Ten Points for a Design Philosophy on Sharing by Jeffrey Chan & Zhang Ye architecture, national university of singapore
Adam & Eve (1526), by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Presentation on ‘Sharing’, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, April 19, 2017.
Our contemporary city and urban life can only persist through place and space-sharing. Radical privatisation and enclosure will make our city uninhabitable.
What then is ‘the problem’ for designs on sharing (if sharing is already a ‘norm’)? (i) It is some Context that we are reacting to; the system of our design is therefore of paramount importance. (ii) It is some Ideals that we are aspiring to; the goals, and ethics, of the sharing system is therefore of paramount importance. “The sharing economy has reached a sort of “headache” phase…”
(Kulp & Kool, 2015: 197).
“Inventive architectural solutions can contribute invaluably to the dynamics of common space creation. But architecture alone cannot guarantee that designed spaces will become commoned spaces, spaces of commoning and spaces-as-commons.” (Stavrides, 2016).
Aims of the presentation: 1. To render the context and ideals of sharing clearer. 2. The literature on ‘sharing’ today is uneven and confounding; clarification of overlapping meanings and asking foundation questions are necessary. 3. On the design of ‘sharing spaces’: (i) how do we design for sharing, or sharing spaces (especially: what are the considerations involved?)? (ii) conversely, how does the paradigm of ‘sharing’ challenge present conceptions of architecture and urbanism?
Outline of the presentation: 1. Distinctions between cooperation, commoning, participation and codesign. 2. Specifying the scope of sharing for the intention of design. 3. What is being shared? 4. What are the different ideal-types of sharing? 5. Why is sharing necessary or urgent today? The contemporary context of sharing. 6. What is goal of sharing (or why share?). 7. What are the principles behind sharing? 8. Why do we need an ethics for sharing? 9. How do we design for shareability? 10.Open questions and summary
1. Distinctions between Closely-Related Concepts …between cooperation, commoning, participation and co-design… (i) To cooperate means to work jointly for the same end or purpose; it presumes a common goal and so the goal is shared; not much can be said beyond that. (ii) ‘Commoning’ is the activity of either creating or establishing a commons. A commons necessarily presume some sharing but not all sharing practices necessarily lead to a commons; Commoning has to necessarily presume shared agreement on how to manage the commons (Ostrom, 2006; Stavrides, 2016). (iii) To participate is to be involved in, or to take part in something. In this meaning, it overlaps with ‘share’, which is to partake in something. At the highest level of Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation (1969), it is citizen control. If sharing is related to participation, then it may likely mean the sharing of power. (iv) Co-design is ‘design with’ rather than ‘design for’ (Schwarz, 2016). It presumes both participation, as well as cooperation. It may well mean the sharing of a common design experience, but perhaps nothing else.
2. Specifying the scope of sharing in design (i) When I refer to ‘sharing’…I refer to conscious (and conscientious) sharing.
NOT
(ii) When I refer to ‘sharing’…I refer to sustained sharing (i.e., not rent-seeking opportunities that arise from redundant or spare capacity). (iii) When I refer to ‘sharing’…I (really want to!) refer to non-zero sum sharing: where the total value of sharing is not fixed.
2.1 Specifying the scope: current emphasis (or bias)
Shared Consumption
Sharing as means to some ends (e.g., trust; or profit)
Shared Production
Sharing as an end (e.g., good things have to be shared)
Shared Costs Shared Responsibility etc…(the list continues) Questions for Design: 1. How can your design proposal engage more categories than just ‘shared consumption of X’ and celebrate sharing as an end in itself—what kind of design is that?
3. What is being shared? (i) Tomasello’s (2009) work on human altruism: altruism regarding goods, services and information: (a) different psychologies of generosity; helpfulness; curiosity. (ii) Tomasello’s work prompts the following two propositions: (a) what is being shared impacts how it is shared [e.g., sharing a goal means we cooperate; sharing a pizza means we divide]. (b) which type of sharing does ‘sharing space’ belong to, or what is the psychology behind the kind of sharing we prefer to design as architects?
4. What are the different types of sharing? …Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3… (i) Type 1: zero sum sharing, especially on tangible divisible goods and relies on division—the more I share, the less I have, and vice versa. -interesting but ironic attribute of Type 1: where more sharing is likely to curtail the further prospect of sharing. (ii) Type 2: sharing of intangible ‘goods’ (e.g., experience, information or responsibility): where (further) sharing can either amplify or exacerbate the quality of these ‘goods’. E.g., Borsch & Kornberger’s (2015) idea of the urban commons, and the ‘Chinese whispers’. (iii) Type 3: neither quite Type 1 nor Type 2. E.g., sharing a flat with a roommate— both tangible and intangible; can be zero sum or non-zero sum sharing.
4.1 Interesting propositions following from this typology‌ (i) Type 1 can result in reciprocity (Belk, 2007): the more I share, the more the beneficiary of sharing is likely to share with me. The paradox is that Type 1 primarily conforms to zero sum sharing; yet reciprocity can lead to non-zero sum sharing systems. (ii) Especially for Common-Pool Resources (CPRs)—woodlands, fisheries, water bodies (see Ostrom, 2006)—sharing is typically Type 1; therefore at some point, sharing for all has to cease in order to conserve these resources. That is, for sharing between stakeholders within the commons to persist, sharing with people outside the commons will likely have to cease.
Questions for Design: 1. How can we design from any zero sum sharing system to a non-zero sum sharing system?
5. Why is sharing ascendant today? The contemporary context of sharing. (i) Responding to privatisation and enclosures imposed by neoliberal capitalism (and urbanism) (Hodkinson, 2012). Sharing is an alternative form of distribution to commodity exchange and gift-giving (Belk, 2007), and may present the potential of a post-capitalist society (McLaren & Agyeman, 2015: 8). (ii) Aligning to the call for sustainability in a world characterized by scarcity. (iii) Offering new forms of work and options of economic sustenance in a volatile and uncertain Post-Fordist economy—the emergence of precariats and ‘precarious’ work. All of the above facilitated by explosive growth of networked and distributed technologies enabling new ways of managing peer-to-peer relations (Light & Miskelly, 2014), and Big Data. Question for Design: 1. How does ‘sharing’ open up new possibilities or horizons for architecture and urbanism?
6. What is the goal(s) of sharing? Why share? the goal(s) of sharing … C.W. Churchman (1979): the definition of ‘goals’ is paramount for any system design because this definition will inform us on how to design the host of supporting conditions in order for this system to maintain itself and to attain its stated goals. This is called the environment of the system. The intended or unintended dismissal of this environment is therefore known as the environmental fallacy (Churchman, 1979: 4). Questions for Design: 1. What is the ‘environment’ of your design proposal? 2. How do certain factors or variables of that environment amplify or contradict your design goal(s)? Can you design these factors or variables to align them to your goal(s)?
7. What are the (ethical) principles behind sharing? neither altruism nor cooperation even though it has the appearance of either—but maximisation (of profits) Many sharing programs were never designed with equity or social justice in mind: “Social justice is typically an afterthought.” (McLaren & Agyeman, 2015: 4).
may be either compassion or justice—or both
Depending on the ethics (or ethical principles) adopted, the (sharing) system changes (Churchman, 1979: 123): if your ethics is utilitarian, you share to maximise; you can also trade-off between principles. But if your ethics is Kantian, then you share as equally as possible, and there is usually no compromise. This is why ethics is important to any system design—the choice of ethics will constrain your design choices!
8. Why is ethics needed? Further reasons‌ (i) Externalities of sharing: despite the willingness to share, this can nonetheless generate conflict and disputes.
(ii) What ought to be the distributive rule?
(ii) An ethical code for future generations: a shared world—for as long as possible
9. How do we design for shareability? A few general points. (i) Design for repeat customisation (Gorlenko, 2013). (ii) Design for ‘lumpiness’ (e.g., bench rather than chair), and ‘renewability’ (i.e., resources that can be regenerated after use) (Benkler, 2004). (iii) Design for inclusivity where stakeholders can give rather than only take (e.g., participatory design) (Stavrides, 2016). (iv) Design for trust and cooperation (Tonkinwise, 2012): people tend to share if (a) they know the other person beforehand; (b) they know they will cooperate repeatedly.
10. Open Questions and Summary. (i) How does the sharing paradigm change the present horizon of architecture and urbanism? (ii) How can design engage with sharing beyond the modality of ‘shared consumption’? How can we design a ‘sharing culture’? (iii) How can we design from any zero sum sharing to a non-zero sum sharing system, where the total value of sharing is not fixed? (iv)How does one type of sharing conflict with another type? Conversely, how can one type of sharing reinforce another type of sharing? (v) What is the environment of any sharing system to be designed? How should we acknowledge factors or variables in this environment for our design? (vi)What are the goal(s), principles, and therefore ethics of our sharing system? How justified is the design of our sharing system and by which framework of justification? (vii) How can we design sharing systems so that their outcomes are socially just? (viii)What are further strategies for the design of shareability? (ix)What are the limits of sharing?
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