Being more mobile by not moving as much. – Missaka Hemachandra A call for better System/Service/Product’s through prioritising sustainment of humanity The world is always mobile, every second of every day we humans are in a state of motion. There are many different ways means and motives for some to be mobile, throughout humanity mobility in whatever form share clear characteristics: we travel or become mobile daily, to acquire food, to work and earn money, to socialise and relax. These characteristics are likely to persist for the longevity of mankind. It is certain that technological advancements have made being mobile much easier, by saving time and effort. The improvements of transportation dramatically increased our quality of life in the short term however sometimes the means and motives of mobility have created systems, products and services which are inherently corruptive to humanities ability to sustain itself. It is argued that auto-mobility now controls how many people in modern society live their lives, when it once and often still is thought that people dictate their lifestyles through means of automobiles. Over half the world’s population now living in urban environments. Design mobility and the cultural state of auto-mobility now dictate the way many people live their lives which is at odds with the changing nature of the social and environmental structures of modern society. How ought design re-orient itself to deal with this changed condition? What might this mean for the design of mobility products and services? First we must start by aiming to improve transportation issues in emerging and developing economies, such as the People’s Republic of China. As humans, as infants we have been brought up in a world that has been moulded by the generations before us. As designers we have been given the tasks of seeking to solve the problems that have manifested over the lifetime of humanity. Tony Fry discusses in Design Futuring that the obvious ‘aim and application of human artifice over the millennia..’ is to improve and sustain human condition, however ‘..Over the duration of human being, such pragmatic action, especially over the past 200 years, can be exposed as inherently contradictory’ (p 109-110). This old world thinking is dominantly inherent in the current scheme of automotive and transportation industries, it is far outdated. Progressively humanity has developed new social scripts, collective acceptances of what is believed to be right and wrong, unspoken law (socially acceptable behaviour). It is argued that automobility now controls how many people in modern society live their lives, when it once and often still is thought that people dictate their lifestyles through means of automobiles. New Design strategies must be introduced, my belief is that it should be introduced through the emerging economic countries. These countries aren’t defined as third world or developed, they sit in the middle (developing), however some aspects of the economy might be favoured towards one over the other, emerging cities and countries which play crucial roles on global scales. The importance of making a country like China lead the forefront of future mobility is that they face problems that both developed countries and third world countries face in terms of sustaining personal and mass transport, which includes people and objects. Some of the problems: As it is difficult to find design solutions for all the problems in one go, I will be specifically looking at population (human) mobility, personal and public. Throughout my proposal I will be referring to China as it has become a key global economic power house as of recently, and the mobility issues are similar to many areas around the world.
Population – 19.5% of the world’s population, approximately 1.3 billion people living in China. The enormous problem China faces as fuel from fossil fuels plummet is, how do they get all those people mobile in a time and cost efficient way, while having as little impact on the environment as possible? Is it even possible? Environment – the space and environment is also directly related to population. China suffers almost all types of natural disasters expect for modern volcanic activity. The Beijing Review states that ‘More than 70 percent of Chinese cities and more than 50 percent of the Chinese population are located in areas vulnerable to serious earthquakes, or meteorological, geological or marine disasters. Two-thirds of China's lands are threatened by floods. Tropical cyclones often batter the eastern and southern coasts, and some inland places. Droughts often occur in the northeast, northwest and north, with particularly serious ones common in southwest and south China. Destructive earthquakes with a magnitude of 5 or more on the Richter Scale have struck all the country's provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities). The mountainous and plateau areas, accounting for 69 percent of China's total land territory, suffer frequent landslides, mud-rock flows and cliff collapses due to complicated geological conditions’. China has been quite organised when it comes to rescue operations and relief. Accessibility becomes a major issue, as these natural disasters can close of areas, slow down movement and therefore also slowing down economical growth. The problems I have listed are only a snippet of the bigger picture, however if it is possible to find design solutions for these areas then many of them can be applied to or integrated to other transportation systems around the world. Moving masses of people, important factors. Cost, time, impact on health, safety, impact on the environment. Ideally the system and/or service must have no impact on the environment; it must improve living standards and health quality and still move people around quickly easily and on the users part, be affordable. Some would say that to achieve such a thing would mean an injection of masses on money, and that is true, but that’s a small price we pay in order to grow healthy and sustain our way of life. Ivan Illich in his (article) ‘energy and equity’ argues that the current ‘way of life’ we live is unsustainable and will always be unsustainable as we will always rely on power ‘slaves’ to complete out task, and those ‘slaves’ will need energy to run, somewhere along the line, the acquisition of that energy will become impossible, and thus forcing us to find new ‘salves’ and the cycle repeats. To that, I believe that we are still only looking at these problems with a one size fix all solution, what if the energy slaves we used had multiple fuels sources to run, and at any given time can switch between them, if used correctly could we possibly give the other fuel sources enough time to replenish. Importantly, when I say fuel sources I do no mean any fossil fuels what so ever, get rid of the need for that source all together. We can combine the use of thermal energy, solar energy, wave energy, bio energy and possibly even wind to create a system that can use all or one at any given time to save costs or save fuel. This is heavily reliant on technical solutions. Accessibility to food and water, and accessibility to work. A few things that can dictate the way an individual operates on a day to day basis. Traditionally a person would drive to work or take public transport, depending on how far from home the workplace was and if the individual could afford an automobile. The internet, wireless technology and mobile phones have helped advance economies, as it cancels then need to some people and businesses to actually travel. This technical revolution can completely change the concept of work itself. Let’s take the stereotypical middleclass
accountant as an example (this doesn’t represent every accountant, however gives a reasonable insight) he has a family, lives a fair distance from work, and at work usually just sits in front of a computer and does his work, occasional being called up for meetings and limited face to face contact with the boss. Does he really need to travel all the way to work to sit in front of a computer? Why not have all people who work in a similar situation just work at home? With video chat capabilities of phones and internet reduces the need for physical presence. There will be times where the individual will be required to do face to face discussions/sales with clients so that can be arranged when it occurs. The term ‘going to work’ will have a completely different meaning. This will allow parents to stay home and take care of the children, see them grow, and also get the work done, with this said there is a stigma attach to being a ‘work-from-home’ parent, that the individual has nut nurturing children as a priority over work and that somehow makes u less of a business person. This negative social script needs to be debunked, as it only serves a restriction to a possibly better way of living. Methodology By utilizing design methods such as observation of people practices, participatory involvements and surveying, to name a few, I aim to find design solutions to help improve or deal with transportation issues in emerging and developing countries. The country of particular interest to me is the Peoples Republic of China, the largest city in China. In hopes that by solving some of the key issues in transpiration and mobility, other developing countries and even developed countries and integrate or learn from the approach taken to solve the issues. Design for people, in my opinion, is best done by observing how people would actually use the design. A clear understanding of what human and external factors need to be considered is identified by using an observational approach. When people are given stuff, they do not always use it the way it was intended to be used, therefore seeing how people use things in the current system can prove to be helpful when reconstructing or reinventing the system and/or its products. The example of the accountant is an example of how just observing what people do can lead to ideas and different ways of thinking, which could be better. The approach of ‘one size fits all’ in design will not be effective in solving all these problems, contradictory to many beliefs it will do the opposite, it will just create other problems. Earlier I discussed that the design solutions that are found can be implement elsewhere, in some ways it contradicts the notion that the ‘one size fits all’ approach will not work, however the point of aiming the design solution towards emerging economies such as China is that they will serve as role models for how critical design thinking and planning can help all other countries to tackle similar issues. Design thinking such as that has its place, in areas such as fashion design, and it came be extremely effective. In terms of mobility and transportation design that approach can help with product design, such as inclusive and universal design, when it comes to creating a language of interface that all humans can relate to and use, however when one looks at it from service and system design there are other dynamics which change from social, economical, cultural and ecological which must be inspected. Once the backdrops of those key terms are identified in context to the target area, such as Melbourne city, then one can generate positive outcomes based sustainment and fundamentally good human conditions.
In summary my intention is to discover design solutions based on methodologies that are innately designed to contextualise each problem and identify the concerns, in order to direct mobility and transformational design it to the ever changing future. This type of design thinking doesn’t confine the project to just system, service or product however focuses on the issue as the root through which a system, service and product can branch out in relativity to each other to solve the problems. Designed mobility should take new forms of applying knowledge and practice, practitioners of design must evolve to re-orient itself in order to deal with continuous cultural, social and environmental conditional changes in society.