Compassion in design for a sustainable future Matej Feguš

COMPASSION IN DESIGN FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

34 Matej Feguš, Donar d.o.o. TUNNEL

Whatever world emerges after the #Covid19 pandemic, we’ll have an unique opportunity to use or rather re-use #DESIGN as a force for change. This is not new – this has been done in the past, when critical times called for decisive, constructive measures.

Britain’s Design Council was established under Winston Churchill and his wartime government in December 1944 to support Britain’s post-war economic recovery. The Council of Industrial Design was founded with the purpose of promoting “by all practicable means the improvement of design in the products of British industry”.

This time we have to go even further. We need to implement #compassion into design thinking and the methods we apply in our work.

Design starts with empathy – the ability to understand or relate to and share the feelings of another. But great design builds on that important base with compassion! Understanding social needs means we empathise; to research and develop a real understanding of our users – and what we as users need most. Compassion takes this a decisive step further. Whereas empathy is a much internalised feeling, compassion on the other hand moves outwards. Empathetic feelings allow you to relate to and feel what another person feels. Compassion, however, is an active emotional response to empathy and introduces the desire to help. (This is the difference between feeling heartbroken when you see another person crying, and giving that same person a comforting hug.)

We are all designers. As designers of everyday life we will have to focus far more on the key challenges of our time — improving health and general wellbeing, and making sustainable living a reality.

Only by focusing on compassion and starting to live and direct our lives towards building a socially responsible and sustainable future can we survive as a human race! Compassion; understanding over intolerance and wilful ignorance, co-operation over competition, and solidarity over selfishness!

Here are two words that will both drive and characterise a sustainable future: COMPASSION DESIGN.

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