Social design manifesto

2015

SOCIAL DESIGN DICTIONARY MANIFESTO

DESIGN ACADEMY EINDHOVEN SOCIAL DESIGN

PREVIEW

This text is a record of my thoughts how can I view the society and approach to the essence as a social designer.

Design is one of a methodology to communicate with people and further society. Before as a designer, I tried to understand myself what does design mean to me and project my social philosophy into it.

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CONTENTS

SOCIAL 05 CAST AWAY 06 ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY

VALUE FRAGMENTATION

08 HER

COUNTERPRODUCTIVITY

09 TURNED ON TV

ABSOLUTE VALUES

11 JONGMYO 11 THE HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

SHARE SHARING ECONOMICS

12 DOORE 13 BENCHES COLLECTIVE

COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTION

14 SOCIAL DINING

IMPACT MICRO IMPACT

15 TOMS 16 LIFE IN A DAY

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No Man Is An Island No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thy friend’s Or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind, And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

John Donne

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SOCIAL

SOCIAL

Philosopher Aristoteles believed that every behavior comes from their ultimate purpose.

Nature do not act without reasons so people’s behavior is to do with their proper goal. According to his study, this goal for human being is ‘happiness’. Human pursue happiness itself without any subordination, so that people ultimately do things for their happiness. The word ‘happy’ in Greek is eudemonia, which means well-being. If human have obvious purpose for their existence and properly function towards their goals as well, well-being can be actualized and finally they can achieve their goal, happiness.

Human is a social animal. They make relations by doing consistent interaction with other people and they identify their existence among the society. In this sense, social relation is concerned as a reason why they exist and it became a methodology to reach happiness. After all, an individual is hard to be being without proper community and their effort to be happy can be extended to the effort to make a better society.

CAST AWAY (2000) Chuck who was isolated in the deserted island and give a name ‘wilson’ to the volleyball and try to comfort loneliness with it. This shows social human-being who try to communicate even with an inanimate object

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SOCIAL If we consider design as a behavior of pursuing happiness, design also can be defined as a trial to change the world to a condition. Nowadays, a society dramatically changes and the problem are getting more complex and elaborated. From that, design is preferred as a solution for solving those problems in a creative and effective ways.

Various kinds of social phenomenon are being exposed these days and one-dimensional and superficial methods for solving the problems are not preferable anymore. We need to capture the issue which exist beneath the deeper society, and find fundamental solutions which can affect consistently, not one-time only. In the past, design was treated small part of the production process like just the cover of an object. But design these days we consider it more like a human-centered, social and further universal idea. The concept of design is getting wider so their direction toward “design for all”.

Combining design with social concept means that people have a responsibility as a group member in the society and use their ability to make a better community. Social designers can be called ‘idealist’ who recognize the social issue precisely which other might not find out and pursue ‘public virtue’ by using their persistent effort. They create a huge utopia by changing small part of our surroundings.

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“DESIGN FOR ALL” Nonprofit architecture group, Architecture For Humanity English architecture Cameron Sinclair and journalist Kate Stohr established in 1999. They provide architecture and planning based on the mission ‘everyone deserves access to the benefits of good design’.

The designer’s job is to imagine the world not how it is, but how it should be - Sir Terence Conran

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VALUE

VALUE FRAGMENTATON

Value means everything which can satisfy our needs and desire in our daily life. It includes not only economical values like product, but also values which can satisfy our physical and mental activity.

Further, there also logical, ethical, aesthetical, religous values. Value can exist only through the human-being and it can be base of personal attitude towards an object in other words. Although we cannot see or precisely measure, it become a standard of life and further it make society possible to move forward. Namely, it keep our balance when we are living in a puzzling society.

German philosopher Baumann called a modern society as ‘liquid modern world’. It means everything is not fixed but changes. We are surrounded by so many splendid objects which catch our eyes.

Relationship is becoming light and internet society change human connection into just log-in process.

It is much easier to make a new relationship but at the same time, it is also easy to disconnect this new relationship so deeper connection is becoming difficult. We need enough time and proper effort to achieve something important, but there are full of emptiness and nothingness instead those effort in this modern era.

HER (2013) In 2020, there is love between person with person, but also love between person with OS(operating system). OS doesn’t have body but it is an intangible, intellectual being.

This movie give a message how technical development affect to the human relationship and what is essence of love

VALUE

A

ccording to philosopher Ivan Illich, the more society is getting rich, the more people become ‘disabled’. The convenient tools from civilization is same as a crutch for disabled people. People tend to not doing their work themselves but rather rely on ‘kind’ and professional company because everything is becoming mechanization and specialization. People use a laundary machine rather than washing by hand, and they use electronic cooker rather than boiling rice with fire. If they have mechanical trouble, it means disaster. Something that we can do ourselves independently decreases because of civilized conveniences and they are unhappy when they cannot reach the higher standard of lifestyle. Ivan Illich described this paradoxical situation as ‘counterproductivity’. This word describe the situation when an institution actually work as an obstructer which opposed to their aim. For example, educational institute create ignorance and national defense induces national insecure. Increased level of life create those counterproductive situation, so it indirectly shows that higher level doesn’t mean higher quality of life.

“Disabled, Counterproductive Society” 09 SOCIAL DESIGN MANIFESTO

In Norway, there is a TV program which broadcast only landscape for 7 hours or continuous scene of knitting for 8 hours. This is totally different with original TV which enforce one side story and bring enforced emotions. It actually offer a chance to make conversation and deliver universal feeling to the viewers. TV become means of assistance for conversation.

VALUE

ABSOLUTE VALUES

People tend to overlook intangible value because it cannot be seen and it is not stimulated. They see the world only by functional perspective so that efficiency and convenience are concerned as the best value for them. This idea naturally brought the side effects like environmental pollution, class conflicts, losing identity, neglected humanity and so on. Now it’s time to think about the value that we need to pursue a new generation.

Considering previous family community, they didn’t classify the person’s value by how much they need him.

Individual in the community are important ties itself and not every relations were followed by benefit and loss.

Everything consisting the world doesn’t being created by economical values. No matter how we are prosperous and convenient, if we lose ‘me’ and ‘us’, where can we find meaning? The more we face the times of changing, the value of ‘something that must not be changed’ increases. This is so called absolute value.

Considering the absolute value is something that we need to emphasize these days.

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JONGMYO, SEOUL

THE HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL, BERLIN

Jongmyo is a Confucian shrine dedicated to the memorial services for the deceased kings and queens of the Korean Joseon Dynasty. This place expresses the beauty of immaterialism through the emptiness. This is not a functional architecture which is the aim modern society, but spiritual and absolute space.

Histories we have to remember are accumulating. Oblivion is inevitable however, we must not forget the sorrow of tragedy. This is the memorial of unethical, anti-cultural history that destroyed the dignity.

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VALUE

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SHARE

SHARE We can notice the word ‘share’ quite often these days. Share includes the meaning of ownership and it needs more than two subjects, so basically share premise communication with others. Modern society offers both convenience and loneliness derived from segmented relationship. As an alternative to solve the negative stream in the society, the topics such as share, empathy, philanthropic state that the value can be extended when we are together.

People own whatever they want since when, but there wasn’t a concept of ownership in the beginning. People owned a thing what the community needs and if someone need, he would borrow from others. However, the concept of ‘mine’ was established and it is concerned as the ownership equal happiness. We forget that this ownership can destroy our environment and bring illness to our society. We accumulate our possessions in the storage and throw it away whenever we want. This ends up with excessive consumption and it encourages not only environmental pollution but also social phenomenon like materialism. Many different kinds of bad effects are coming from the ‘ownership’.

Doore, South Korea In the past, farmers used to divide their community region and cultivated as a group in South Korea. This was a way of supplying short time labor and it brought a sense of unity. It brought a profit for all of the community members, so it was a win-win strategy in a way.

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SHARE

SHARING ECONOMICS “I believe it will be referred to as a revolution, so to speak -- when society, faced with great challenges, made a seismic shift from individual getting and spending towards a rediscovery of collective good.”

- Rachel Botsman

Sharing Economics is basically the idea of sharing and borrowing a product or service. People use as much as they want and borrow it to the other people so that they can share consumption.

This idea is different with the theory of existing market economics which is based on a private ownership. This can be one of the solutions for the capitalism period because resources doesn’t need to be over-produced by sharing and reusing. From that we can maximize the use of resources. After all, the pattern of consumption is changing from the ownership into share, exchange and lease.

BENCHES COLLECTIVE, AMSTERDAM Some people in Amsterdam use a private bench for social networking. They share a bench with other people, so they can continuously meet with their neighbors. Furthermore, they can share a new experience with new people.

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SHARE

COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTION

Sharing Economics is based on the collaborative consumption which includes the meaning of sharing, exchange and lease. Rachel Botsman who is sharing innovator stated in the Ted talk “The case for collaborative consumption” that there are three kinds of collaborative consumption. Firstly, there is redistribution markets. Goods can be moved from the people who doesn’t need any more to the people who needs more in the redistribution markets. Second is collaborative lifestyles. This is the sharing resources like money, skills and time.

Last one is product-services systems.

For instance, people use a drill approximately 12, 13 minutes in their lifetime so they borrow a drill when they need and pay for the service time. So they don’t need to buy a drill just for 12, 13 minutes. In other words, people consider a product as a service, not as goods they need to purchase.

REDISTRIBITION MARKET COLLABORATIVE LIFESTYLES PRODUCT-SERVICES SYSTEMS

SOCIAL DINING There are many platforms that sell invitation of dining with strangers. Through dining, people can satisfy their needs of networking and eating at the same time.

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IMPACT

MICRO IMPACT People start to pay attention to micro.

There was a fixed idea that hugeness is symbol of power and have a huge impact.

However people start to care about the importance of small unit. Civilization grew in a way of vertical direction, and it produced negative side effects. In this sense, people noticed to horizontal development and they start to admit the diversity and values from individuals. For this reason, micro segmented market have been appeared these days.

What we call ‘it changed the world’ is actually started from small details. Huge scale business is getting dangerous because of the diversity market and there is an increase of many routes that individuals can participate to the world market. Boundary is getting disappeared and we all connected through the internet.

This stream make it possible for small and weak to have huge impact. The world we are living is a place we can actualize this statement. “You beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.”

TOMS, ONE FOR ONE If you buy one pair of shoes, another shoes go to the children in developing countries. From small scale donation, they actualized it into sustainable business model so that they make it possible to continuing environmental development.

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IMPACT

LIFE IN A DAY, YOUTUBE As manny as 331 people became a director of the movie. This movie is about one day, 6th of July 2010 and people from all around the world gathered their moments of life. It was just a normal day for some people, but they made it special by sharing their moments.

Now the world is leading by intangible idea, not by physical object through chronological changes. If the idea or action are contagious, it have a bigger impact. The world is evolved in a way to sym biosis so that we need an open our attitude towards collaborative and multidisciplinary changes.

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EUNYOUNG LEE