We are Needed: the death and resurrection of value-oriented designer

Maria Portnov & Jonathan Ventura

As it stands, we must accommodate technology. It is time to transform the technology to accommodate us. —Donald A Norman, 2009 ‘Compliance and tolerance’. Interaction 16(3): 2009. pp 61–65 2 Maldonado. Tomás. [1972]. Design, Nature and Revolution: Toward a Critical Ecology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. p 28

In the future, design and planning must assume the responsibility for transforming what is today barely virtual into something real. In that way design and planning would become the guiding factor of the Revolution; in fact, it would itself be the Revolution. —Tomas Maldonado, 1972

Fellow designers, heed our call lest our beloved discipline becomes irrelevant!

We are engulfed by rapidly unfolding global changes yet find ourselves late to articulate appropriate solutions: global migration, refugees, local and regional military tensions, the decline of brand value and the rising of ‘the wicked questions of design’ imbued with vast technological changes. We must beware of being blinded by these evocative technologies and return to the bane of our discipline – narrative design. Let us start with a brief historical stroll and end with a suggestion, focusing on the epitaph of our current situation – the urban realm.

In the context of our material future we analyse the designer’s role and its relevance to this near (and maybe far) future in the era of technological advancement. We claim that design has little potential to survive without obtaining a value system based on ideology and dealing with social issues (harsh issues as well as small everyday issues). When the software will replace other methods in all areas and will become the main actor, the narrative design which is about the designer–artist and not about inclusive user experience, will stay as aesthetic expression — not enough to justify itself. The other side, market oriented design, which serves consumerism and branding and doesn’t really have ideology to guide it, will eventually be made extinct by technology. Romanticism, contrary to its name, was a nineteenth century ailment introduced to our discipline. It focussed on the individual’s ability and right to express himself (malefocused at the time), heralding the single genius creator. Romanticism also brought forth the troubling side of value-oriented design, culminating in such documents as Marinetti’s 1909 Manifesto del Futurismo. The essence of this ailment was narrative design originated solely to reflect its creator’s own inner world of values.

The end of World War One saw an explosion of value-oriented design – a reaction to the cruelty and madness of nationalism and religious vanity. Be it a return to basic geometries or idealistic markets – values were the measure in design. By the mid1960s this had crumbled under new gods of marketing and consumer culture. The critical friction point was a struggle between the two sides of design as a value system. On one side, Max Bill represented the cold logic of industrial design – answering the market’s needs with affordable, functional and aesthetically minimalistic solutions. On the other side, Tomas Maldonado drew a new solar system of values borrowed from other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology and biology. The battle for the very definition of the designer’s role in society was valiantly fought. But we lost.

Who is ‘we’? Value-oriented designers, but it can also address all the designers that will eventually lose because the discipline will be gone. Dieter Rams, a market-oriented minimalist knight heralded design’s conquest by the Apple banner, cleansing our discipline of any unnecessary issues such as values, ideology and social impact, all of which quickly became anathema among designers. Marketing experts strengthened their hold on the discipline. Branding ruled and often people were forgotten. The designer as marketing-oriented problem solver was ubiquitous, save for small outliers waiting for change.

Colleagues, this change must come if we want to remain relevant!

Let us say the designer as problem-solver is gone, long live the designer as social interpreter! Yet, how might this change take place, you ask, most rightfully. Let us focus our attention on contemporary urban surroundings as a case study, then offer our suggestion for a much-needed change.

In many current discussions within the urban design discipline we witness a nostalgic lamentation over the loss of simple social interactions and human connections in our daily urban lives, replaced by screens and virtual platforms. The healthy stroll without aim, manifested by the flâneur, has been replaced with incessant glances at one’s personal data device, making social interaction obsolete. The situation is grave.

Designers have abrogated the responsibility to manage the co-existence between the two worlds, the digital and the flâneur’s stroll. Instead there is a careless coercion that privileges the virtual over the street.

The old definition of our profession looked for problems, then suggesed a (usually technology-appropriate) solution. A new approach is needed, one that sees the designer as a socio-cultural interpreter. That this shift is needed is illustrated by an answer given by Zaha Hadid when asked of the high fatality rate in her soccer stadium in Qatar: ‘I have nothing to do with the workers, I think it’s for the government to take care of. It’s not my duty as an architect to look at it’.

We cannot accept this type of answer!

Without working with and for people we will be replaced by self-moderated 3D imaging programs, wirelessly connected to 3D printers spewing models. Without a clearlydefined value-system and ideology, the designer is but an educated carpenter, to use Adolf Loos’s famous description.

In Western society, one of the most universal acts we are taught as children is to give up your seat on the bus or the train for the elderly. Buses are designed with marked seats under clearly situated modern visual signage reminding us of our simple civic ethical duty. Nevertheless, if you have recently gone on a bus you might have noticed that fewer people embrace this simple and minute duty, leaving the elderly to stand in the hardships of public transportation. We might think that the main issue here is that we no longer consider some populations as weak; the elderly are vital and active and have replaced the label of inability with newfound eagerness, coupled with a new pride, basking in their third or fourth career needed to financially support their longevity. We could also claim that the problem is rooted in modern consumerist society, typically identified as selfish and indifferent. However, when asked, people will usually give up their seat, so why don’t we do it straight away? If we carefully observe we will find that the reason is simple — we just do not pay attention to our physical surroundings any more. This inattention is coupled with our cowardice, not only as designers but as people, to stand by a clearly defined value system. A key change, mirrored in the rise of centralist rulers, is the ‘newfound truth’ that democracy is overrated, liberalism is weak and pluralist agendas are for suckers. In design, a false-truth hammered through our obsessive consumerism assumes that capitalism is not an ideology but just the natural order of business — a designer selling a chair for four million dollars is just the work of a professional. Social values play no part. Even drawing attention to social agendas quickly dissolves into weak arguments. For example, the first elderly-oriented design call in the UK was labelled “design for your future self”, underlining a detachment from our own imminent yet un-sexy future. Inclusive design, trying to offer various physical and social standards instead of just one healthy model, was quickly engulfed by standardised industrial solutions, giving rise to yet another 99 percent, the infirm, who are pushed to the margins of the design world.

Compiled into our smartphones, deaf with our noise-cancelling earphones, concentrated in a parallel world in which we have many alter-personas, we seem less interested in a significant social role. Recent design trends, such as interactive design and even UX, aided by VR, AR and other technological augmentation, deepen this growing gap. The serendipitous chance of getting lost in an unknown street is replaced by the red dot of navigation apps; looking for a restaurant or choosing a book is regulated by grading apps and social media. We may think we have more options, but actually we are all gradually sentenced to have the same user experiences.

Jerusalem, 2018. People ‘watching’ a street concert. In our daily routine there is a dissonance between the physical and the virtualworlds. Physical space loses its significance and vitality to theimmediate virtual space which has become our main activity site.

To have a strong and flawless internet connection has become one of our most fundamental needs, affecting our personal life and interactions, our business vitality, financial and medical decisions and our very understanding and experience of public spaces such as city streets. Ignoring Jurgen Habermas’s call almost 60 years ago for the necessity of the public sphere, we now have the complete opposite, reduced to nothing. As governments and tech-giants threaten what is termed ‘net neutrality’, the need for a stand for ideology and values is even more urgent. Our political spaces are virtual, the forums and social networks successfully replace the city square; we are supervised through our virtual activity and apps. Even delinquency takes place in the Dark Net at least as much as it does in dark alleys.

The virtual world’s centrality in our daily lives supposedly encourages individuality and independence, yet we all experience the world through the same technological mediations. Through shared virtual mediations we not only lose our critical thinking, but also interaction with ‘dumb objects’. If the virtual will soon be our main world, we must focus on transitions between the virtual and the physical. Think of the immense evolution smartphones have gone through compared to the design of ATMs or even the design of the sidewalk. Physical objects and spaces in the urban realm have lost their agency, they do not mediate our interactions, therefore the very integration between the digital and the analogue is starting to crack. While we can still speak both languages we must design their integration.

What can we do, then?

We call on designers of varying subdisciplines to research and identify these cracks, to stop being lazy, to accept responsibility for the connection between the physical world and the others – the scientific and the social and the economic. We cannot afford to focus on just one of these, even if what only matters to the addict is the virtual connection. Designers should guard physical experience and include virtual connection in that experience. If we design USB sockets in the urban environment, we must integrate them with other conditions such as ergonomic seats, shade, groceries, public transportation and bathrooms. If we want women to feel safe walking in urban surroundings it does not suffice to add lighting, just as a pink laptop is not genderoriented, just lazy.

We call on designers to work together instead of in competition, and to merge one platform with another. Design should be a holistic experience and truly inclusive. When we are waiting for the bus and the software of the ticket machine is stuck so that we have to walk away or pay a taxi because we do not have a ticket, we should be presented with more options. If we go on a lengthy ride, comprised of several transportation means, we should be able to do so seamlessly, even if we are visually impaired.

Although urban designers work with digital and virtual tools to showcase and develop their designs, they rarely incorporate them in their final outcomes. If we call upon them to be aware of the duality of experience and nothing changes, why would this be? Designers must watch, listen and identify situations on the scale between the physical and the virtual and adjust their designs, while considering an array of people. In areas lacking enough light or shade or even furniture, use the virtual platform in real-time to let the pedestrian expand their relevant solutions. We must resolve small conflicts and social issues with the help of the virtual world, while also finding physical and more suitable platforms that will work simultaneously for those who are less connected, educated or physically abled. Even with successful virtual platforms, the physical should not be neglected or become hostile, like the scooters lying around on the streets waiting for someone to stumble over them as there was no design for parking spaces nor the ability to fold them up. We must make sure that in every urban design project we combine and open a public approach through physical spaces throughout the city. To design must be synonymous sensitivity and inclusivity and not just allegedly smart or financially successful.

Finally, we must stop hiding behind false assumptions. Design’s sole existence is not to serve the upper one percent. Designing for the market is not the discipline’s sole, or even main, purpose. It is an option. Social design must stand firm on clearly defined ideological roots. It must be defined as broader than any single sub-discipline. Design disciplines must not be defined by the choice of software — a graphic designer is not an InDesign worker, they must redefine their role in society and in the market. Similarly, an urban designer or an industrial designer is not working for a BIM centre or SolidWorks. These designers must articulate their role, be it to make money for entrepreneur, to represent social groups or to stand against urban injustice. The role must be made clear.

This is an exciting period to work as a designer; it is also a crucially important crossroads. We must decide: are we (still) a part of the problem, or potentially a catalyst for much-needed change.

Tel Aviv, 2019. A ticketing device inside a public bus, broken and wrapped with garbage bags.

Portnov and Ventura

above: Jerusalem, 2018. A disconnected and unused public phone, in the middle of a narrow urban sidewalk.

Jerusalem, 2018. Failed technological urban infrastructure that was intended to interact with pedestrians and provide shade and light.

Portnov and Ventura

Maria Portnov is a landscape architect and an independent researcher of urban public environments, their everyday interactions and conflicts and the role of socially oriented designers.

Jonathan Ventura is an Associate Professor in Design Anthropolgy, and Design Theory and Research, The Department of Inclusive Design, Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem and the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art, London.