Raw, cooked and everything in between. by Fan Sissoko

Fan Sissoko - K1045278 - MA Design for Development

June 2011

Raw, cooked and everything in between. From designing for passive consumers to sharing design knowledge with active citizens and resourceful communities.

DDM002: Sustainable Design Principles, Perspectives & Practices Anne Chick

Contents Introduction

I. Values: shifting aspirations

I.1 Design and consumerism: a love story

I.2 Reconsidering what we value

I.3 Why design then?

II. Structures: from designing for consumption to designing for engagement

II.1 Slow, local and connected: new structures for a sustainable society

II.2 Decentralised innovation

II.3 Designing for emergence

III. Knowledge: design as resourcefulness

III.1 Is creativity an undervalued resource?

II.2 Design as literacy

II.3 Design as challenging the status quo

Conclusion

References

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - â&#x20AC;&#x153;Designing Happinessâ&#x20AC;?

Introduction “Design must disengage itself from consumer culture as the primary shaper of its identity, and find a terrain where it can begin to rethink its role in the world. The result of this activity, if successful, will be a new power for the designer to participate in projects for the welfare of humankind, both inside and outside the market economy.” (Margolin 1998) The emergence of design as a profession is rooted in the market economy. Designers have been instrumental to driving economic progress. By making technological innovation desirable and material ownership aspirational, they have largely contributed to the making of contemporary consumerist culture. This system, which relies almost exclusively on the concept of planned obsolesence, has raised many criticisms. Firstly, its detrimental impact on nature, through its waste outputs, is well documented. The idea of perpetual growth, on which it is based, also seems to have fuelled the belief that humanity somehow exists outside of ‘the environment’, seen as a limitless supply of resources. However, a contingency of factors such as global warming, exploding demographics, resource scarcity, and the recent financial crisis are urging us to reevaluate human development (Jackson 2009) and to look for new types of resourcefulness. Moreover, in parrallel to these tangible environmental effects, consumerist culture has deep structural implications on society, and consequently, on individual behaviours. Indeed, by granting the exclusivity of shaping our material world to a handful of individuals, it seems to have forced a disengagement from our systems of production, and encouraged passivity. Taking this into account, this essay will focus on the relationship between designers and users, and question the relevance of design as a professional field. Has the divide between those who make and those who consume “reduced our resources of common competence” to the point that we are now “less resourceful than ever?” (Campbell 2009).

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

The first chapter will look at how the role of designers has been determined by market values. It will also examine what values would need to become mainstream to accomodate human development within a finite planet. For some, it is about shifting aspirations and, to a certain extent, redefining human happiness through social cohesion, meaningful relationships, and active participation to society, rather than through material growth (Cahn 2004, Marks 2004, Jackson 2009). What can designers do to not only shape, but also make these new aspirations tangible? Chapter 2 will discuss whether, more than a values shift, a structural shift is needed. Indeed, if only a few of us own the responsibility to innovate, this capacity, despite being inherent to all human beings, is taken away from everyone else. As a result, design, as a problem solving process, becomes something that is “done to others” by “those who know best.” This might be seen as problematic because it feeds the assumption that these “others cannot provide for themselves” (Hamdi 2004), and therefore encourages passivity and consumptive behaviours. If sustainable development depends on active citizenship, self-reliance and local resourcefulness (Hopkins 2010) can we argue that a sustainable design practice needs to go beyond simply producing sustainable outputs? What roles can designers play to facilitate the emergence of a more participatory society? In Chapter 3, these considerations will be framed around the design process itself. What is it that makes design powerful enough to “transform man’s environment and tools, and, by extension, man himself ” (Papanek 1984)? How can, both the “tacit knowledge” (Walker 2006) and the craftmanship of designers be shared to “increase the resourcefulness of people and communities” (Campbell 2009)?

Fan Sissoko - k1045278@kingston.ac.uk - MA Design for Development

I. Values: Shifting aspirations I.1 Design and consumerism, a love story The role design has played in support of consumerism has been widely acknowledged. Because, as a profession, design “grew out of the industrial capacity for mass-producing goods” (Campbell 2009), its practice has been almost exclusively concerned with adding functional and aesthetic value to material artefacts, through manufacturing and advertising. Its capacity to innovate has been primarily “consumer-led” and has, until recently, failed to consider “the needs of individuals and social groups who have little power in the market-place” (Whiteley 1993). While the use of technology and creativity to make consumer goods more human-centred might be seen as a valuable contribution to human development, the question of whether market-led design addresses real human needs has often been raised: “Never before in history have grown men sat down and seriously designed electric hairbrushes, rhinestone-covered shoe horns and mink carpeting for bathrooms, and then drawn up elaborate plans to make and sell these gadgets to millions of people.” (Papanek 1984:ix) Concerns regarding the environmental impacts of this resource-hungry and waste-inducing “superfluous materialism” were voiced as early as the nineteenth century, by leaders of the Arts & Crafts movement William Morris and John Ruskin, as a reaction against the Industrial Revolution (Chapman 2005). The salience of “issues about consuming and its relationship to the world’s resources and energy” is now urging designers to take “responsibility for their own actions” (Whiteley 1993).

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

Before examining what this might imply in practice, it is essential to better understand the relationship between design and consumerism, and to contextualise it in the market economy. If consumer goods do not satisfy basic human needs, what makes people buy them? Tim Jackson suggests that they provide “a symbolic language in which we communicate with each other ... about what really matters to us: family, friendship, sense of belonging, community, identity, social status, meaning and purpose in life.” The task they perform is social, as much as it is material: they are “proxies for our dreams and aspirations” that are expected to support our participation to society (Jackson 2009). However, most of the time, they fail. “Like an itch that can never be scratched, the covetous search for the ultimate expression of self as mediated through manufactured objects appears to be endless” (Chapman 2005). Ironically, in this context, failure means success. “Durability is designed out of consumer goods and obsolescence is designed in” (Jackson 2009); this is essential to sustain our “expansionist model of economic growth” which relies precisely on our insatiable desire for novelty (Margolin 2002). The role of designers in endorsing this process of “creative destruction” has been crucial (Jackson 2009), not because of the nature of design itself, but because of its submission to the market economy. Focusing primarily on issues of desirability, designers have been pushed to neglect the wider meanings that people might assign to material goods. As a result, human needs are now expected to be met through the “passive endeavours of visuality and materialism” rather than through more engaging activities. In some respect, designers have been too efficient at “trying to push consumers into market-based methods of wellbeing” (Thorpe 2001).

Fan Sissoko - k1045278@kingston.ac.uk - MA Design for Development

I.2 Reconsidering what we value But the blame cannot be put on designers alone. The issue is systemic. Indeed, the structural reliance of our economic system on continued growth has informed policies, shaped institutions, constructed media discourse, and established social norms, which all send out signals encouraging people to seek happiness through material wealth (Jackson 2009). Not only relentless materialism cannot be accommodated by the planet, but it is proving quite unsatisfactory for society too. Status competition and inequalities are fuelling anxieties. In the UK and in other ‘developed’ economies, consequences on social cohesion, health and individual wellbeing are forcing us to admit that, once basic needs are satisfied, there is an evident “disjunction between people’s standard of living and their happiness.” (Marks 2004). The simple fact that the we have institutionalised money as our single measure of prosperity made us disregard “all those capacities that are not scarce,” those that we universally share and that make us human, such as caring for each other. “If we buy into the notion that these capacities are worthless, then is it any wonder that our survival on this planet is in danger?” (Cahn 2004) Definitions of sustainable development, whether anthropocentrically focused on intergenerational needs (WCED 1987) or celebrating the value of nature in itself (UNEP 2000), all acknowledge the fact that the planet is finite. “We have no alternative but to question growth. The myth of growth has failed the fragile ecological systems on which we depend for survival. It has failed to provide economic stability and secure people’s livelihoods.” (Jackson 2009). Therefore, we not only need to “rethink our notions of material culture” (Walker 2006), but also to reconsider what we value, and how we define the happiness we aspire to. Such ideas are not new. In 1990, the United Nations Development Programme introduced the Human Development Index as an alternative to economic growth based measures of national development. However, the recent financial crisis is giving a new exposure to the need for new measures of progress. For instance, research by the New Economics Foundation on measuring wellbeing against environmental impact through the Happy Planet Index, is increasingly recognised, and is starting to influence policies in the UK (ONS 2011). Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

In practice, initiatives such as Time-Banking propose to rebuild our system around the “core economy”, and to value “the world of family and community where transactions take place that economists do not measure ... and where assets exist for which the market has no use.” (Cahn 2004). While we can question whether simply establishing new sets of measures can address “the social logic of consumerism,” it certainly supports the emergence of a new narrative regarding our values and aspirations. Measuring wellbeing acknowledges the fact that prosperity transcends material wealth. The challenge is then to shape a society that will allow people to flourish “beyond material pleasures” (Jackson 2009).

I.3 Why design then? If the primary role of designers is to shape our material world, it might seem that, “in an environment that is screwed up visually, physically, and chemically, the best and simplest thing that [they] could do for humanity would be to stop working entirely” (Papanek 1984). But does moving beyond materialism mean that we should stop consuming altogether? For Jonathan Chapman, consumption “is not just a way of life. It is life.” It is our way of “interacting with an evolving world.” Consumption is “an unfolding process through which the external meanings and values, as signified by objects, are internalised by the consumer through engagement and subsequent familiarity” (Chapman 2005). In some respect, objects are to our search for meaning, what food is to our need for subsistence. Taking this into account, is it reasonable to advocate a world beyond products? Maybe “what we should be pursuing is redirective behaviour, which steers consumers towards greener, and more sustainable, alternatives.” (Chapman & Gant 2007). This does not only suggest using manufacturing processes that are less damaging to the environment, but also implies promoting new relationships with material goods. Indeed, if we accept to view consumption as a “meaning-seeking process” then “waste becomes a symptom of expired meaning” (Chapman 2005).

Fan Sissoko - k1045278@kingston.ac.uk - MA Design for Development

Therefore, designing artefacts that generate long-lasting emotional investment from users is a way of introducing sustainable values in a design practice: objects that age well, that have narrative potential, that allow the user to add their own identity to it. Another possible approach is to design new patterns of ownership, for a sharing economy. Examples of collaborative consumption, such as bikes or cars sharing systems, or online redistribution markets, represent great opportunities for designers to work towards the production of softer outcomes: services rather than products. But is it enough? If a systemic change, driven by new considerations about what we value, is what is required, “could the creation of well-being, not goods or services, be a new purpose for design?” (Fuad-Luke 2006) The potential of design to “demonstrate new values in action” through tangible projects rather than through visions or propositions, could indeed lead to even more radical approaches, and give designers a new social significance (Margolin 2002). “To build possible scenarios of a sustainable society is the first and fundamental step to shift the designer’s role from the side of the problem generators to the one of the solution promoters.” (Manzini 2007). Considering that, unlike a product or a service, well-being cannot be delivered, how can we reform social structures so that they provide opportunities for everyone to thrive beyond economic growth?

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

II. Structures: From designing for consumption to designing for engagement.

II.1 Slow, local and connected: new structures for a sustainable society The debate on how to inform policies to shift their focus from economic growth to less commercial means of achieving wellbeing is ongoing. However, a few notions can provide a useful starting point for designers to build these sustainable living scenarios. Manzini (2001) suggests the creation of “islands of slowness”, to balance the fast pace of technological innovation. Slowing down, where it is appropriate, should help us to “create meaning from internal or community processes” rather than from external values conveyed by consumer goods (Thorpe 2007). For instance, privileging community ownership over corporate ownership, interpersonal communication over broadcasting, durability over disposability, diversity over standardisation, or handmade over machine-made, should add layers of active engagement to the fulfilment of human needs, making the process more meaningful, and therefore, more satisfactory. Implicit in this notion of slowness is the imperative of “shifting the focus of economic activity to local markets [and] local production” (Hopkins 2010). Indeed, it is crucial to address the environmental impact of global commerce, which, driven by the efficiency of transport technology, “has

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

freed [us] from the constraints of geography” (Steel 2008). For human settlements to become less environmentally demanding and damaging, they need to be designed as sustainable ecosystems, in which resources are produced, efficiently reused (Girardet 2008), and locally managed (Barton 2000). This requires a new type of local resourcefulness, which, as demonstrated by the Transition Towns movement, might be facilitated by “localism” - devolving decision making to communities and local government (Hopkins 2010). The UN Sustainable Cities Programme and Localising Agenda 21 both acknowledge the need for a bottom-up approach, through participatory problem-solving and stakeholder involvement (Barton 2000). In the UK, this idea of decentralisation is at the heart of public debates, but for different reasons. Informed by austerity measures, the Localism Bill proposed by the current British coalition government is meant to transfer planning decisions from central to local government and allow communities to have more say in neighbourhood plans (DCLG 2011). As this policy partly translates into public expenditure cuts, whether it will effectively support active civic engagement is discutable (Cox 2010). Nonetheless, it seems to mark a shift in power relationships, which resonates with the self-reliant community ideal. However, we can argue that decentralisation and participative democracy must go beyond simply less bureaucracy in decision-making; it should practically support people to invest in public life and encourage social productivity (Johar 2011). Indeed, if, as Ilitch foresaw, “the future depends upon our choice of institutions which supports a life of action,” society must become “postspectacular” (Thackara 2005). The role of those who shape the future - through policy, through design, through innovation - must move beyond providing change, towards enabling people to take ownership of change.

Fan Sissoko - k1045278@kingston.ac.uk - MA Design for Development

II.2 Decentralised innovation If creating “an enabling state” is about giving “communities the resources, support and tools they need to take control” (Reed 2011), then what principles should be put into practice to counter a consumption-focused system? Perhaps a truly democratic society should rely on structures informed by “assets based approaches, rather than needs based ones” (Britton 2011). Perhaps it is one where people are not treated for their problems, but valued for their potential, where communities are not seen as homogenous groups to be protected from discrimination, but as loose and evolving networks of supportive relationships. In some respect, this is already happening. “The convergence of social networks, a renewed belief in the importance of community, pressing environmental concerns and cost consciousness are moving us away from top-heavy, centralized and controlled forms of consumerism towards one of sharing, aggregation, openness and cooperation” (Botsman 2010). The gap between consumers and producers is filling. Hierarchical structures, which had devested citizens from their ability to make sense of their own lives, are being challenged by the emergence of a networked economy, in which there is space for questioning, imagining and experimenting (Green 2007). This is particularly true in the context of technological innovation, where practices such as open source software projects, or changes in intellectual property law have helped to place users at the centre of the innovation process (Von Hippel 2005). Perhaps more interestingly, this democratisation is also happening in the real world. Everywhere, collaborative communities emerge to creatively fulfil their own needs, actively organise their own resilience, or simply add value to their everyday lives. Examples of co-housing schemes, local farmers markets, self-managed social services, alternative transports systems, are all “social innovations” that address common problems in non-consumerist ways. Therefore, this “silent revolution” represents a great potential for sustainability, not only in terms of environmental impact, but also because they require strong social networks, and consequently enhance social cohesion (Jégou 2008). Organised by “people that have chosen not to delegate their future to the choices of policy or of the market” these arise from “highly complex socio-technical systems that cannot be “designed” (Jégou 2008). Rather than how to empower

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

communities, the question might then be “how do we empower [decisionmakers] to not just understand, but also to support and strengthen social innovators?” (Bason, 2009) Encouraging entrepreneurship seems key for “‘community’ interactions previously based on grievance or complaint [to be] replaced with creative and meaningful engagement” (Britton 2011). This suggests that implementing positive social change very much depends on developing the framework for people to become change agents, by becoming aware of their own transformative ability. This seems to be the thinking behind the Big Design Challenge, developed for Dott Cornwall - a programme of social regeneration supported by Cornwall Council and the Design Council. The project works through an online forum, on which anyone in Cornwall can post a social issue for anyone else to generate potential solutions. After evaluation, people behind the most successful ideas earn financial support and professional mentoring to implement their solution (BigDesignChallenge, 2011). Based on the recognition that everyone is potentially an expert, this approach to problem-solving challenges conventional notions of politics and design. It suggests a new model of democracy, which is not just representative, but participative. In fact, it also questions the politics of design. What do these cases of “diffuse design creativity” imply for designers? (Jégou 2008).

Fan Sissoko - k1045278@kingston.ac.uk - MA Design for Development

II.3 Designing for emergence What does a participatory design practice look like? What skills do designers who are “not campaigning but problem solving ... not ‘master-designers’ but democratic in approach” need? (Winhall 2011). What mindset should they adopt to properly accommodate the voices of users in their process? It seems that embracing reciprocity is key. If the knowledge of the user is considered as a resource, as much as the knowledge of the designer, the user evolves “from consumer to contributor and co-producer of the desired outcome” (Cahn 2004). This is not only necessary for designers to respond with greater relevance to the true needs of users, but it also enriches the creative process: “by bringing more than one language to bear on a problem, we obtain depth” (Papanek 1984). Including future users at the design stage, through iterative insight and feedback gathering workshops, also challenges the assumed expertise of the designer. It welcomes uncertainty, which “changes fundamentally power relationships because it invites questions, the answers to which are not already pre-set. [It] encourages the participation of others to engage with each other in search of ideas not based on pre-established routines, nor on so-called best practices” (Hamdi 2004). Therefore, an egalitarian approach, that values the contributions of everyone likely to be affected by the outcome, is necessary to establish a genuine creative dialogue. In practice, because “the opinion of the more articulate often carries more weight,” designers might need to use their visualisation and fast prototyping skills to “provide a common and universally accessible platform for contributions” (Winhall 2011). While such methods seem obvious for disciplines such as service design, which are user-centred by definition, one might wonder how they would apply to visual communication design, for instance, which, perhaps ironically, generates limited interaction with users, mostly seen as passive receivers of information. Are graphic designers who want to inject political values into their work condemned to simply be “propagandists” (Blackburn 2009)? Not if we consider that, even displayed in the least interactive way - a poster on a wall, for example - a message is always “completed by readers who bring their own expectations and interpretative practices to the exchange.” (Bush 2003). Therefore, the social mission of the graphic designer might simply start with understanding that his work should not only invoke his own voice - through his craft - but also the diverse voices of his audience - perhaps

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

through the avoidance of stereotypical or assertive messages, which leave little room to imagination and force disengagement. Whether they are named participatory design, co-design, or co-creation, the success of these “open design” processes seems to be a matter of balance. Balance between structure and emergence, between planning and spontaneity, between universalism and adaptability. In some respect, it is about knowing how much of the process should be “cooked” by the designer, and how much should be left “raw” for the user to cook himself. But as long as “the roles of designer and consumer are so entirely divided” it will be a challenge to genuinely “engage the user beyond simply buying and owning an artefact” (Thorpe 2007). Still, this “innovation paradigm shift” opens up new roles for designers (Green 2007). They are no longer the creative but rather facilitators of creativity. We might even argue that they have a responsibility to demystify the creative process. “If designers were to practise restraint – leaving the job less than fully complete – could they activate people’s intrinsic motivation; their natural instinct to design?” (Campbell 2009)

Fan Sissoko - k1045278@kingston.ac.uk - MA Design for Development

III. Knowledge: Design as resourcefulness III.1 Is creativity an undervalued resource? If, as we have seen, sustainability is about valuing less consumptive ways to fulfil human needs and aspirations, political structures must support self-reliance and active citizenship. These are already detectable in relatively spontaneous collaborative or entrepreneurial responses to unsatisfactory corporate or state supply of services. But how could the promotion of proactive behaviours be taken to another level? Can creativity be regarded as a resource in itself, as opposed to a means for achieving change? While participatory design practices initiate a constructive dialogue between those who provide and those who absorb change, they remain instrumental: they are process focused, but outcome driven. They succeed in the sense that users are more likely to take ownership of, and engage positively with the final solution. But do they really have the potential to inspire participants to “apply more of their creative selves to the world around them” (Thorpe 2007) outside framed design projects? What happens after a co-design workshop? How could the confidence building mechanisms used during co-creation processes be spread throughout social structures so that “people who are not professional designers might acquire some capability to design for themselves” (Campbell 2011)? Before asserting that creativity must be reclaimed from the hands of designers, it might be helpful to look at what being creative means. What do designers know, which is so valuable that it should be shared with everyone? Again, Ann Thorpe’s food metaphor appears very useful. Design is a transformative action. Through visual or material skills, the designer adds value to raw data in order to produce both usable and pleasurable artefacts,

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

just like the cook adds value to raw ingredients to produce both nutritive and enjoyable meals. The knowledge of the designer, like the talent of the cook, is a mixed bag of intuition, experience and formal training, which vary in proportions. It is important to note that, in this context, formal does not exclusively imply professional. Learning which ingredients make the best white sauce from a great aunt, or from a cookbook, does not make one less of a cook than learning the same tricks while working in the restaurant of a celebrity chef. The context differs, not the ability. However, when such basic skills are professionalised, the level of intensity and specialisation to which they are taken make them seem unreachable, while in fact, they are part of our shared human capabilities. The following table (Sanders 2008) suggests different levels of creativity identified in our daily lives. While they vary in terms of expertise and interest required, they all emerge from the simple acknowledgement that everyone is able to “give form and order to the amenities of life” (Potter 1969), or that everyone “devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones” (Simon 1996). Level

Type

Motivation

Purpose

Example

Creating

Inspiration

‘express my creativity’

Dreaming up a new dish

Making

Asserting my ability or skill

‘make with my own hands’

Cooking with a recipe

Adapting

Appropriation

‘make things my own’

Embellishing a ready meal

Doing

Productivity

‘get something done’

Organizing my spices

Four levels of creativity (Sanders 2008)

In this respect, “every human being is a designer” (Potter 1969). Professional designers could simply be described as those who earn a living by maximising their creativity, in their chosen context of specialisation. This almost implies that confidence is the main condition for self-reliance, all other skills being almost accidental. Is “being told they can” the only thing what makes designers embrace their inner creativity to transform the world around them (Mindfulmaps 2011)?

Fan Sissoko - k1045278@kingston.ac.uk - MA Design for Development

III.2 Design as literacy Emily Campbell provides an other helpful definition of design, that encompasses “a confidence in the creative process; a readiness to improvise and prototype with the resources available; a bold attitude to disorder, complexity and uncertainty; a range of expressive means, including the visual; and a keen sense of how things are made and manufactured,” all making the problem-solving process more effective. In a word, design is “resourcefulness” (Campbell 2011). Being resourceful goes beyond being creative. It also includes understanding. Solving a problem starts with finding, or defining a problem. In some respect, designers are resourceful, not only because they are full of initiative and have the means to do so, but also because they are “brave in the face of disorder and complexity” and use their “visual and spatial fluency” to decode the systems in which they need to operate (Campbell 2009). Knowing how things are made is the first step to finding out how to fix them. This is particularly well demonstrated by information designers, who, adding layers of emotion and tangibility to raw or undistilled data, “reveal the hidden connections, patterns and stories” of the world around us (McCandless 2009). Similarly to the Plain English Campaign, which started as a reaction against elitist political jargon, and became a guarantor of clarity for public communication, data visualisation represents a great potential for a participative society. By helping people engage more easily with knowledge, issues or ideas, it promotes literacy in its broadest sense. “But can design do more? Can it show you how the problem is to be solved without doing it for you?” (Campbell 2009). Basing her practice on graphic facilitation, London-based illustrator Emily Wilkinson is making particularly valuable efforts to share and demystify this visualisation process. Assisting organisations and community groups to visualise positive change, she records talks and meetings through drawing, and designs workshops in which data can be “harvested” in tangible and interactive ways (Mindfulmaps 2011). Insisting on the importance of physicality - as opposed to digital modes of visualisation - her approach implies that thinking and making are reciprocal, and that learning is an action-based process. These examples suggest that disseminating the resourcefulness of designers might require to firstly share their abilities to observe and analyse. Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

III.1 Design as challenging the status quo The RSA Design & Rehabilitation project provides interesting insights on how these skills can be thought to non-designers. To test the assumption that design can address issues of confidence, and support independence and social participation, the RSA held a three-day workshop in design for people with spinal cord injuries. Aiming at influencing the way participants interact with the material world, “the workshop focused less on how to execute the design of things like objects, devices or interiors, and more on how to think like a designer” (Campbell 2011). Observation exercises encouraged them to connect with an environment that they might normally ignore or even fear. Analysis activities took them through the process of dismantling images or objects, questioning the decision of designers, and taking account of the “negotiable and non-negotiable aspects of design.” Finally, a couple of design briefs were set to highlight that the world is, in fact, an endless source of design opportunities (Campbell 2011). Most participants noted that understanding the process through which things are made is empowering, because it reveals where and how one could intervene to make things more favourable for oneself. It therefore has the potential to enhance a sense of ownership over one’s environment, and increase confidence. In some respect, it can address “surplus powerlessness” defined as “the fact that human beings contribute to their existing powerlessness to the extent that their emotional, intellectual and spiritual makeup prevents them from actualising possibilities that do exist” (Rowson 2010). If seeing the world like a designer is scanning the environment in search of opportunities for improvement, there is indeed a strong case for sharing design knowledge. Studio H, a design school set up by American architect Emily Pilloton in a deprived rural area of North Carolina, is another concrete example of how teaching design can be turned into a broader learning experience. During one year, high school students design and build real-world projects that benefit the local community. The ambition is not only to develop “creativity, critical thinking, citizenship, and capital to give students the skills they need to succeed” but also to build “the assets the community needs to survive” and become more self-reliant (ProjectH 2011). Again, an approach that values materiality as much as design thinking seems to have determined the success of the project.

Fan Sissoko - k1045278@kingston.ac.uk - MA Design for Development

This demonstrates that, while design as a structured thought process can be successfully applied to problems that transcend traditional design disciplines, physical aspects of design should not be dismissed. In fact, having the opportunity to construct and deconstruct our material environment is also essential to keep challenging why things are agenced the way they are, to actively and creatively question what sort of future we are building.

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - â&#x20AC;&#x153;Designing Happinessâ&#x20AC;?

Conclusion We have discussed various ways for professional designers to break out of the often destructive consumerist dynamic in which they have been confined. From embracing values of slowness, locality and connectedness to seeking meaningful contributions from users, the design industry is recentering itself around notions of conviviality and collaboration. A constructive dialogue around the legacy of design is emerging. This legacy is no longer questioned simply in terms of environmental and social impact, but is also examined to yield an understanding of where design stops. Design will become sustainable when it allows users to get actively involved somewhere along the process of transforming “raw” resources into a “cooked” solution (Thorpe 2007). Similarly, a society in which “democracy lies dormant” (Ramm 2011) benefits from structures that value imagination, spontaneity and active engagement. “The resilience and creativity of well-connected communities depends both on chance and choice, otherwise the whole system freezes into rigidity and is incapable of adaptation or innovation” (Gilchrist, 2000). Designers and policy-makers must recognise that a ‘design’ or a ‘plan’ only becomes a ‘solution’ when people take ownership of it. The challenge is therefore to know “how much structure do we design before the structure itself interrupts the natural process of emergence?” (Hamdi 2004) But design has more to offer. If creativity is in fact as much of a resource than coal or oil, or even than social capital, designing for sustainability could simply mean uncovering the potential of every human being to proactively seek opportunities for change, make sense of their own lives and contribute meaningfully to public life. Promoting and sharing design knowledge might therefore be a new responsibility for formally trained designers if they want to take part in the essential move from a consumer-centred, to a human-centred, and to ultimately a “life-centred” (Thackara 2005) society.

Sustainable Design, Perspectives and Principles - DDM002 - “Designing Happiness”

References

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Fan Sissoko - k1045278@kingston.ac.uk - MA Design for Development

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