Changing the change

This paper was presented at the Design Research Society ‘WonderGround’ Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, November 2006.

Design for development is not a new concept. Since the 1960s, it has been introduced sporadically to the development process, although it is yet to earn itself a permanent place in that process. The idea of development has a relatively short history. The tripartite structure of First World, Second World, and Third World, which dominated development thought after World War II, was based on a Cold War ideology that identified capitalism as the favoured economic system. The First World consisted of the Western industrialized capitalist nations; the Second World comprised the centralized command economies in the Communist countries, while the Third World was made up mainly of new nations that had previously been colonies of First World countries and had achieved independence often through revolutions and wars of liberation. The ideological underpinnings of this asymmetric structure politicized the three groups, tainting the transfer of aid and technical assistance with propagandistic overtones.

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Is it possible to organise an exhibition from design research results? Could this be useful in promoting the transition towards sustainability? In principle the answer should be yes: design research in general, and design research for sustainability, in particular, should generate visions and proposals in a highly communicative way. That is, it should produce high quality visual contents easily presentable in an exhibition. In practice, things are not exactly like that: for many years design research has been mostly oriented in other directions, i.e. towards theoretical and methodological studies. This kind of research is good and necessary, of course, but the result is that today, even though the number of design research conferences, journals and papers is growing, few proposals of new solutions and even fewer visions of possible futures are emerging as design research results. On the other hand, some designers who are developing visions and proposals very rarely consider themselves as researchers and their work as design research.

The Changing the Change initiative aims to promote and give higher visibility to the results of these formal and informal research projects. Therefore, in the process of selecting papers, a special consideration will be given to abstracts and papers presenting highly communicative visual contents.

However, this is only the first step. What we want to do is to organise, in parallel to the Conference, a design research exhibition, Changing the Change: visions and solutions, to make these visions and solutions more accessible, i.e. visible and understandable, to a wider public. For this reason, we are also calling for ad hoc visualisations to be used in the original exhibition we intend to organise. Similarly to the related papers, they may refer to different fields of application: from health, to food; from mobility to fashion; from caring for children to social services, but they must present a clear common denominator: they must show what it could be like to live and to produce in a more sustainable way.

For those who are familiar with traditional research conferences, it has to be underlined that the visualisations we are calling for here are not traditional scientific posters. Such posters are presentations on paper of the same contents as could otherwise have been presented orally at the conference. Here we are referring to visualisations that must be self-standing, highly communicative visions and proposals that must be accessible to the exhibition public at large. (for practical indications on how to submit a visualisation, see in the News and Notes section of this Newsletter and in the Changing the Change website).

Design as we know it – “industrial” design – is a relatively young discipline, little more than two hundred years old. The industrial process of design developed to cope with the social and technological changes of the Industrial Revolution. Design as we know it is a corollary of industrial society, industrial technology and the industrial production system.

The question we face is how design can be transformed as society and technology transform from industrial to post-industrial forms.

There have been different interpretations of the concept of post-industrialism. The differences have tended to polarise between the “info-tech” vision and the “eco-tech” vision. In the former, post-industrialism means a form of hyper-industrial technology, based on the information revolution, automation and highly advanced technology. In the latter, it means a more small-scale, resource-conserving, “convivial” technology. In the former, technology is regarded as an autonomous, science-driven force; in the latter, technology is brought under the influence and control of people and communities.

The products and processes of a technology are linked with each other. Pre-industrial technology had its own particular types of products and processes, just as industrial technology can now be seen to have had its own particular types of products and processes. In turn, post-industrial technology will have its particularities which will affect its design processes and the products that stem from it. Perhaps a new paradigm of technology can emerge. Some features of the new technology will be continuations of the old; some will create discontinuities. Some features will be generated by the possibilities of technological development itself, whereas others will be responses to the problems created by that same technological development. Changing the Change can help to create the paradigm of a new technology.

Design as it might be – “post-industrial” design – is an issue for design research. Design research is an incredibly young discipline, only about forty years old, but nevertheless having significant influence on design practice and process and having great potential. Design research has a fundamental commitment to interdisciplinarity that will be essential to post-industrial design, and it is establishing a world-wide, international basis of cooperation that will be equally essential.

Design research is built around design thinking. Fundamental to design thinking is imagination: the abilities to imagine and to image. Changing the Change can help to develop the potential of design research. That’s why I am pleased that the Design Research Society endorses Changing the Change.

Changing the change is a very “Chinese” theme as China is experiencing such sweeping changes, covering almost all aspects of society, which can hardly be seen in most other countries.

Chinese people are optimistic, most of them believe that the future will be better than today. Local designers also think that they are experiencing a historical era marked by a leap from “Manufacturing China” to “Creative China”. The whole society is being driven by a huge engine called “development”. As a result, people don’t always have enough time to think and rethink in-depth, but such introspection is so necessary when seeking a sustainable future.

This Changing the change conference offers an opportunity for Chinese designers: to rethink and re-evaluate the changes that are happening or have happened in our life-world, no matter whether huge or tiny; to rethink and compare the present physical spaces, social-culture and life styles with what they used to be; to rethink the position, values, trends and possible social responsibilities of design education, design practice and design research.

In this era of globalization, eastern designers are duty-bound to put forward their views on these questions as critical regionalists. Today, sustainable development may be the only universal ethic. To realize this ideal, not only are science and technology needed at product level, but also at the system and the ethical level. We Chinese have to admit in shame that our ancestors lived a far more sustainable life style than we do today. This fact is constantly reminding us that many aspects and changes in our life-world should be re-evaluated and re-designed.

In Chinese, the word “she ji” stands for “design”, and its original meaning was “establish a strategy”. It originated from military affairs. The Chinese “she ji” design system has already been running successfully for thousands of years, long before Le Corbusiers began to teach us what design is and how to design. The most interesting thing is that the softer Chinese “she ji” concept exactly coincides with certain tendencies in today’s design, such as “vision”, “system” or “strategic” design, etc.

In traditional Chinese ideology, human and nature have always been regarded as a whole, the human body and the outside world are both complicated systems sharing many common characteristics. This kind of understanding together with respect and love of nature leads to a world of balance and harmony (the Chinese meaning of “sustainable”). Actually, the traditional philosophy, ways of thinking and life styles which were once rashly abandoned, may exactly meet the needs of sustainable development. Chinese designers should think about this and let the other part of this planet know what and how they are thinking and doing. On this level, “design research” is not only a tool for designers to think, explore and solve problems, not only a tool to criticize and introspect, but also more of a language to communicate with other worldwide designers.

China is experiencing the most rapid change in the world, and at the same time, China may also be the ideal place to realize any strategies for change. All we have to do now is to find and to “she (set up )” a right and good “ji” “vision and strategy”, not only for the design discipline itself but also for the whole human world?

The Changing the Change conference will take place in a maison de plaisance (house of pleasure). Of course one more chance to get and boost inspiring results from the three days meeting. In fact, the conference will be housed in an ancient castle, located inside a 19th-century park. It is an amazing historic site by the Po river, something maybe unusal for meetings, rich of history, dipped in the green and really close to the downtown of the city. In short, something really special.

The arrangement of the conference rooms and spaces inside and outside the building has been designed in order to minimise the impact of the conference and try to offset the carbon emissions produced by the meeting in Torino. The stiff architectural structure of the castle was mainly considered as an added value to the new concept of the spaces. At the ground floor there will be the “knowledge platform”, an area with four networked conference-rooms ideally and phisically connected with the wi-fi “design square”. This is a temporary light structure, in the middle of the courtyard, intended as a social space, made for receiving people and facilitating exchange of experiences, knowledge, information and talks …and agreeable catering too. On the first floor there will be spaces for welcoming, relax, reading, an exhibition of the design researches and internet points.

The Valentino Castle (Velentino is the name of a settlement in that region even back in Roman times), is a building based on the French pavillon-systeme model constructed and restructured in several phases since the second half of the 16th century. This residence, because of its excellence and role, in 17th century became the maison de plaisance of Princess Marie Christine of France who married Vittorio Amedeo I of Savoy. Of course during the conference you will have enough time to visit the Valentino Castle and the other royal residences in Torino and surroundings. They are all sites declared “Heritage of Humankind” by Unesco in 1997. The Valentino Castle is today home to two architecture and design faculties (Politecnico di Torino).

The Valentino castle is located in the homonymous park, an immense green area dotted with installations, paths for cycling and jogging, play areas and some considerable architectural traces left by Italian and International exhibitions held in 1884,1898, 1902 and 1911. You will not have to miss a visit to the botanical garden, a canoe trip on the Po river or a lunch in one of the prestigious rowing clubs by the river.