“Sketching Ideas”, designed and produced by Bachelor in Design 1st and 2nd-year students

2018 - 2019

Bachelor in Design Annual Journal

Bachelor in Design Annual Journal 2018 - 2019

IE School of Architecture and Design Volume I

Design and Layout Federica Caso Maria Jose Heshiki Nicole Beltrรกn Francesco Furno

Editorial Note

By Clara and Carmen

Beyond Aesthetics Mae White: Kimonos with a Twist. On Western Responsibility to Erase Exoticism Adelaida Balthazar: T-Shirt Activism. About the Use of Fashion for #MeToo Statements Nicole Beltrán: Beautiful Irregularities. Acknowledging Craftsmanship in the Ceramic Picket Tiles Anna Bundgaard: Universal Symbols. Design and Social Responsibility

Ethical Consumption Naqiya Kantawala: Designing the Consumption Machine: A critical Review of the iPhone7 Alejandra Alonso-Majagranzas: Zara’s Upcycled Boxes.

Waste Reduction or Marketing Strategy?

Nicholas Saye: Values of Design. Turning Design Inside Out Federica Caso: Culture Lab. Professional Evolution Through Heritage

Smart Futures Anurag Phalke: CarePackage. Traditional Retail vs.

E-Commerce Rafaela Valencia-Dongo Q: Smart Scooters. Will Pals Occupy the Streets of the Future?

Monica Pastor: Home Solutions. Ori’s Innovative Pocket Closet Irene Delgado: Multipurpose Furniture. Flexible, Simple, and Pointless

Epilogue

By Edgar Gonzalez

Works Cited

Introduction.

The Ethics and Politics of Design Clara Zarza and Carmen Van Bruggen Associate Professor - Adjunct Professor, Bachelor in Design

Design. The word evokes an object, a space, an image, the materialization of an idea; a process that is not merely abstract but requires skill, technical control over hand or machine, and matter. In opposition, the word ‘theory’ or ‘criticism’ brings to mind abstract concepts and intangible thoughts. For something to exist ‘in theory’ means that it is not yet realised; that it does not have a physical shape.

This division, however – between thought and action or the abstract and the physical – should merely be regarded as a construct. As sociologist and philosopher Richard Sennett famously argued in his book The Craftsman, the western division between epistêmê and technê, knowledge and skill, theory and practice, can be dismantled by the inevitable interconnection between head and hand found in the skilled craftsman at work. Sennett’s claim is echoed in the IE School of Architecture and Design’s motto: ‘Learning by doing’. At our school, this learning method takes form in studio based education where thought is tested, experimented and rethought; where ideas are conceptualised and materialised only to be questioned, reconceptualised and materialised again.

Sketching Ideas, the Bachelor in Design’s annual journal, is a celebration of our students’ theoretical and critical work. The title of the publication emphasizes this experimental and procedural quality of texts, rather than focussing on the monolithic and absolute value traditionally assigned to academic writings. The publication is the result of hours of reading, debating, writing and rewriting. Designs from the Design Festival in Milan and Madrid were carefully studied and discussed. Moreover, it involved the practice

of design in many ways: the booklet itself is graphically designed by the students, their own designs are critically reflected upon in various essays and writing itself is in the end part of designing. The present collection of essays, selected among the ones written during the first and second year courses ‘History of Design’ and ‘Design and Criticism’, are thus presented here as sketches, preparatory drawings that proof the impossibility of thinking without reading and writing. It shows the importance of mastering the skills of structuring and articulation for deep thought and full perception to take place. Yet, even in its final shape, it is not static. It invites readers to think along and to agree or disagree with the positions taken.

In all of the essays, the ethics and politics of design play an important role. User impact, societal influence or social functions of particular designs are critically analyzed. This socio-political lens is the backbone of our courses where we understand historical and contemporary designs not as a series of movements, tendencies, canons and landmarks but as mechanisms that frame and condition social expectations and interactions. If, as anthropologist Daniel Miller has argued, the material world is what guides our experiences, expectations and behaviours, design inevitably plays a key role in the perpetuation of systems or the effecting of change. Through studying design history and criticism, one learns that aesthetic decisions are never purely aesthetic and that technical changes are never purely technical.

Understanding societal implications of seemingly neutral designs is crucial for the cultivation of a responsible attitude. The reflections sketched in these essays can therefore be looked at as a fruitful source for the practice of ethical design.

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Authors Mae White Adelaida Balthazar Nicole Beltrรกn Anna Bundgaard

Kimonos with a Twist.

On Western Responsibility to Erase Exoticism Mae White

Hanging at the Madrid Design Festival is a set of two silk pieces entitled “Kimokonect” and “All Connected”, hand sewed by María José Dominguez and collected by Natalia Lumbreras.

This exhibition piece displays a kimono with a contemporary twist on the colours and patterns as opposed to traditional Japanese kimonos.

This is not the first time a so called “kimono style” garment (made by a European) would see the markets of the so-called Western world.

In fact, this is one of many other versions of a Westernized kimono that have begun to resemble bathrobes across many women’s clothing stores (see figure comparisons on next page). What was once a traditional wear for the Japanese people with centuries of history and a labyrinth of manufacturing specifications has now become a mass-produced jumble of generalizations in the West. Why this can be seen as an issue is because of the West’s study of the “Orient”, in which many Asian countries were grouped together as one for the ease of Europeans and Euro-Americans to study their colonized nations as a way of domesticating the region (Said 4). Stylistically, there is a misrepresentation of Japanese design for consumeristic appeal which further disconnects the consumer from its real culture (Huggan 24).

There is, of course, a less critical eye one can take on this subject. After all, if the Japanese don’t mind Westerners wearing their designs, then who is any outsider to judge? However the Japanese may feel about the topic of culture appropriation versus culture appreciation, one underlying responsibility can be identified: In this day and age, there is no excuse for a Westerner to turn a blind eye towards

the history of someone else’s cultural artifacts, especially when they are applying it to their own body. Understanding as much as one can about a borrowed object can help levitate the stereotypes and domesticating qualities of exotic marketing until it truly becomes “culture appreciation”.

Before exploring the ways in which Westerners may be able to educate themselves out of the hypnosis of Oriental exoticism, we must first understand the history and origins of exoticism.

All throughout the Early Modern, Modern,

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Kimono by Steve Draperfor Flickr, 17 October 2006

Floral Belted Kimono by boohoo, 2019

© Steve Draper

© boohoo.com

and Contemporary periods of Japanese development, the country has had both limited and open forms of foreign trade relationships with the West which put Japan in close involvement primarily with the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Russia (Matthiesen). During these years, many Japanese artworks, poetry, books, artifacts and motifs made its way to Western shores, stripped away from their original contexts. Benjamin Schmidt, history professor at the University of Washington, highlights that foreign craftsmen would mix decorative motifs that were found in Indian art forms to represent Japanese artifacts in the 17th century (288).

Why this act of mixing unrelated designs is so important is because it further iterates the disconnection between subject and object; the Orient is kept away from full comprehension and it retains this mystical nature to the West.

As literature professor at Columbia University Edward Said writes, “the relationship between Occident and Orient is a relationship of power, of domination, [and] of varying degrees of a complex hegemony” (4). By studying countries in Asia as a singular nation, detached from images that may have been made up about them, the West may begin to see these cultures in its truest form without the blurry eyes of exoticism.

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Kimokonect by MaríaJosé Domínguez for

Kimokonect by MaríaJosé Domínguez for

Madrid Design Festival, 2019 © Mae White

Madrid Design Festival, 2019 © Mae White

Educating oneself about the kimono’s significance can also discourage the lust for Oriental patterns.

Writer for JSTOR Daily, Cynthia Green, describes that the kimono (originally named kosode) started appearing in Japanese society during the Edo period, and the kimono’s panelled cuts were sewn to fit every body type. As the kosode changed with different aesthetic canons, its “fabric quality, choice of pattern, thread, paint, woodblock print, and colour were essential criteria for presenting the rank, age, gender, and refinement of the person wrapped in it […] Each individual garment was the biodata of its wearer” (Green).

She explains that respected artists of the time created books called Hinagata bon that recorded patterns which were consulted by designers before making a kosode for their client. The kosode was, “a visibly unifying cultural marker” (Green). Without this prior knowledge, the patterns appearing on these garments can be attractive to

consumers because we do not understand them, and by never understanding them we encourage a capitalistic demand for it. This phenomenon is iterated by postcolonial literature professor Graham Huggan, who points out that Western trained merchants, “recognize [that] the value of their[…] international commodity depends[…] on the exotic appeal it holds to an unfamiliar metropolitan audience”, and that they, “mediate the trade in cultural commodities of world capitalism at the periphery” (24). One can now imagine how jarring it must be for a person who has this cultural understanding to see Dominguez’s “Kimokonect” kimono using foreign patterns and colours while being traded as a collector’s edition item and not a garment. The title of the piece, “Kimokonect” is also a merge of two English words attempting to use an “Oriental style” spelling of a “k” replacing a “c”, but ultimately has no meaning in Japanese (see figure to the right). The description of the item

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that accompanies the piece does not attribute the colours, patterns, or geometric shapes to Japanese culture besides the fact that the silk is cut to mimic that of traditional kimonos. This case of ignorance could be easily avoided if the artist had respected the history of the kimono, done some research in the internet’s abundance of search engines, and acknowledged the possibly purposeful changes she was making to the design of the kimono.

Despite the West’s responsibility to investigate their appropriated objects, there is also a flip side to the argument that understands the possibility of an educated connection one may feel towards an object that, culturally, does not belong to you. As a Singaporean American, I will not deny the slight shame of exoticism I may be buying into when I wear a cheongsam for Chinese New Year. However, after doing my homework on the significance of the traditional dress, I can safely say that I feel a deeper connection to the garment than that of someone who wore it as a Halloween costume. If someone truly respects the history and struggle a certain artifact may have gone through, outside eyes should not be quick to judge either. We even have to question how a single person can truly have a cultural understanding of a garment that was not invented within their lifetime, or if

a foreigner can truly empathize enough with a borrowed cultural item to really “understand” it. In relation to a more infamous relationship of colonization between India and Britain, I asked my roommate how she felt about the topic of culture appropriation, to which she said, “If a British person started wearing a saree, I would say ‘Ha! Now look who’s copying who!’. Just as long as they’re not disrespecting the dress in anyway, I don’t really care.” Maybe that is how we, as post-colonized nationals, should all view these trivial appropriation practices. In this case, even if a foreigner may be borrowing an item out of context, the point is to embrace the attitude of sharing cultures and being inviting of foreigners if they are interested; it is the only way I could wear my cheongsam despite my American heritage. However, these small practices can also be a reflection on a larger perception of power that the West holds over the East. If citizens of post-colonization are “willing” to let go of their cultural possessions, it is only fair that the West try to understand the significance of the things they borrow to avoid deep ignorance and worse, disrespect.

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T-Shirt Activism.

About the Use of Fashion for #MeToo Statements Adelaida Balthazar

Clothes similar to the T-shirt have existed since Antiquity. However, the T-shirt as it is known today is relatively new. Its origins lie in undergarments worn by workers towards the end of the 19th century to protect themselves from the cold.

Nevertheless, the name T-shirt only appeared in the 1920s (Bekhrad). During the following decades the garment increased in popularity, but it was not until the 1950s when actors used them in famous movies, such as James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, that it became the staple of fashion that it is today (Bekhrad). Using it as an article of clothing by itself was an act of rebellion, as it was meant to be worn as an undergarment. For the following decades, T-shirts were filled with innumerable graphic motifs that ranged from movie references to political campaigns. However, it was in the 1970s, a moment of political and social unrest, that its disruptive potential came to life (Bekhrad).

It started being used as a form of expression and protest against controversial events such as the Vietnam War, and social groups such as the punks used it to communicate their identity. As Dennis Nothdruft, Curator of the Fashion and Textile Museum in London explains, it became the “blank canvas … [that] associates you with a specific cultural movement or tribe” (qtd. in Bekhrad).

Regardless of years passed, the T-shirt has remained as relevant as it has ever been, so much so that #MeToo, a global movement against sexual assault, has engraved its slogan in countless of them. Particularly, in a simple, black and white T-shirt with the words “#MeToo, you are not alone, you are not to blame, we believe you” (“Me Too Movement”). The “me too” campaign, which began

in 2006, aimed to start a conversation about sexual assault and help victims, especially women of color or living in vulnerable situations, heal.

Soon after its conception, the movement boomed in popularity as a result the hashtag #MeToo becoming viral in different social media platforms, which lead to the creation of an international community of supporters (“Me Too”). Taking into account how powerful this movements’ message is, it results interesting to question why a shirt so simple and ubiquitous was chosen as its channel.

The value of this T-shirt transcends its simple design. There are thousands of T-shirts in the market, all of which serve the same function. This means that those who wear the #MeToo T-shirt are driven by reasons deeper than functionality.

This T-shirt, which is nothing remarkable at first glance, holds an incredible symbolic value, and its importance lies not in what it is, but rather in

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what it stands for. In sum, it embodies an ideology: that perpetrators of sexual violence must be held accountable and there is a need to build a community to increase the conversation about this issue in order to put a stop to it (“Me Too”). As explained by English fashion designer Katherine E. Hamnett, the slogan T-shirt was “something to give you a voice … something to believe in that you could wear on your chest that could be read from two-hundred yards.” (qtd. in Bekhrad). This T-shirt has become a channel through which thousands of women all around the globe are able to share their stories, make their voices be heard and find the support they need to heal. According to the National Sexual Violence Research Center, rape is the most unreported crime (Milligan). However, the explosion of the #MeToo movement in 2017 empowered women to share their stories, and partially because of the movement, the reports of rape increased in 22% during 2018 in New York City (Embury-Dennis). Survivors wearing these words proudly on a T-shirt is a statement of power, a decision to tell the world that they will not be silenced anymore and a way to show others that they are not alone.

Although the term fashion is usually associated with elite runway shows, it is one of the few industries that have an impact on both ends of the economic spectrum (Galak et al.). However, there seems to be a clothing item that is particularly transgressive and democratic: the T-shirt. While other pieces of clothing such as caps or handbags have connotations associated to particular groups, the T-shirt transcends gender, race, culture, sexuality and

class (Fisher). Deciding to pick the T-shirt, a piece of clothing that can be worn by anyone, as the vessel for the message of #MeToo is perhaps an effective mechanism to reach as big of an audience as possible. The #MeToo T-shirt is simple in design. It is composed of two neutral colors: black and white, which are not associated with any particular gender, as opposed to colors such as pink or blue, which are commonly associated with gender stereotypes, especially in the Western world (Frassanito and Pettorini). Furthermore, the text on the T-shirt is written in a Serif font, which is perceived as “stable, practical, mature and formal” (Shaikh et al. 1). Again, holding no gender stereotypes in contrast to the Script fonts, which are perceived as more feminine or the Modern Display fonts, which are seen as more masculine and coarse (Shaikh et al.). In Amazon, it costs 16,11 dollars, an average price considering T-shirt prices range from 20 to 100 dollars (Keng) (“Me Too Movement”). These characteristics result in a piece of clothing that comfortably integrates in the lives of those who decide to wear it, and by not being linked to any particular group it transmits the subtle message that #MeToo is a campaign for everyone.

So far, instances in which this T-shirt is effective in communicating the #MeToo ideology have been explored. However, is this T-shirt only serving the agenda of transmitting #MeToo’s message?

The #MeToo movement has been growing in popularity since 2017 when the actress Alyssa Milano first tweeted about the issue generating thousands of responses. A 2018 study by the Pew Research Center found that since Milano’s tweet, the hashtag #MeToo has been used more than 19 million times (Brown). This visibility has resulted in incredible things, such as more than 200 men in powerful positions being fired after allegations of sexual misconduct (Carlsen et al.).

Popularity has undoubtedly been beneficial to the campaign, but it has also brought negative effects, such as the real message being overpowered by other interests. For instance, the fashion industry trying to commercialize the movement with innumerable versions of the #MeToo T-shirt. In order to understand this issue it comes in handy to explore the concept of Styling: the superficial use of a style with no knowledge or care for the ideology that it is meant to embody (Walker and

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Attfield). This is what may occur with the #MeToo T-shirt, as its countless versions are marketed more as trendy clothing articles than vessels of political statements (Spreadshirt). Most of these T-shirts include icons, colors, typographies and clever messages that subtract from the goal of transmitting #MeToo’s ideals; some are even displayed next to other articles of clothing, almost telling the user how to look fashionable with a #MeToo T-shirt (Turner and Pooch Co) (Ella and Brooks Co). With them being accessible to all, there is a possibility that the people deciding to wear the T-shirts will accept the mentality behind them and join the cause. However, it may also occur that some stay in mere styling and wear them as a clothing article with no regards to the movement’s true ideology. This results in the loss of the message and the utilization of the style of a powerful movement as a fashion choice. Hence, visibility is a double-edged sword. It allowed the movement to gain recognition but often at the expense of its credibility and true meaning.

It seems that the wider the audience got, the narrower the message became. Now it is common to see a #MeToo T-shirt being displayed as part of an outfit, reducing it to nothing but a piece of clothing (Turner and Pooch Co) (Ella and Brooks Co). These T-shirts were not supposed to be fashionable; they were meant to be transgressive and powerful. Reducing them to a mere slogan with no regards for the mentality they were meant to embody is transforming this recognition into invisibility. Many are aware of it, but only a few are truly conscious of what it means.

Since its conception, the T-shirt has been used as a mechanism of rebellion and protest, which is why it is no surprise that the global movement of #MeToo has used it in its pursuit to transmit its ideology. Simple in design, the T-shirt integrates

comfortably in the lives of anyone, acting as an open invitation to join the cause. If it is paired with the appropriation of the ideology behind it, it becomes a powerful object whose value goes beyond its functionality. It becomes a symbol of power, solidarity and unity that has given millions of women the courage to speak up. However, if it is worn with no care for its intended purpose, it is an act of mere styling that fails to communicate its impactful message. In spite of its limitations, this article of clothing has undoubtable symbolic power, and although it may seem simple and unadorned, it is in this subtlety that lies its true power. that lies its true power.

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Beautiful Irregularities.

Acknowledging Craftsmanship in the Ceramic Picket Tiles Nicole Beltrán

Today, designers seem to put a lot of effort in the perfection of detail, especially in the realm of product design. It is an action that has been educated through capitalism and welcomed by the general consumer. Through capitalism, workers and their respective labor have been disconnected from this perfectly develop product. Due to this reason, society and designers need to educate consumers to appreciate the irregularity in a designed outcome again. The series of ceramic pieces created by myself are characterized by their picket shape and their irregular details. They showcase craftsmanship and are meant to show the re-appreciation for labor. Can these ceramic pieces through their irregular uniqueness obtained by handmade production be critically defended?

Do they succeed in their re-appreciation of the process of craftsmanship, by highlighting irregularities and showcasing beauty in a society that sees smoothness as visually pleasing?

Since the 18th century, consumers have stimulated the fetishizing and alienation of labor, through the demand for perfect finishing and systematic production, caused by the rise of the industrial revolution and capitalism. This trend can be undone by showcasing the irregularities of detail that comes from the craftsmanship production of a simple ceramic tile such as the handmade composition of the picket ceramic pieces. When discussing the main negative outcomes that society has faced when industrialization flourished to admire a capitalist system, the philosopher Karl Marx comes into sight with his criticism of this economic system. His opinions and thoughts have been directed towards the realization that fetishizing has been attached to a perfectly looking product that becomes a commodity which makes “the production of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life” (Marx 321), meaning that capitalist has caused a wrong consciousness in humans that have resulted in a disconnection, also characterized as alienation.

To prove this, the examples of a series of ceramic pieces handmade by myself that showcase nonuniformity in detail is taken into consideration.

The beauty of these pieces comes from their irregular blue tinted glaze, their non-uniformity that characterizes their surface, and the uneven edges that create a composition of tiles that highlights the gaps between them. Just as Alan Crawford says, in his text about the Arts and Craft movement in Britain, they are “objects whose appearance declares that they are handmade” (18). The details in the ceramic tiles allow a joy in work that comes from the consumer realizing what they have been

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Picket Tiles by Nicole Beltran and Yoko Hwang 2019 Š Nicole Beltran, Yoko Hwang

neglecting through standardization. Acording to Marx, when labor is neglected “qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses� (Marx 320-321). These pieces show that it is the quality in imperfections that makes labor an acknowledged perfection. The example of handmade ceramic tiles manifests that by highlighting imperfection through a composed beauty of craftsmanship makes consumers acknowledge the production of these pieces in a way that disconnects fetishizing and alienation of labor in order to appreciate irregularities in detail.

Besides the acknowledgment of labor allowed by the irregularities that the picket series of tiles, these uneven details also become the beauty within the composition. Consumers tend to engage with a product that falls into their individual definition of beauty. However, when the product itself is a composition of several parts, the individual beauty of each piece disappears.

One product that can both be individual and a composition are tiles. An individual tile has an interesting a beautiful characteristic but when put into a composition this beauty is lost. However when recognizing the uneven details that one of the handcrafted picket tiles has and later put in on a composition these non-uniform details become the protagonist of beauty in the composition. They

are no longer seen as irregularities but rather a characteristic that showcases the individual aspect of every tile. It is a concept that consumers can identify, when these tiles are placed either in a composition or when being a single protagonist in an environment. The irregularities of these tiles become a beauty allowing for individualism to be identified when gathered in a series of tiles that have the same featured shape or when being singly placed.

Nonetheless, the irregular characteristics coming from the craftsmanship could also be a negative factor that makes society completely reject these series of picket shape tiles. It is a truth that can be seen in any popular design, where

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Picket Tiles by Nicole Beltran and Yoko Hwang 2019 © Nicole Beltran, Yoko Hwang

a product needs to have a beautiful appeal with a standardized smooth surface. In the majority of these cases, the aspect that makes a design product such as the picket tiles to be seen as visually appealing, is the smoothness factor, which can only be achieved in ceramics by standardization. The appreciation in society for this smoothness factor can be understood as the desire for perfection. It is as Roland Barthes says when explaining the characteristics of the Citroën car: “smoothness is always and attribute of perfection” (169). However, I believe that the irregular factor that comes from the craftsmanship of these tiles outweigh the beauty that society sees in smoothness, because the non-even aspects of the picket ceramics are never overexposed for consumers to be disgusted by them. They are rather individual details that can be seen as visually appealing and engaging when designers have properly educated their consumers.

As a designer, I want to develop an engagement with the user through my products. This engagement can either be purely interactive; where any kind of though is disconnected with the products, or an analytical engagement; which allows the user to admire and decomposed the handcrafted work with a thoughtful analysis of the

details that characterizes the product. With the composition of tiles that have been defended all through this paper, I trust that the engagement comes from the analytical side rather than from the interactive side. The handmade production that showcases irregularities and non-uniformed surfaces has been the factor of positive judgment.

This factor can only be defended due to positive realization that it gives towards labor and the shift that it gives to beauty where the uneven blue tinted glazed, surface and gaps enhances the attractiveness of each individual tile, especially when placed in a composition. Overall, this design of picket tiles with irregular details wants to drive society away from a commercial language to a critical one – something that has to be done in order to see the ethical humanized labor that comes from craftsmanship.

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Universal Symbols.

Design and Social Responsibility Anna Bundgaard

The growing social unrest in the US during the 1960s, caused the emergence of responsible design. However, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that it became a fully fledged concept and methodology; sparking and growing concern and interest within the design community. It was defined as “taking all ecological, social and economic concerns into account in product and service systems, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Keitsch 186). In 1974, the US Department of Transportation asked the Cook and Shanosky Associates to create universal transportation related symbols. It should allow anyone of any nationality and speaking any language to interpret them correctly. Many of the symbols are still used across the world and have not been changed due to their consistency and reliability.

How did Cook and Shanosky effectively create this responsible graphic product, and what are the ingredients of its succes?

When going further into the socially responsible design factors involved with the Signs created by Cook and Shanosky, we first need to identify what responsible design is from a social point of view.

At first, responsible design was largely understood as a concept involving the environment and the

process of designing to improve our immediate impact on the planet. It did not take into account social influences yet. However, the environment and all aspects of design have a direct and indirect impact on humans and societies (Mangold).

Socially responsible design takes into account the relation between graphical elements and people.

It adapts design to suit the needs of everyone.

The notion of social-spatial design can de defined as the interaction between sociology, people and the space. As an example, one can look at the bathroom symbols, created by Cook and Shanosky. Everyone is familiar with tham, as they are present in almost every type of space in any location as we instinctively search for it (Budd).

Without realizing it, the symbol has become the global tool to communicate the term “bathroom” and therefore acts to the advantage of everyone.

Since the commission of this project was to create universal symbols, the company did preliminary research at the American Institute of Graphic Art, which helped them creating the final symbols (Hiesinger). The use of information, analysis and specialization, allowed the designers to make more responsible design choices. Additionally, the signs also help to regulate laws within countries in regards to certain activities, such as parking, smoking, and driving. Therefore, it also takes responsibility in aiding a country in creating consistency in laws and reminding the general population of such laws through visual signs.

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Symbol Signs, designed by Cook and Shanosky for US Department of Transportation, 1974. © Cooper Hewitt

Another factor within responsible design in the incorporation and importance of functionality over aesthetics. As the 1970s was an era that experienced a drastic change in values, the value of exterior features was replaced by the need for purpose and usefulness. Papanek expresses that “a lot of designers are preoccupied with aesthetics, whereas it is more important to focus on producing products with ‘real’ benefits for

people,” and thereby being favourable to society (Keitsch). Design must clearly communicate its intentions, rather than covering it up with aesthetics. With respect to graphic design symbols, this usually leads to more complex shapes and forms. Despite the complex nature of the transport vehicles, the images perfectly communicate each object. Additionally, it was an active decision to represent the forms from a frontwards angle rather than the side. This creates a more symmetrical form that is also more aesthetically valuable. It reveals the direct function, which is to communicate with various components of transportation to the people and indirectly to ease lives through long lasting and universal communication. Through the emergence of responsible design, as Papanek states, the function of the design and product should be clear and demonstrate its usefulness, compared to the previous importance based on the aesthetics (Hiesinger). However, many designers began to reject the purely functionalist approach and saw a place for the fun, subjective and unexpected within design, as it allowed for the exploration of personal identity and psychology. Cook and Shanosky are a unique example of being a product of both pure functionality and visual aesthetics.

Since the product itself is graphic design, there is a certain requirement of aesthetics, and while the symbols themselves easily represent the various objects such as the plane, car, and so on, they are not viewed and considered to be beautiful. If the design of each icon was to be aesthetic and considered beautiful then it would distract from the social responsibility of the product.

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In 1967, a graphic designers group signed an anti-commercial manifesto where they stated that there has been a reversal in favouring useful, and long lasting forms of communication (Hiesinger). They believed that the term useful had lost its meaning within the realm of graphic design. This manifesto, which communicated the need for purposeful graphical design, is perfectly reflected in the design by Cook and Shanosky.

The signs are consistently used globally and have come to be long lasting, and nonverbal forms of communication. They originated from ways of thinking such as: “What can I do to trigger and support these new ways of thinking and doing?

How can I use my design knowledge and tools to empower these grass-roots social innovations?�

(Keitsch). Inevitably this led to responsible design.

The signs are made through the specialized subject of graphic design, and therefore do not have a direct impact on the environment nor do they seek to improve the human impact on the planet. However, the product, the set of symbols, take into account the social needs of the present while also considering the future. This specific example is neither environmentally, economically or politically responsible. It is rather responsible within the social category as it directly influences human behaviour. It simplifies daily life and allows for communication between people of various nationalities. Imagining a situation where these symbols were not present to guide us, such as in an airport, reveals the complexity and necessity of the symbols. Unlike the majority of the other examples, this one in particular shows how the company gave free access to the symbols for any one to use. This means that they acknowledge the usefulness of them, and rather than keeping them for their sole usage, by sharing it globally it has become more useful and allowed for consistent communication between individuals (Hiesinger).

While the symbols themselves act as responsible design, by simplifying the social interactions that people have, the company itself also displayed certain levels of responsibility, by allowing the signs to become freely available.

Design represents an important field of everyday life as it is the main determinant for our surroundings and behaviour. The symbols and signs created by Cook and Shanosky, act as a universal tool and influence various spaces along with how individuals are able to interact with certain spaces. The functionality and aesthetic nature of the graphic design demonstrates how they were able to create a visual yet natural product that seamlessly integrates itself in our surroundings, while serving its functional purpose.

In terms of the social responsibility of the symbols, it acts a guide to people of varying linguistic and ethnic backgrounds, and does not require a certain skill set to interpret. Additionally, as Cook and Shanosky gave free access to the symbols, it allows countries from around the world to reuse the same icons and ease the life of anyone who encounters them. Cook and Shanosky succeeded in creating universal symbols that serve their functional purpose of being socially responsible and simplifying daily interactions.

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Authors Naqiya Kantawala Alejandra Alonso-Majagranzas Nicholas Saye Federica Caso

Designing the Consumption Machine.

A Critical Review of the iPhone7 Naqiya Kantawala

We are in a perplexing time where our world is drowning in objects. Contemporary design is facing a crucial dilemma in the purgatory known as consumerism. With all the advances in industrial manufacture and mass production methods, along with a flourishing capitalist, free market economy and a reasonably affluent population; society has become the perfect incubation chamber for a cataclysmic consumption driven culture (Walker and Attfield). This can especially be seen in exponential growth of the tech-market; every year smartphone companies like Apple release at least two new phones (“Apple”). The way the product and advertising strategies are designed further leads one to question, to what extent is design facilitating a damaging consumer culture? Does design drive one to purchase more frequently on what purportedly companies believe consumers want or based on what consumers really need? A popular company that has an immense utilization of product design and advertising to promote consumerism is the iPhone and iPhone 7 is a noticeable case.

Adverse aspects of forced consumption, digital divide and programmed obsolescence are exhibited in Apple’s release of the iPhone 7. This can be highlighted through an investigation into

its hardware design. Apple decided to make a critical design choice to remove the earphone jack and to replace it with only one output and input source called the “lightening port”. The documented benefits of removing the feature are a bare minimum. Removing the earphone jack led to the freeing up of a mere miniscule amount of space and its replacement by the lightening port has an alleged impact of a slightly higher quality of sound. However, the supposed benefits are marginally different to the drastic inconvenience the consumers had to go through. It gets increasingly difficult to make the case that this change was done to the benefit of consumers as it is plainly a precise manipulative design strategy employed by Apple to enhance their overall net profits and sales. The traditional headphone jack was a standard for a reason – it works. Now why would a company like Apple want to disrupt this entire ecosystem where all kinds of other devices have been built up around and millions of people have access to these compatible devices at a wide range of price points. Apple has ownership of the company Beats that has multiple wireless headphone options along with the introduction of the new air-pods which are disproportionately profitable. It is reported that the sales of the headphones included 54% of all the dollars spent in the tech market, despite representing only 17% of the units sold in US. The headphones sell at a high price with high margins. Headphone sales after Apple’s removal of the earphone jack increased by over 64% (Kastrenakes). This design feature has further deepened the digital divide that exists in the world. The democratisation of the market has been burnt into rubble. Consumers that buy the new lightening headphones now

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have an accessory that works with products from only one manufacture. This is designed to make it harder for consumers to move between platforms. The overall setup to drive Apple’s sales of the iPhone 7 can further be seen in reports of software installations that drove consumers to be forced to buy new phones. It is confirmed that Apple did deliberately slow down the operations of older iPhones to allegedly prevent the device from shutting down due to depreciating batteries.

John Poole, founder of primate Labs compared data from over 100,00 phones (Kirby). His investigation revealed that the processor did slow down after the software update was supposed to fix the shutdown problems. The method of designed programed obsolescence forced consumers to buy the latest phone and get rid of their old ones. With the overall consumption of the newest model and the additional required accessories due to hardware changes has led to the overall e-waste of 65 million tonnes to be produced in 2017 portraying the harmful impact that manipulative design strategies can have on the environment (Chow). This also further exemplifies the powerful impact that design can have on forcing consumption. Design is shackled by conglomerates like Apple as a cog in their profit-making machines by fundamentally disregarding what consumers want, but instead creating unnecessary features, and removing other elements; effectively bulldozing a path of superfluous consumption and waste.

The design of elaborate marketing strategies has further debilitated the freedom of choice that consumers have. Advertisement design compels consumers buy. Our consumption system is driven by a mechanism of publicity that Apple deploys prudently in its advertising design. First, there is a creation of anxiety for the lack of the object, which can be seen in the “Get a Mac” advert, where it draws a dramatic distinction between a PC user (dorky, incompetent person) and a Mac user (attractive, witty person). This exploits the

notion that you are what you own thus compelling consumers to buy (Belk 139). The world runs of the idea that it is set in the future and things quickly become out of date. Consumers are bombarded in adverts that suggest that they no longer own the latest or best version and need the newest one even when there is a marginal difference. The future is the exotic place where one is supposed to live a better, happier life after owning an Apple product. This can be seen in the latest “Apple’s Holiday” commercial in 2018 where a couple meet each other in the street through their devices and end up having a wonderful time together. The publicity presents a “strange”, exotic future with a small pinch of the “familiar” that is just out of reach. Therefore, suggesting that if you buy the product you could potentially lead a similar life and have a similar chance encounter with the love of your life. Publicity succeeds not by satisfying the consumer with the product, but by creating a very successful and desirable dream.

This is a constant cycle of dissatisfaction and the want of a better future, creating permanent dissatisfaction. With the rapid succession of marketing campaigns of products that bombard consumers on every media platform creates a fear of being outdated and not competent with the latest technologies, introducing the notion of “psychological obsolescence”. As written by Dean Sudjic consumers have become, “like geese force fed grain until their livers explode, we are a generation born to consume” (Sudjic 6). This fear instilled through advertising has created rabid consumers that go to the extremes of camping outside Apple stores. Consumers are herded into buying appliances without getting the chance to analyse due to the constant stream of products being released creating a feeling of a lot of variety, however, the difference between the products is so small that consumers do not have enough expertise and time to analyse. This can be seen in the difference between the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 which is only the switch from an aluminium back to a glass back, however, the marketing campaign did not feature any information on spec details and simply showed a glossy new finish to the phone.

Consumers were not well informed on the spec details and just saw a subtle aesthetic change in the campaign assuming there were internal differences blindly making a choice based on their influence by advertising and convenience of not analysing due to the quick succession of releases.

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The analysis of the iPhone 7 points one to question whether design is deployed responsibly in regard to consumerism when looking into aspects of product and marketing design. The advertising propagates a “psychological obsolescence� in consumers driving them to consume in excess, whilst certain features are added and removed in order to artificially program an inevitable obsolescence. The iPhone 7 clearly demonstrates that the production and overconsumption of the product is critically controlled through careful design strategies. The only way forward for design is to alter its course and no longer be enslaved by insolent conglomerates feeding the hostile, manipulative consumer environment. Design has to take a stance for a sustainable, responsible course with a consumer driven market focused on consumers’ needs.

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Zara’s Upcycled Boxes.

Waste Reduction or Marketing Strategy?

Alejandra Alonso-Majagranzas

After walking around the Madrid Design Festival, I came across a section that caught my eye. In a small little corner of an exhibition, there was a sign that read “Design of the Future”, and under it, there were some great designs for sustainable, compostable and biodegradable packaging, but the rest of the “Packaging for the Future” left me disappointed. There were only five or six designs, and most of them were made by big companies and seemed like just green-washing. The most prominent example of green-washing, in my opinion, belonged to the “upcycled” baskets created by the studio Ciszak Dalmas for Zara, in their “Join Life” campaign from 2017. When reviewing this particular design, we encounter two opposing ideas, the industry trying to make it look like they are making a positive impact on the environment, versus the second most polluting industry in the world (fashion) actually changing things for the better; are these baskets a sign of change, or just the newest marketing strategy?

First and foremost, the idea behind Zara’s “Join Life” campaign is not a bad one. The concept behind this design is that Zara recycles their delivery boxes until they can not be recycled anymore, and then they allow consumers to create personalized baskets out of those boxes through video tutorials (“Zara – Join Life”). The idea seems to combine two concepts loved by eco-conscious consumers: “Do It Yourself” and “Upcycling”. With this project, Zara has disclosed that 56% of their boxes are made out of recycled cardboard, and that they recycle their boxes up

to 5 times before disregarding them (“Zara – Join Life”). Authors of Cradle to Cradle, a book that has been referred to as the Bible for sustainable design, explain that this kind of products are “the typical response to industrial destruction, trying to find a less bad approach” (Braungart & McDonough 45). Zara knows that they are producing a lot of waste through the selling and the production of the clothes themselves (Claudio), so they are trying to reduce impact with recycled boxes, and they are marketing that reduction as them being suddenly eco-friendly.

However, while doing research for this review, I tried to find more about Zara’s or their boxes’ actual impact on the environment. I even tried to find something about the positive impact of the recycled boxes. Interestingly, I could not find any reliable sources other than Zara’s own website.

There are no real statistics or numbers. This shows a lack of transparency towards consumers from the company’s side.

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Screen Shot of DIY Video for Zara’s Join Life

Zara Join Life Box Campaign by Ciszak Dalmas

Campaign 2016 © Ciszak Dalmas

2016 © Ciszak Dalmas

The hopeful and naïve consumer might look at these baskets as a first step for change, or as a sign that fast fashion retailers are finally making a change for the better. Literary theorist Roland Barthes, whose work is dedicated to analysing consumer culture, would look at the hidden agenda of this design and disagree. He would argue that Zara is selling us a myth of sustainability that does not exist while taking advantage of this eco-friendly craze that is sweeping our current consumer culture. If you analyse this design critically, not only for what it looks like but also for what it means (Barthes), you see it for what it is: a green-washing marketing strategy, as “eco-friendly” fast fashion is the trendiest myth. I would embrace this design if it brought “my fellow men pleasure” (Adolf Loos qtd. in Taylor-Foster), in other words, if the workers were paid fairly and enjoyed the work, and the manufacturing process of Zara’s main source of income (clothes), did not “damage men’s health, the national economy and cultural development” (Adolf Loos qtd. in TaylorFoster). Inditex, Zara’s parent company, has had enough scandals throughout the years about the conditions of their sweatshops and the unethical and unsustainable practices that happen there (Kessler) to be excused by baskets made from recycled boxes. Abuse in sweatshops and unsustainable practices are the opposite of what Loos described as “pleasure” in work (Adolf Loos qtd. in Taylor-Foster).

Loos would blame the consumers for this kind of

designs, as we are the ones creating a demand for company’s like Zara (Taylor-Foste).

Some might argue that responsible designers, such as Victor Papanek, would be on board with the basket idea because of the DIY aspect on the consumer’s side, but I believe that he would argue that this is just another symptom of our “Kleenex Culture”. This refers to a culture in which consumers give less and less value to their possessions because all objects become disposable, which ends up producing enormous amounts of waste. Papanek would fault Inditex and the designers at Ciszak Dalmas for misleading the consumers. Papanek would say that the boxes themselves are designed

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Zara Join Life Baskets Campaign by Ciszak Dalmas 2016 © Ciszak Dalmas

from the beginning with the idea of disposal in mind, as they are eventually going to become trash, even if they are recycled a couple times first, and then turned into baskets; they will become trash eventually. With the baskets, the company and the designers are trying to make it look like they are making the boxes useful again. But actually, this only serves as an excuse to produce even more boxes, create even more consumption and therefore, more waste. If Inditex really wanted to create change, they could. They control most of their manufacturing chain and they are also one of the biggest companies in the world, they can afford to be sustainable and right the wrongs made in the past (“Annual Report 2017”). But their newest campaign for “Join Life”, jackets made with plastic bottles (“Zara – Join Life”), shows that they are just interested in creating more supply, more waste, to continue green washing for an unsustainable industry, and in making consumers buy and throw away more.

Until we see a real, transparent, impactful change from these types of companies, designs like these baskets are not enough. By misleading consumers and capitalizing on people wanting to do the right thing, Zara’s negative impact on the environment and on the societies’ of their mistreated workers continues. It might be time for us consumers to take matters into our own hands, and just by making

more conscious decisions on what we consume, where does it come from, and by asking about the intentions of the manufacturers, we can create a bigger impact, both on real sustainable production, and on ethical practices of manufacturing. So instead of accepting that making baskets out of boxes are the best we can do, let us find ways in which those boxes can be thrown to the soil and enrich it, or how the chemicals in Zara’s clothes can be switched to materials that not only do not harm the earth, but also make it better, or how the factories/sweatshops can be changed by local production that makes communities thrive and succeed.

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Values of Design.

Turning Design Inside Out Nicholas Saye

Nowadays news sites are polluted with stories about climate change - stories such as the hottest and coldest winters on record (Shepherd), the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Pyrek), and the world’s rising sea levels (Weeman). Although, these are multifaceted issues with multiple causes and effects, I believe that at the core of it is the current rate of consumerism, and the society that we have built to accommodate for such consumption.

Unfortunately, no single person or industry can be to blame; after all, did any one person create capitalism? It would be very optimistic to say that we can change our consumption of goods; we’ve built a society of convenience and luxury after all, why would we want to sacrifice these things? A flight from London to Madrid can cost as little as 10 € and a black shirt from H&M could set me back 8 €. However, Ryanair recently appeared on the list of top ten polluters in Europe (BBC News) and H&M has so much unsold inventory that a power plant has begun burning unwanted products to generate electricity (Paton). We have grown to love this society and the convenience that comes with it, all while dismissing the environmental and societal harm that comes with it. Since I do not see a way in which we as consumers can change our consumption patterns effectively or fast enough, I believe that the responsibility now lies in the hands of the designer.

Responsible design is not unique to our time; however, designers now face an increasing role to take accountability over the full life-cycle of their products. Up until now, designers’ main concerns have been with the manufacturing and usage of their products, rather than what happens to a product once it has reached the end of its life-span. The role of the future designer is now to acknowledge that the current design trend is unsustainable and must be rethought. This is not to say that there are no designers working with these values in mind, as a matter of fact, plenty of green, eco-friendly products exist, yet they are not often adopted by the masses as they come with an ultimatum – cost or quality.

Capitalism is a game of chess in which designers are just pawns. Designers have the role of fulfilling the wants or needs of a consumer and globalization and the Internet have allowed for a world in which the entire design, logistics, and implementation processes can be carried out within a matter of weeks. If we look at the example of Alibaba, a site on which entrepreneurs or designers can get in touch with manufacturers of nearly anything in China, we can see how products are able to go from idea to reality faster than ever before. I know this because I have done it myself. While exploring the possibilities of using bamboo as a loose-leaf tea container, I was able to send the manufacturer specifications of the container and have a sample shipped to me within a week: it’s that simple. However, simple is not always best. Designers must move beyond the need for convenience and focus on the longerterm ramifications of their designs, such as the consequences that future generations will have to endure in a plastic polluted world.

Individuals changing their own habits may be tedious and ineffective; this is where a designer can step in. The true power of a designer lies in the fact that

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they are able to influence consumers’ spending, consumption, and disposal habits without the consumer even knowing. Charles and Ray Eames were perhaps the most influential designers of the 20th century. When Charles Eames stated that he “only [thinks] about how [the products look] in relation to how they are doing their job” (Hiesinger and Marcus 180), he was referring to the environment in which the product was placed in. Yet I feel that nowadays products are only designed to look better than they really are, and their success only being measured by how well it sells. A fundamental shift is needed to change how consumers interact with products and how designers interact with the consumers. However, I’m sceptical of how willing consumers are to change their habits, therefore the responsibility lies in the hands of the designer to manipulate the consumer into buying their sustainably designed product without feeling that they are giving anything up in return for this product.

For these reasons, over the past year, myself and a few of my fellow classmates –Mae White, Federica Caso, Ecab Amor, and Ghali Laraqui– have embarked on a journey to start Tumbao, a business dealing with the issue of irresponsible design. The goal of Tumbao is to empower people and cultures through the use of traditional sustainable materials and crafting techniques while combining them with contemporary design to appeal to a larger, more international audience. Quality and sustainability are at the core of what all Tumbao products will be, this enables us to actively work toward a better, greener future. We want to make sure that we use locally sourced materials that do not use harmful chemicals or substances in their production. At no point do we compromise sustainability and quality for one another.

Although Tumbao has many attributes I could discuss, I would like to concentrate here on the ethical and fair production of our products. One major element of fast fashion and what makes it so profitable is that various brands such as Zara or Forever 21 attempt to keep up with the latest fashion trends for the cheapest possible prices.

In doing so, they have managed to optimize their supply chains by primarily moving their manufacturing to cheaper locations, thus the rise of the ubiquitous “Made in Bangladesh” tags.

However, when headlines like “H&M factories in Myanmar employed 14-year-old workers” (Butler) or reports in which workers at an Indian clothing manufacturer were beaten for attempting to join a union (“Worker Rights)”, there is a need to be concerned about where our clothes come from and how they are made. Unfortunately, the price we pay for the final product is not indicative of the full price of the product; it may represent the quality of material or craftsmanship, but it does not include the rights that some people have had to give up, or the working conditions they have to endure. Over sixty years ago the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated that “everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment [and] everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work” (“UN General Assembly” art. 23). Tumbao aims to employ entirely local designers and manufacturers, bringing awareness and reignite local art and techniques as an alternative to the

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uniformity of current fashion, while providing exactly these working conditions to communities that may otherwise have been taken advantage of. Tumbao will give locals full autonomy over the design and manufacturing process. Although the design will still be guided by the Tumbao’s design ethos and requirements, these will in no way undermine the original culture. Though this will surely affect the final price of the products, there is evidence to suggest that consumers are beginning to care more about who makes their products and how they’re made. (Wang) Ethics and the proper treatment of workers is a major consideration for how and where Tumbao will end up producing our products. However, it is not solely for the purposes of marketing and giving consumers the assurance that their products were not manufactured using child labour. As philosopher Marshall McLuhan perfectly pointed out in his book Understanding Media “the medium is the message”(7). In Tumbao’s case, we are using how we manufacture our products as the medium in order to send a message to consumers and other producers about the direction that the fashion industry should be taking. Producing ethically is a choice that we as a team undertook as a collective, not just because we believe it is the right thing to do, but also because we believe that doing so is an active message of resistance against the status quo. If we take what McLuhan said as a metaphor, ethical production is just a medium for the overall message we are trying to send. Of course, this is still riding on the assumption that the company will be successful, but we aim to prove that given the changes in consumer behaviours and newer manufacturing techniques, it is possible to abide by ethical business standards and have a net profit.

Ultimately the goal of Tumbao is just like that of any other business - to make a profit. However, what we believe in is how we get there. To a certain extent making a profit alone is not that difficult but maintaining integrity and values throughout the entire development of the company is. I will admit that on multiple occasions I considered cutting certain corners or taking an easier route, but as a team we continued and still continue to push towards a product that we all fully believe in. The fight for decent working conditions and pay is not the responsibility of the workers; they are just

victims of a capitalist system that allows them to be taken advantage of. Instead, the responsibility lies in the hands of designers, producers and consumers. Tumbao aims to take the first steps towards a more just society in which workers are allowed to take pride in their work without being exploited. We ensure that quality and sustainability are provided while maintaining the core values of the company. Tumbao not only hopes to empower the communities with which we work but to be a leading business figure to show how business can function.

Tumbao is not just another company hopping onto the sustainability trend but is instead a necessary step to pave the way for a better future.

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Culture Lab. Professional Evolution Through Heritage Federica Caso

In an era of technology, a disjunction between nature and the human being has been expeditiously growing. The need to experience the pure essence of the world and its environment has been predominantly replaced by screens and virtual realities. Us, as humans, get enthralled by the advancements and possibilities of navigating online and often forget the amount of knowledge our surroundings have to provide us with. “Professional Evolution Through Heritage” is a project developed by four enthusiastic students and three dedicated professors for IE’s Culture Lab, whom in a month worked to challenge this tendency by developing a business plan to ensure the conservation, investigation and divulgation of the archeological site in Tiermes, Soria. This project is eminently relevant due to the fact that it accentuates and emphasizes on the importance of preserving heritage and simultaneously train professionals in a historical site, teaching them through history and the evolution of diverse eras, between the Celts and the Roman Empire. With this project, I will discuss the impact and value of seducing professionals to leave conventional office spaces and gain knowledge outside by means of our own history.

The preservation of archaeological sites may seem precarious due to several reasons; on the one hand, it might appear costly without any profit and on the other, it could be perceived as an exploitation of historical locations alongside a contempt for the past.

However, preservation can be possible without any 43

of these two negative connotations. The mission of the Culture Lab is to establish a sustainable economy that would guarantee the conservation of the cultural heritage of Castilla y León. The final objective is to make Tiermes a centre of formation and inspiration with international recognition and a meeting point for the different stakeholders of this archaeological ground: the administration, the educational institution and top management, with the fundamental objective of always respecting the territory. The group ideated a pair of packages designed to educate professionals about skills such as: crisis management, leadership and decision making through workshops given by preeminent figures in the field. The objective of implementing these seminars in a remote and generally unrecognized place is to increment the acknowledgment of the significance of the site. Castilla y León is the region in the world that possesses the most cultural heritage sites decreed by UNESCO (Vázquez) and yet, the amount of people that know about it is surprisingly small. In Soria, specifically, three out of every four towns are in danger of “irreversible depopulation” (“Heraldo-Diario de Soria”), citizens are constantly moving to major cities and all these historical sites are being abandoned. Alessandro Baricco, an Italian writer, discusses our global culture and the way we experience the world’s changes: “Barbarians build systems in their own image, systems in which to travel -such as the Web. But the fact does not escape them that the greater part of the terrain to be covered is made up of actions they have inherited from the past and their own nature- the old villages” (Baricco). As a society, we are generally being driven by speed, comfort and simplicity. As a result, we see two main consequences: an extensive migration to metropolis and the transition and dependence on technology; often neglecting the intellectual wealth of our surrounding. The preservation of heritage is of tremendous significance because it embodies the knowledge and skills that are transmitted from one generation to the other (“Mimar Sinan University”).

By captivating an audience to visit this destination the project would secure an income that will promote the continuity of research. The amount of funding the archeological team of Tiermes receives from the government inhibits the possibilities of excavation and development of the site. Even though IE University is a private institution, the government endorsed a bilateral agreement to concede the foundation to administer the evolution of the work.

Altogether, the profit gained from the program will go entirely to the development of the project, the

archeological community of Tiermes and most importantly the conservation of the site.

The second objective is to target a group of people that could benefit from the lessons history has taught us. A great part of our contemporary work system encircles around enclosed spaces, desks and computers, rather than dynamic experiences within the open and the exploration of diverse areas to expand our knowledge. The Culture Lab identified a strong opportunity to inspire professionals by altering current methodologies of working and changing the context where most of their work occur. Robert Lynd, an American sociologist, explains that cities have succeeded in enabling a variety of ownership regimes across multiple historical periods and governing formats (Lynd 119). These regimes might have either triumphed or failed, but one thing is for certain, they all have lessons worth studying.

Businesses and organizations have lots of similarities with regimes, perhaps, hierarchies, management, achievements, along with, deficiencies and failures.

John Dewey, an American philosopher, describes an experience as “an interaction between the individual and the environment” (Rodgers 844). Additionally, and more in depth, Baricco interprets experiences, when in its highest and most redeeming sense, the ability to get close to things, one at a time, and to develop an intimacy with them that might open up their hidden recesses (Baricco). Tiermes was the home of a Celtiberian hill front during the Iron Age, and later became a Roman city (Martínez and Aldecoa), thus the seminars will be focused on legitimate events that transpired in the site during the course of these different empires. Based on David Kolb’s education philosophy for effective learning, students need for four different kinds of abilities which correlate with four stages of the learning cycle: concrete experiences, reflective observations, abstract conceptualization and lastly

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Culture Lab Team in Tiermes, Soria, 2018 (Elizabeth Gamarra, Julie Dovelle, Dr. Miguel Larrañaga, Ruslan Saleev, Ana Tsotsonava, Miguel Saab, Federica Caso and Pablo Arribas) © Juan Barrio.

Students, Miguel Saab and Federica Caso with an archeological monitor from the Atapuerca archaeological site, 2018 © Juan Barrio

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Remains of Roman Villa in Tiermes, Soria, 2018 Š Federica Caso

Students from the Culture Lab on a guided tour by Pablo Arribas, member of the IEU Archeological Unit, in Tiermes, Soria, 2018 Š Federica Caso

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active experimentation (Boud et. al 12) He explains that these four abilities represent the different factors of the primary dimensions of cognitive growth and learning: the concrete/abstract dimension and the active/reflective dimension (Boud et. al 12). The packages designed consists of an introduction to Tiermes, where outdoor activities will be conducted and an explanation of the history of the place will be given. Afterwards, learners will attend seminars that will deliberate on business topics. These two activities tackle concrete experiences. Consecutive, participants engage in a cultural tour around Tiermes and visit historical and natural site nearby. This exercise encompasses reflective observations in the open. Finally, the experience culminates with an abstract conceptualization of the analogies and deep understanding of history and their respective companies. The participants will then return with a new perspective and ideas to implement, actively experimenting the lessons learned. Overall, it is a social and didactic experience which enhances the value of our ancestors and benefits from past events in order to excel the organization and growth of companies.

In conclusion, “Professional Evolution Through Heritage� remarkably demonstrates the balance that can be created between our history and contemporary lifestyle. Historical sites have a narrative to tell, which strengthen our convictions and perception of the world and our origins. The project aims to tackle two main objectives: the acknowledgement of Tiermes and consequently the opportunity to generate profit for its conservation, as well as, investigation, and secondly the benefits professionals can obtain by experiencing heritage sites and profoundly analysing the strategies once implemented. Heritage reflects our beliefs, values and identity. It is our responsibility, as well as, interest to canalize new interpretations and think of new ideas to implement, in order to maintain our history alive whilst contributing to a more prosperous future, personal expansion and integrity.

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Authors Anurag Phalke Rafaela Valencia-Dongo Q Monica Pastor Irene Delgado

CarePackage.

Traditional Retail vs.

E-Commerce Anurag Phalke

CarePackage is a modular parcel delivery optimisation product, which enables packages to be received and stored securely in the absence of a receiving person. In essence, it is a letterbox enlarged in size, to accommodate packages. It can be configured for use in two scenarios. The first is in standalone houses which can accommodate a private CarePackage unit per residence. The second scenario is for use in apartment structures, which are deficient in shared space and thus cannot accommodate privately assigned CarePackage units for each dwelling. For this arrangement, we blueprinted a shared configuration of multiple CarePackage units bolted together. We project that since it is unlikely that residences will be receiving packages everyday, apartment buildings could be equipped with less CarePackage units than apartments. Residents will receive a digital code to unlock a unit if the package contained in it corresponds to their name. This code changes after every transaction. Since several residents make use of the product, it becomes a shared asset, owned by everyone, yet by no one: an affiliate of the sharing economy.

If we look at the concept of Ownership as discussed in The Brown Journal of World Affairs, sociologist Saskia Sassen observes a disavowal of ownership in today’s society. Sassen elucidates that ownership has become favorable for corporations since vertical expansion behooves them financially.

On the contrary, the common public adopts the opposing orientation of favoring to lease (Sassen 121). In the case of CarePackage, the absence of a sole owner, distributes its usability among all the residents of a shared habitat. Additionally, since the cost of the CarePackage units themselves is also divided among the users, they become more

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CarePackage by Anurag Phalke and Mae White, 2019 Š Anurag Phalke, Mae White

affordable. This example reinforces the arguments of one of the most influential designers in the realm of ecological design: Victor Papanek. In his book Design for the Real World, he asserts that ownership is becoming more and more replaced by leasing and renting (Papanek 94). This implies that the CarePackage system is pivoted around making the convenience it offers available to all that may need or desire it. Despite its success as a design which brings convenience to tackle a problem, we must acknowledge its active encouragement of online commerce. Online retail has become immensely popular due to the perks it offers to customers in terms of logistics such as home delivery, access to an international market, and competitive pricing.

Ultimately, online retail has gained sufficient popularity and may potentially replace traditional retail entirely. Not long ago, the toy retail chain Toys “R� Us favored to close down after being unable to repay billions of dollars in debt, hereby threatening nearly thirty three thousand jobs; a consequence of competing in a market dominated by online commerce giant Amazon (Rucinski). However, before we adopt a stance for or against this new trend, we must investigate its implications for society. Amazon is an example of an e-commerce corporation that has come under scrutiny for investing aggressively in automation of blue collar jobs. It ca be interpreted as an effort to cut employment costs; a questionable initiative as it endangers employment and centralises the economy (Dastin). On the contrary, one may argue that the advancement towards the end of traditional retail is justified and favorable since it is

an obsolete arrangement and is being challenged by a more forward-looking model with a good public opinion. If we were to consider this scenario, CarePackage as a product proves to be very much benign, since the entire trade of commodities is evolving to an order and deliver system.

Having discussed the perks of online retail we must genuinely question the worrisome likelihood that traditional retail stores can become replaced by their digital counterparts, an orientation which the Carepackage supports and relies on. If we look at the book Design History and the History of Design, John Walker argues that consumption is guided by several aspects. The primary one is sociocultural.

He asserts that consumption is often driven by sociocultural needs since it is a medium for people to appear in sociocultural scenarios. Furthermore, he describes several stages of pleasure: the pleasure of desiring, the pleasure of purchasing, the pleasure of use and that of social appreciation (Walker 176).

The arguments of Walker emphasize that one of the most fundamental drivers of consumption is a need

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for sociocultural competition. If we were to imagine a world where all retail would be online, the stages of pleasure such as the pleasure of the purchase, as well as the pleasure of social appreciation would be diminished by a substantial measure. The traditional retail system is a collective social experience for many. Online retail eliminates this experience since online purchasing is generally not a collective act. Supplementing the argument of Walker, we must assert that shopping is collective social behaviour and it is a fundamental social need of every individual to indulge in the same. This implies that traditional retail stores cannot be threatened by online commerce, or the products that rely on them such as the CarePackage, since collective consumerism is a fundamental social behaviour which will always be a demand. In simpler terms, shopping malls may not run out of business and close down, because there is a basic sociocultural need for people to shop collectively. If we reflect back to our example, we must now affirm that CarePackage, as a product that relies on and feeds a popular e-commerce industry that challenges traditional retail stores, cannot enable the industry to conceivably replace them since they offer prospects for a social experience that cannot be paralleled through online commerce.

Conclusively, we can uphold the argument that online retail, or e-commerce has become a model of trade favored by many, and CarePackage is in fact, a product which we designed in support of this trend. However, we must also address the

impact our encouragement of e-commerce could have on traditional retail. We must also recognize our establishment that traditional retail offers us a provision to indulge in collective social consumerism which is an intrinsic sociocultural need. Moreover, we live in a post-fordist society: one which values experiences more than products. If online retail replaced traditional retail, it would indicate a reversion, or a step backwards since online retail is a very fordist model, dependent on standardisation, efficiency and affordability. This authenticates the understanding that the system of traditional retail will always be unscathed by online commerce, as well as the products that support and rely on them such as CarePackage, since there is an elementary communal need for people to purchase things together. We as designers must recognize that the function our designs have in the real world may work in favor of potentially unhealthy trends or campaigns without our intention to design them to do so. This also informs our understanding that we, as designers, also have the power to exploit that opportunity to design for a communal good.

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Smart Scooters.

Will Pals Occupy the Streets of the Future?

Rafaela Valencia-Dongo Q

Over the last couple of years, cities all over the world have been filled with two-wheeled, electric scooters such as Lime and Bird, providing individuals a convenient alternative for traveling within a city (Dickey). Martina Keitsch discusses in the text ‘Sustainable Design: A Brief Appraisal of its Main Concepts’ “how designers are growing concern for socio-cultural sustainability, user innovation, and life quality” meaning there is a shift towards designing for the environment while fulfilling basic human needs (3). These e-scooters are not only known for being fuel-efficient, eco-friendly, compact and easy-to-ride but also work as an option to help cities alleviate traffic (“Grand View Research”). Therefore, studies discuss how they have the potential for reshaping cities and counter climate change (Bach). The Chinese electric car company NIO, in collaboration with the design agency Layer, launched ‘Pal’ at the Milan Design Week 2019. Pal is described as the smartest scooter, created to be sustainable and convenient mobility. This electric scooter uses AI and machine learning to get accustomed to the user’s favorite routes, in order to drive autonomously (Hitti) (Figure 1). Benjamin Hubert –– founder of Layer–– is concerned about creating products that facilitate the life of many without inconveniencing the planet. However, while these electric scooters might benefit cities, there is also the doubt of whether cities’ current infrastructure can hold this new mean of transportation (Ajao). In this critical review, I will take the position of analyzing this contemporary design by debating about if it is scalable in the sense of reaching a significant amount of users worldwide.

This will be done by analyzing three aspects of it; firstly, discussing the materials the scooter is made

of; secondly, the type of users; and thirdly, the external infrastructure needed.

Figure 1. Pal, the electric scooter designed by Nio and Layer

Firstly, given that Pal is manufactured from graphenecoated carbon fiber means that this material will contribute to making this electric scooter scale in consumer use. In order to do so, we need to understand the characteristics of carbon fiber and the consequences it has on Pal. For decades, carbon fiber has been seen as an excellent material, as it makes the vehicle “lightweight, durable and safe, but also expensive and difficult to recycle” says Jamie Page. Ten years ago, carbon fiber cost around $150 a pound, now it costs $10 a pound.

Nevertheless, mass-production is not yet a viable option for this material until it reaches the cost of 5$ (Page). The manufacturing process is also timeintensive. Neverteless, companies like BMW are trying to accelerate these processes by using robots, but it is still slow and energy-consuming (Dyer).

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Figure 1: The Pal smart scooter designed by

Figure 2: The Pal smart scooter designed by

Layer x Nio, 2019. © Dezeen.

Layer x Nio, 2019. © Dezeen.

Therefore, we can agree that carbon fiber gives Pal the opportunity of having a longer life-cycle, and high stiffness which contributes to making the product reach as many customers as possible.

People discuss that a 100% usable electric scooter is one that can be portable, foldable and lightweight to take it wherever the user goes (Ride two wheels), and Pal provides all of that. We can agree that it is the best material for Pal to be made of, yet that means that the set price of the product will be high, which will redice the number of individuals that will be able to afford it. Having said that, Deyan Sudjic discusses in the text “The World Drowning in Objects,” how products when having a high price in the market can become a way for people to show off and built an image of themselves in society. Pal would become a luxurious item instead of being a standardized mean of transportation for society.

In short, by building Pal out of graphene-coated carbon fiber, we can assume that the price will be high, which means that a reduced number of individuals will be able to afford it.

variables: different body types (focused on weight), gender and age. Pal innovates and introduces the use of four wheels –– each one with an independent motor –– and comes with “pressure-sensitive suspension for lean steering” (“Urdesign”), which allows the user to manage the direction and speed by moving their body. In this way, it shows how they are thinking of a user that seeks stability and easiness when riding (“Urdesign”). Therefore, Pal is designed for skinny and average body weight users as they need to have total control of their own body in order to ride it. Regarding gender, Populus surveyed 7,000 people and found out that more women than men are adopting this mean of transportation, as e-scooter provide an easier ride without restricting their work-clothes (Marshall). In conclusion, by analyzing the types of users, we can say that although Pal has a feature like providing four wheels instead of two, they are still indirectly targeting young adults within an average body weight. Therefore, they can only scale in this specific group of people, rejecting the idea of being inclusive.

Secondly, Pal was created as an alternative for environmentally-friendly transportation, as nowadays citizens are tired of the pollution and congestion generated by other means of transportation (Mcleman). However, designers of Pal have not talked about their target group, so we will assume that they are trying to be inclusive. For this matter it is important to take into consideration two key

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Thirdly, if there is no safety on the roads, this design is less scalable as users could suffer being robbed or hit by cars if there are no specific roads designed for them. Likewise, the need for the internet is a limitation for making Pal work in as many countries worldwide. Therefore, we will analyze these two key elements in order to know if it is possible for Pal to scale in consumer use. Pal has been designed with a variety of features that makes it aesthetically attractive, yet not safe. Its electric battery has been designed to be modular, and this benefits the user as it is easier to take inside their home to charge, yet in countries where crime is high, it would take less than a minute for someone to steal the battery. In addition, Pal comes with accessories such as bags, basket or shopping cart, that can be effortlessly attached to the panel on the column of the scooter with by its magnetic system. It would not be possible for the user to leave valuable things inside those bags as they do not have a security system (Feng). So, Pal is not designed for developing countries where there are still no roads made only for e-bikes and e-scooter, neither have the security that Pal requires.

Designers describe Pal as the smartest scooter; however, in order to work efficiently and smartly, they should have thought of adding a security system for the whole electric scooter. Another important characteristic is that Pal uses NIO smart AI system in order to unlock the scooter and make it work (Feng) (Figure 2). Therefore, they are expecting the user to have either a smartphone or smartwatch with

a high-speed internet (“Urdesign”). To conclude, these two characteristics reduce the scalability of the product in consumer use not only because the users won’t be able to ride safely in the streets as there is no external infrastructure provided, but also because Pal is designed for users that have access to a smartphone.

To sum up, the material that is lightweight and durable contributes to Pal’s scalability. However, because carbon fiber is expensive, it will make Pal an expensive luxury item. Regarding the types of users, we have found that only a reduced group of people could actually use it, which would be youngadults with average weight. Furthermore, countries are not prepared to adopt Pal as a standard option for transportation, as the external infrastructure is not prepared, which means there are no safe roads for users. Also, Pal needs a high-speed internet in order to work; in order for the user to have constant access to voice commands and so on. As said before, Pal is part of an ongoing trend known as micro-mobility; however, from the analysis above, we can conclude that Pal is only scalable in consumer use at a minimum level.

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Home Solutions.

Ori’s Innovative Pocket Closet Monica Pastor

Ori’s Living has created smart furniture which tackles efficiency, multipurpose and, most importantly, spaces for small apartments. Today the number of people living in small flats, studios or apartments has increased. By 2018 the size of the average newly built apartment in the U.S is 5 per cent smaller than a decade ago (Oclick). Today’s population is increasing rapidly. The number of a single-person household has been increasing in the last century and will still be “increasing by 128% by 2030” (BusinessWire).

While the population is increasing, so is the demand for housing. BBC News Magazine states “The average UK one-bedroom home is 46 square meters, according to Riba. That works out at a mere 6.8m x 6.8m. And that’s the mean average” (Castella).

Because of new technologies, many people also use their home as o working spaces. Ori’s living furniture is tackling this new social problem by creating a multifunctional closet, including features of a bedroom, living room and workspace.”While micro-units are becoming more widely used it has become problematic to place average furnish size into the household, not everything people wish to have is able to fit in the apartment making it severely cramped by things. Ori’s Living company aims to tackle the problem of cramped spaces by utilizing AI technology to make furniture which is able to expand and compress to give the individual the space they need (Thøgersen). However, with the increase of market prices in the household and furniture one could question wherther Ori’s living furniture is successfully targeted for the average consumer.

Ori’s Living addresses these problems by manufacturing “smart” furniture that is highly efficient, more compressed, and adapted for the new technologies that are becoming prevalent in modern society, like smartphones or virtual home assistants.

The problem is that traditional furniture requires large spaces and is inflexible in the use of that space.

This is a problem because inhabitants cannot fit everything they want in their house, which leads to cramped and clogged space. On average furniture takes up to 40-50% of the floor space (Thøgersen).

Besides, most furniture is designed for the typical household, rather than for smaller apartments. This can be addressed through multipurpose furniture that is “smart” and “space-saving” (Urist). An example is a sofabed that serves as both a couch and a bed or a fold-down table. Given the lack of multipurpose furniture that is offered, occupants often end up buying oversized equipment and their apartment gets cluttered. The downside of multipurpose furniture is that “most people do not like adding extra steps to their everyday tasks” (Thøgersen) and people eventually get tired of implementing their 59

Pocket Closet by Ori Living Designer and Aquitect Team © Ori 2019

multiple purposes. Sofabeds, for example, eventually become either sofas or beds. The question is thus how residents can optimize small apartment space with furniture that is space-saving and usable.

Ori’s Living addresses this question by introducing robotics and artificial intelligence into the systems of their furniture. The robotics allows for great flexibility that is used in a series of shape-shifting smart furniture that can transform a one-bedroom apartment into a living space with many different rooms and ambiences based on the changing activities of the residents. Another advantage of Ori Systems is that it has become less static and more dynamic. The furniture can move back and forth on wheels without the need for tracks on the floor. A very efficient conventional electric motor powered by the main outlets is used to move the furniture. A robotic unit can have a media centre, shelving space, a fold-out desk, a closet, a bed that slides from underneath and storage space. The flat space in the back of the unit means that it can be moved against a wall to free more space in the room. Since the features of the unit can be designed depending on the use, it allows for a multiplicity of designs to meet the needs of the users.

The most popular smart furniture is The Pocket Closet. As described by Rob Matheson (2018): “Ori’s system is an L-shaped unit installed on a track along a wall, so can slide back and forth. One side features a closet, a small fold-out desk, and several drawers and large cubbies. At the bottom is a pull-out bed. The other side of the unit includes a horizontal surface that can open out to form a table.

The vertical surface above drawers and cubbies plus

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a large nook where a television can be placed. The third side, opposite the wall, contains even more shelving, and pegs to hang coats and other items.”

comfortable flats and provides a more comfortable lifestyle.

Nevertheless, an important limitation of Ori’s Living robotic furniture is its high price. With the increase of market prices, is this furniture successfully targeted for the average consumer? An example is Ori’s pocket closer, which has a starting price of $1,950 (Ori’s Living). One may wonder if this is affordable furniture or luxury. Given that this business is targeted to single-householders, which earn an average income of 15.500$ a year, it is hardly affordable.

Another limitation is that the company only accepts pre-orders from large-scale development companies.

Thus, people cannot buy this smart furniture for their personal individual use. So far, this is a business-tobusiness model. Only big construction companies are potential direct clients.

Ori’s Living Company, has provided the most efficient solution for the increase of single householders and the demand of efficient furniture.

It is the start of multifunctional robotic furniture for the single householder user, which enables to live in

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Multipurpose Furniture: Flexible, Simple and Pointless Irene Delgado

Good design has always been a slippery concept to grasp. Don Norman, in his book The Design of Everyday Things assigns two essential characteristics to it: understandability and discoverability (Norman 3). He is referring to the functionality of a design. Does it work like the designer wants it to? Do other people understand it like it is meant to be understood? Or does the design unintentionally provoke a different, and perhaps mistaken reaction from users?

According to Norman, taking these questions into consideration when designing, is vital to the process of creating a design that is relevant to everyday life. The French industrial designer, Matali Crasset, is no stranger to these ideas. Her core beliefs, when it comes to design, are all about pragmatism and the importance of rationality. The simplistic nature of her furniture designs reveals her effort to remove the excess and unnecessary aspects of existing products. Her furniture is understandable at first sight. However, it is valid to wonder to what degree a design will start to be affected in terms of functionality, when simplicity is one of its main characteristics. Perhaps, designs that fit into this contemporary minimalistic canon to be so overly reduced, that they challenge their very own functional purpose, or threaten it. Or, the intended functionality of a product is misinterpreted by the user because the design is so simple in its building, that it unintentionally allows for thoughts that relate it to more, other, or less purposes. Do some aspects of a design survive only at the extent of other aspects? If so, to what degree?

In 2014, Crasset designed what she titled ‘Deep Attention and Sleep’ for furniture company Campeggi (Deep Attention and Sleep, Campeggi).

It is a desk-like object that claims to introduce the user into deep concentration when using it upright, and send them into a satisfying rest when using it laying down. As can be seen in the picture, the back side of the desk is also a mattress that can be easily disconnected and laid down on the floor for users to rest or sleep on it. The desk connected to the base arc structure can also be used as a low-height table top. The description of this object in the Campeggi website sells it as “an intimate and embracing time-space to cultivate your own interests; a transition object, a Middle-earth space, to immerse yourself in a movie or a book” and “a mantle of comfort for a deep sleep” (Campeggi 1). Like many other great designers in the past, Crasset plays with the idea of creating a space within a space in response to the greater area it is meant to be placed in. This brings attention to an important factor when analyzing multi-purpose furniture:

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where is it actually meant to be placed? Whether this peculiar object belongs in a household living room, a workspace, or a coffee restaurant is not made completely clear by either the designer, Crasset, or the furniture company, Campeggi. They assign to the object a clear functional purpose, and by leaving the place of usage to the unknown, inspiring the user to imagine where this object could fit into their everyday lives. Although this flexibility may be convenient in some cases, it may lead to confusion regarding the object’s purpose.

It wouldn’t make sense to have this object around your house for example. If you need sleep, you would use your own bed. If the argument arises that this space could be bought by someone who intends on making it their permanent bed, then the mattress would most likely be permanently on the floor, removing the multi-purpose function of the object entirely. Perhaps it would make more sense if the object were to be placed in a modern, wellbeing-focused work space, where people sometimes do seek rest. However, the modern workplace of today is strongly composed of team building strategies, which would remove any sense to implementing an object that excludes the individual from a group in such a space.

Naturally, when thinking about multifunctionality, the discussion about how well each function performs separately will arise. Especially this piece of furniture, dependent of a composure of different items, cannot escape the analysis of the individual elements and their function alone.

As a whole, the design claims to create a space for relaxation and concentration. From another point of view, however, working on the desk might not be desirable given its relatively limited and narrowing depth. It is possible that a posture for relaxing might not exist without backing on the stool. The flat mattress may not be as comfortable as a bed, and if the desk was to be placed as a low height table top, the user would most likely have to slouch significantly to reach anything that lies on top of it. As for the design’s target goals of relaxation and meditation, perhaps bright orange is not the best option to color the furniture. The simplicity of this object allows for much flexibility of choice to the user. At the same time, this flexibility of choice is equally capable of bringing up doubts about the final usage of the object. It may even lead us to appreciate a slightly wider desk, a regular chair with backing, a single-purpose bed,

or a plain white room.

Besides location and placement, the volume of space the object occupies is crucial when examining its overall functionality. The design depends on the unification of four different parts (the arc, the mattress, the desk and the stool) raising a concern for the unnecessary space that is being wasted. Due to the fact that not all of the pieces that compose this object are meant to be directly connected, it increases the possibilities of the user assigning other functions to the now independent pieces. With this object, the user is suggested to believe that they can meditate and relax in the created private environment, but at the expense of occupying arguably more space than necessary. Although the object has a dual functionality, the pieces that are arranged to assure this, can only be placed in certain ways in order to fit or work. For example, the arc, while it being the sustaining structure for the rest of the object, is only meant to be positioned upright.

When the mattress is removed as a backing and placed horizontally on the floor, the arc becomes a nearly useless article that occupies a wide area space. Arguably, the arc is the greatest weakness of this object, making it sacrifice the greater space that it occupies, for a meditation sub-space that in the end, may or may not even be used for its designed intention. It seems like it could be possible to aim for the same intentions of creating a private concentration space within a larger space and have it transform into a bed, using materials

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that can occupy less space, using less variety in the material, and even using less material.

Evidently, the location of the object, the evaluation of how well its individual parts serve their function, and the volume of space that this furniture design occupies, are fundamental points in the analysis of whether Crasset’s creation fits into the ideals of Good Design. As Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum in London, has signaled “never have more of us had more possessions than we do now, even as we make less and less use of them” (Sudjic, 1). It is therefore paramount to question functionality in an increasingly critical manner. The complications that arise out of the functionality of a design that was meant to be simple and minimalistic are hard to ignore once an in-depth analysis of the object is carried out, exposing some of its characteristics as rather pointless.

Although the ‘Deep Attention and Sleep’ design seems like the obvious solution to the creation of a multipurpose sub-space, its actual functionality is challenged by its simplicity and its usage of space. After all, the object may fulfill its intended functional purpose, but only at the expense and sacrifice of other important aspects of design.

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Epilogue.

Presenting Sketching Ideas Edgar Gonzalez Director Bachelor in Design

Creativity can be trained; it is a fact. This constitutes the main purpose of the Bachelor in Design: to prepare designers who will take on the world’s complex, fast changing, and unpredictable challenges. In order to accomplish this goal, not only knowledge and skills but also the development of a collaborative spirit and a critical mind-set are crucial. The challenges of the globalised, hyper connected, and hybrid world we live in cannot be reduced to a single discipline, but demand creative navigation in all relevant knowledge domains.

Designers usually respond to questions.

Nevertheless, sometimes the designer’s role comes prior to that. The designer can also be the one who plants those questions in order to push the limits of what is possible even further.

It is urgent that we ensure the emergence of such intelligent design, and this can be only accomplished through a practice of design that is characterised by fierce and rigorous critical thinking. Designers should not only reflect upon how designed objects best fulfil the desires of the users, but also on the implications of what is being designed and how this can effect society.

Design is something that starts in the designer’s head, hence the word ‘project’. It refers to the projection of an idea from the head of the

designer into the world. This is why the theoretical production of designers is as important as the physical counter part. This has, however, been relegated from the spotlight, throughout history.

The objective of Sketching Ideas is to focus the spotlight again on the critical and theoretical frameworks that sustain the designer’s thinking process. The magazine showcases the written production of our students, the intellectual debates and thoughts that do not have a physical presence in our annual exhibitions. Besides, it is the start of an archive of the concerns and reflections of our theoretical classes.

The publication is created by a team of students and professors. These essays, written during the first and second year of the bachelor, show an example of our understanding of design; of how ‘written design’ can produce new values in today’s society. They demonstrate how design can function as a place holder for questions; how designers do not only produce objects or solutions but also participate in critical thinking, which will push our boundaries forward.

Enjoy Sketching Ideas: a place to discover the curious, critical and constructive written work of our students!

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