Five decades of design

Commemorating a golden milestone, BDp celebrated five decades of multidisciplinary design amongst friends at its studio in Clerkenwell, London, supported by usm. Surrounded by a crowd of creative thinkers, five industry legends joined mIx InterIor’s managing editor hArry Mckinley for a retrospective look at some of the biggest themes in the last five decades.

“I would question it, because I think I’ve done pretty well,” said director at The Interior Design School and one of BDP’s founders, Iris Dunbar, when asked if there’s a lack of space for women at the top. Noting that she did have to stand tall in front of clients, Dunbar only felt supported by those in her immediate workspace: “It doesn’t matter what sex you are – as a designer, you have to raise the bar.”

Offering an alternative take, historian and academic at Kingston University, Penny Sparke, remarked how women traditionally were the minds behind interiors in domestic settings and pushed out by men in commercial: “There is a hidden history of women in interior design that we should revive, because they haven’t been given [enough] recognition.”

Ian Weddell, sustainability executive at USM agreed, praising the ‘powerful’ women he has worked with, including founder of MoreySmith and winner of Mixology23’s Henry Pugh Outstanding Contribution Award, Linda Morey-Burrows.

“[Counterculture] feeds design. It starts on the radical fringe and brings up perspectives impossible to come up with in an office,” said artist and designer Adam Nathaniel Furman, broaching punk icons Vivienne Westwood and Ron Arad as names who sledgehammered mainstream design. Weddell added: “Counterculture pervades everything that exists, everywhere – but sometimes it takes time to be absorbed,” to which Furman agreed and used Extinction Rebellion as a modern-day example.

Sparke referred to the 1960s and the pop revolution as an ‘explosion’ that ‘trickled up’ rather than down. “The same as punk, design comes through fashion, and filters through to interior spaces and architecture,” she explained. Meanwhile, Dunbar quoted inventor Robert Propst –“design always challenges change” – best known for his Action Office work with Herman Miller. Citing how Propst used agriculture and medicine as inspiration for design, Dunbar illustrated how the spectrum for design influence exists beyond ‘out there’ radical concepts.

the Jury’s out on DemocratIc DesIgn

“Terence Conran liked things to be plain, simple, useful and economical,” said Conran and Partners’ principal Simon Kincaid about his practice’s late founder. Known for helming furniture retailer Habitat, Conran was a huge player in accessible design. “People didn’t know what design was, but had designer objects in their house because of Habitat,” Kincaid said, ticking items off such as the wok and chicken bricks.

IKEA was another name to be thrown into the ring, opposed by Weddell and Furman with the latter adding, “on an industrial scale there is no room for the designer [and] you can’t follow the supply chain.” The big question then, is how does a manufacturer lessen the obsession with newness while remaining commercially viable?

Weddell believes the answer lies in circular economies.

“The premise is that you create revenue by adding value in different ways so you can be sustainable,” he explained. From a consumer perspective, Dunbar believes education is crucial: it all goes back to schooling, teaching kids value and consideration of where things come from.”

the future of artIfIcIaL InteLLIgence LIes WIth us

AI divided the panel. Remaining positive, Weddell referred to his time working with Bob Johansen from Institute for the Future – a mastermind who helped found the internet – and said he was reassured by the futurist’s optimism. Also confident, Kincaid remarked how AI’s been used for years, through Alexa devices and Siri on iPhones for example.

“It’s 10,000 brains, but it won’t have some of the decisionmaking and curating skills we have,” he noted. “I’m hopeful it’ll push design forward.”

A rise of hands in the room showed most were also positive about AI, but Furman expressed his concerns: “In the 60s people were excited about technology, but then [a decade later] there was the nuclear arms race, new forms of colonialism, the Vietnam War – and nowadays people still aren’t using technology correctly.” Diplomatically, Dunbar and Sparke said the determining factor comes down to how it is used, and taught to be used, with the latter suggesting that, “in design, nothing replaces thinking with your pencil.” the pursuIt of gooD taste Is futILe

“Shall I plunge into this big morass of stuff?” laughs Sparke when the subject of what defines good and bad taste is put to the panel. “It depends on who you are, what level of society you operate in and who you aspire to be and not be.” Believing individualism to be prominent in today’s world, Sparke said it now comes down to identity, ‘or identities’, in design to create for cultural, racial or tribal groups, which is a good thing.

Acknowledging ‘good taste’ to be increasingly subjective, Furman commented on how expression has been a ‘human biological urge’ since the days of cavemen: “Good taste is [often] the monopolization of what is considered acceptable by one group of people, whether that be within an industry or a class. What I like about the past 20 or 30 years is this idea that multiple taste cultures from lots of social backgrounds have become equally valid, and I love that.” The following applause suggested the room did too.

What are the best and worst things to happen in design in the past 50 years?

Ian WeDDeLL beSt thing: Multigenerational workspaces

WorSt thing: IKEA aDam nathanIaL furman beSt thing: Increasing taste cultures

WorSt thing: The decline of the British ceramics industry

IrIs DunBar: beSt thing: Steve Jobs

WorSt thing: Interior design TV shows sImon kIncaID beSt thing: Sustainability and wellbeing

WorSt thing: Lazy consumption penny sparke: beSt thing: The opening up of identities

WorSt thing: The word ‘design’