawings, understanding layers, how to build something, how to produce a production schedule and getting it done - those are things that artists does, but are also present while working in architecture.

Architecture deals with a lot more than art. As an artist I’m always thinking about circulation in my installations. I don’t know too many artists who will think about that. So first thing I’ll do is draw a plan, something that is much embedded

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in an architectural frame of mind. This should be in an artist’s education, just as the conceptual/imaginary side can be in the architect’s education. My training has given me a lot to work with, though I try to forget most of it (laughs).

VF: Can you tell us a few things about Avaaz?

DP: Avaaz means voice in Punjab and it is about finding a voice and trying to bring a trans-cultural site for sharing stories by bringing an immigrant voice to the forefront. It was also about criticizing ways of being in the world in a positive sense. Based on the success of Avaaz, I’m really happy to know that all of these topics are things that people want to hear and want to talk about.

Avaaz was really my first foray into a multi-channel sound piece and it was where I first started with making of speakers out of objects. It’s a material study even though it’s end result is highly thought through. The beginnings started with ‘How do you make a tea pot talk?’ It was about the china and the frequency and what sounds good and how you build it.

So there’s that side of it and then there’s the stronger side - the cultural side. It taught me about what I can say and how I can say it and how I can bring certain subjects that are not necessarily openly talked about not in architecture as much.

percussiveness. People would experience this womb like space and I think the most powerful thing was the sound. The sound was what made it, it didn’t matter what the visual was, it was sound that made the cultural space of it.

I just started to understand the power of sound but I’m not a musician so I asked how do I work with the sound in the way that? You know, it’s the sound of the bomb that will kill you before the physical effect of the bomb, it’s so visceral.

So if you were sitting at the Avaaz table and you had your hands on the table, you would feel the vibrations. So there was something about making Avaaz and this idea of experimenting with sound and how I could bring forth invisible presences like magic.

Sound also has the power to transmit narrative and story. Eastern cultures are based on aural transmission and this is really powerful. This idea of a voice and the woman’s voice, and it’s the daughter’s voice capturing the father’s voice.

VF: Any advice for young artists?

DP: I always say that you have to have the skin of a rhino (laughs). It’s not an easy road but you just have to really tough because you and your work is always scrutinized and I would also say, don’t do it (laughs)! But I would also say, do it!

Because it’s the most rewarding work you can do.

VF: What brought you into experimenting with sound?

DP: I was making videos when I was in the school of architecture and then later I made this one installation in 2005 called My Culture Includes My Scene at the Ottawa Art Gallery. I used sounds of my Hindi community chanting in the temple and I used sounds of me as a child.

I worked with a musician who brought in all these percussive table rhythms.

Most of the time in the installation it was silent but then it would build up to that

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VISUAL PABLO REINOSO

DHUNIA (2011) LIGHT WALL (2000)

SOUND

LA PAROLE (1998)

DIPNA HORRA BLOW-UP (2004)

TRANSIENT REALITY GENERATORS (2005)

GEORGE YU

AVAAZ (2010)

BALL

FoAM

HAPTICTEXTURE

KLUNK GARDEN (2009) RIP CURL CANYON (2006)

CARSTEN HÃ&#x2013;LLER LUMENSCAPE (2009)

HYLOZOIC GROUND (2007)

MAGMA ARCHITECTURE

REEF (2009)

LEY + STEIN ROTARY NOTARY AND HIS HOT PLATE (1987)

PHILIP BEESLEY HIROO IWATA

HAPTICKINES THESIA

TEST SITE (2006)

HEAD-IN/IM KOPF (2007)

MEDIA VEHICLE (2009)

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BASIC ORIEN TATION

A MIND MAP OF ARTIST/ARCHITECTS PRODUCING ‘DESIGNS FOR THE SENSES’ CATEGORIES ADAPTED FROM MALNAR & VODVARKA’S BOOK SENSORY DESIGN

YOUR RAINBOW PANORAMA (2011)

ARTIST INSTALLATION / ART PIECE

UAL

/ ART PIECE AFFECTS ALL THE SENSES, < INSTALLATION HOWEVER SOME ARE MORE AFFECTED THAN OTHERS

ERNESTO NETO

)

ODOR WALKING IN VENUS BLUE CAVE (2001)

LEVIATHAN THOT (2006)

DILLER, SCOFIDIO + RENFRO

ANTHROPODINO (2009)

BLUR BLUIDING (2002)

BALL + NOGUES

HAPTICSPATIAL COMPRE SSION

GELITIN

OLAFUR ELIASSON COCKY EEK

SYMBIONT (2006) NORMALLY, PROCEEDING AND UNRESTRICTED WITH WITHOUT TITLE (2008)

THE WEATHER PROJECT (2003)

HAPTICTEMP ERATURE

(2006)

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SCHOOL NOTES

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A TIME OF GREAT PROMISE THOMAS GARVEY

In September 1973, the School opened its doors for the very first time to a new class of future designers and visionaries. The Bachelor of Industrial Design at Carleton, founded by Wim Gilles, offered a four-year comprehensive industrial design curriculum that has since graduated close to 700 designers, many of whom now hold prestigious design positions in both Canada and around the world.

In September 2009, the School established a Master of Design at Carleton, advancing the knowledge of design by building on the Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience and strengths in the field of design education.

The two-year program of study examines and incorporates multifaceted design principles and practices that contribute to the strategic value of design.

The focus of the Master of Design program is to advance knowledge in the field of design through the study of advanced design principles and interdisciplinary design practices that contribute to the strategic value of design. The primary objectives of the program are to promote design research, interdisciplinary design development, strategic design planning, and knowledge creation and dissemination. This is achieved through a program of study that enables graduates to positively affect the greater integration of design principles, methodologies, and interdisciplinary design development processes into private and public sector business practice (id.carleton.ca).

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A director has the benefit of seeing a School and its programs from a wide range of perspectives but it is rare to have the added benefit of having witnessed the growth of a School in some form across most of its lifetime.

Although not here for the very first exciting days of building what would become a highly respected School around the world, entering as students in the fall of 1977, our cohort was taught by founding members and we came soon to know many of the first students. Everyone shared the feeling of excitement of joining a program of study under great leadership that was making inroads in a new field of study being developed in Canada.

It was a time of great promise.

Years of undergraduate study passed quickly and the strong foundation gained at Carleton led to opportunities for graduate study and work internationally. Over the two decades away from Canada there was steady news of the Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s successes and the steadily growing influence of its graduates across a wide spectrum of business and other enterprises. The seeds of real innovation continued to grow and flourish and this fueled a strong interest to return when the opportunity became available in 1999.

Many of the original faculty members were still here and it was a privilege to work alongside those that had been mentors. Books had been written, new research tracks had been initiated, and the intellectually stimulating life of passionFIELDS

ate students was still in full display. It was evident that a succession of inspired directors had led with dedication. What was also evident was that the School was still flourishing as a result of the myriad of independent contributions people were making. In remarkable ways individual faculty members, supported by an expert team of technical and administrative staff, were working with creative students on paths of inquiry that were unique but that still built on many of the founding principles.

In the decade since then we have almost a completely new team and the founding members have retired to new challenges or have sadly passed on. Their legacy however remains strong and the original contributions of every new member since continue to build that strength.

The Master of Design, as one example, is still in its early years but it is already very clearly expanding the territory of inquiry into critically important new areas that reflect the combined individual aspirations of all faculty and students.

In this regard it is with great excitement that I acknowledge the launch of this new journal as the inspired work of Professor Lorenzo Imbesi and his team of international, interdisciplinary, and thoroughly inspiring students. It is a gift to our program and we expect it will succeed and grow to have considerable influence in the expanding intellectual pursuits of our students. With care it will also expand the role of interdisciplinary design studies to enrich many others in our society as well.

It is again a time of great promise.

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AN EVOLUTIONARY VIEW OF INTERDISCIPLINARITY IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN LOIS FRANKEL

When the School of Industrial Design at Carleton University was established in 1973, the founding Director, Professor Wim Gilles implemented a curriculum based on the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) guidelines. The program was founded on the premise that, “ engineering and the social sciences encompass the disciplines which enable an effective study of the problems of designing products for use in today’s complex context, to be produced and offered to the public by today’s complex methods of manufacturing and marketing”. The new profession of industrial design was a composite of different disciplines related to product design in what we might now call a hybrid discipline. Or perhaps we would call it “intra-disciplinary”, where much of the knowledge from a variety of fields would come to reside in one person– the industrial designer.

In 1973, the industrial designer may have been a member of a design team along with professionals from other disciplines. They may have brought their skill set to bear at a specific phase of design development that would contribute to the commercialization of a product. For decades, this linear productionoriented progression, with some iterative testing along the way, was the prevailing approach to developing products. This process is multi- or cross- disciplinary: where individual contributors come together at definite key points in the design process under the guidance of a project leader and return to their respective disciplinary silos when all is done. Today this linear design development paradigm is declining.

Networked, real-time knowledge-driven practices and asynchronous, distributed global work systems are replacing it. The designer can no longer integrate the range of knowledge needed to solve complex problems in a multi-faceted working situation.

In response, designers are moving into more facilitative roles, where their innovative skills contribute FIELDS

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to and often guide strategic decision-making– implementing design research and development practices to solve ever-more complex design-related problems. Designers who are also skilled in interdisciplinary processes understand how to work in teams of professionals with different backgrounds; they have experience accepting and respecting multiple perspectives; they recognize that conflict, communication, and team building are keys to achieving creative success. Today, the essence of an interdisciplinary design mindset is the confidence that the combination of the team’s skills, building upon and beyond individual strengths, will result in the appropriate design outcome.

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WHAT IS INTERDISCIPLINARITY IN DESIGN? WONJOON CHUNG

Recently, the term “interdiscipinarity” has been issued in design fields because of its diverse and dynamic nature for fostering team collaboration in design processes. Due to current strong market competition, technological complexity, globalized customer groups, and their cultural and social diversity, the notion of interdisciplinary collaboration, integrating multiple perspectives and different domains of knowledge, is getting crucial factors to develop innovative and successful design outcomes.

Interdisciplinary collaboration in design, however, is not a new idea. Major design offices, such as that of Henry Dreyfuss, conducted collaborative design work as early as the 1930s (Poggenpohl, 2004).

This early collaboration, however, focused primarily on working with people in similar disciplines; for example, industrial designers, graphic designers, and interior designers worked together to increase the efficiency and productivity of a particular design project.

This type of collaboration put a heavy emphasis on an individual’s division of labor; one could be part of a project team without actually having to collaborate.

Currently, however, collaboration in design has shifted from a primarily individual activity to a far more interdisciplinary collective one. It requires sharing ideas, exploring those ideas together, and integrating multiple perspectives (Poggenpohl, 2004). Perry and Sanderson (1998) summarized the collective nature of collaboration in design by asserting that “a design is no longer recognized simply as a designer’s individual work but rather as a situation in which joint and coordinated learning activities occur.”

Then, what specific benefits could the interdisciplinarity offer for design practices? I think it could promote people’s mutual learning among different disciplines when each tries to understand others’ viewpoints, domain-specific knowledge, and particular experiences, etc. which helps them to discuss the “com108

plexity and details of a product” (Holland, Gaston, & Gomes, 2000) and the learning will influence for a team’s creative ideation process. Though creativity has most often been understood as an individual’s internal cognitive process based on his or her life experience, culture, obtained knowledge, and personal interests (Campbell, 1969; Shneiderman, 2002), people tend to generate more creative ideas in a social setting such as interdisciplinary collaboration, because such a setting offers easy access to diverse information (Mamykina, Candy, & Edmonds, 2002). Csikszentmihalyi (1996) explained the relationship between creativity and collaboration as follows: “Creativity does not happen inside a person’s head, but in interactions between a person’s thought and a socio-cultural context.”

In summary, interdisciplinarity in design would be a way to integrate different perspectives, an opportunity to reach consensus among diverse experts and understand the rationale for their design decision, which can facilitate “inter-functional integration” to increase the efficiency of design work.

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INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN AND PROTOTYPING BJARKI HALLGRIMSSON

Interdisciplinary design is as much a way of working as it is an inescapable reality of what design has become in the 21st Century. Academically it is an evolving area of research that still has a number of practice related challenges. Most of these challenges lie in the nature of the complex problems to which design is being applied.

Take for example the design of medical products, high technology devices, transportation as well as projects dealing with social innovation or sustainability.

These are complex design problems that involve a host of stakeholders, end users and conflicting design requirements. The interdisciplinary process brings with it many new challenges including vernacular, method and professional empathy.

One design method that is extensively embraced to deal with such complexity is prototyping.

Prototyping in a traditional sense uses physical prototypes to study and test how a new product will be used, and how it will look and be manufactured. The term has however expanded its meaning to encompass any preliminary tangible form of a product, service or system. There is thus a wide range of different types of prototypes. Regardless of application, they share some common attributes.

First and foremost prototypes allow interdisciplinary team members to rally around something tangible. In this sense prototypes become a shared vision and thus engage the interdisciplinary process through exchange of ideas and professional expertise. Secondly they encourage FIELDS

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an iterative design process. This means that the prototypes progress in fidelity, which is a measure of refinement and resolution. It is an important principle of the design process, where problems and solutions tend to evolve in unison.

As early prototypes are built, they also tend to redefine and clarify the problem in more detail. This is one of the major benefits of the prototyping method, since it tends to keep everyone on the same page and prevents different disciplines from becoming myopic and focusing on premature specifications. Early prototypes are more open ended and playful, as they aid brainstorming and interdisciplinary discussion, whereas later prototypes are more refined and are used to verify design decisions. An interdisciplinary iterative approach is very different from a multi disciplinary linear approach, where different disciplines work on trying to define their requirements upfront in detail in terms of a series of specifications.

An iterative prototyping method also aids a more user centered design process.

Prototypes can for example be used to explore user-centered scenarios, perform user centered testing and verification that ultimately culminates in solutions that have been more considered from a human rather than just technological perspective.

The prototyping method in itself is however also evolving. New technologies continue to be developed that aid in visualization and testing. At the same time prototyping is becoming more integrated with the research process.

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In conclusion it can be said that prototyping itself is evidence to the benefit of an interdisciplinary design approach. This is clear when one examines how different disciplines and stakeholders affect the prototyping efforts by contributing input and feedback to each iteration as the design progresses. A series of iterative prototypes thus form a chronological narrative that speaks to an iterative interdisciplinary design process.

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CONTRIBUTORS Steph Bolduc

Lorenzo Imbesi

Student, MArch, Carleton University

Professor, Coordinator, MDes, Carleton University

WonJoon Chung

Patty Johnson

Professor, School of Industrial Design, Carleton University

Designer, North South Project, New Caribbean Design, Toronto

David Craib

Benoît-Simon Lagaçé

Student, MDes, Carleton University

Student, MArch, Carleton University

Loredana Di Lucchio

Ann Le

Professor, Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Design,

Student, BArch, Carleton University

Technology of Architecture, Landscape, Environment

Evan Mullen John Di Palma

Student, MArch, Carleton University

Student, MDes, Carleton University

Kehinde Oyelola Vance Fok

Student, MDes, Carleton University

Student, MArch, Carleton University

Daniela Sangiorgi Lois Frankel

Professor, Lancaster University, Imagination Lancaster, UK

Professor, School of Industrial Design, Carleton University

Phil Savignac Martine Gallant

Student, MDes, Carleton University

Student, MArch, Carleton University

Natalie Shalmon Thomas Garvey

Student, MDes, Carleton University

Professor, Director, School of Industrial Design, Carleton University

Philipp Stäheli Michael Grigoriev

Student, MArch, Carleton University

Student, MDes, Carleton University

Akil Worrell Miao Guo

Student, MDes, Carleton University

Student, MDes, Carleton University

Bjarki Halgrimsson Professor, School of Industrial Design, Carleton University

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FIELDS An Interdisciplinary Design Journal

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… is exploring the new scenarios and professions of design through their interdisciplinary theoretical foundations and methodological practices;

… is mapping the landscape of the creative professions, their profiles and work; … is divided into three sections: ‘Concept’ is dedicated to the theoretical backgrounds and to critical reflection; ‘Context’ presents the contemporary scenarios among designers, investigating the processes and their work; ‘Object’ analyzes the new complex products emerging from the activity of design, the advanced forms of experimentation and the strategies of production.

Master of Design MDes - Carleton University

… is enquiring into new areas of research, new approaches and new products ‘in-between’ tangible and intangible;

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