Social design/debate/3
There are different interpretations of the expression “social design”, for instance the Victor Margolin’s and the Josephine Green’s ones. I think that, in principle, both them are acceptable. But, not to create misunderstandings, we should find different names and arrive to commonly recognised definitions. However, independently from the names, considering the intersection between design and social issues, it seems to me that different kinds of design activities appear and should be promoted.
One of them is a design with an explicit social agenda: a new design field where some designers specialises in collaborating with social workers to solve specific, acute social problems. The other one is more general and refers to the whole design community. In this second perspective, all the designers, whatever their specialisation can be, have to redefine their aims, and re-orient them towards the new emerging social demands.
Even is both these actions are important, for me, the biggest challenge today is on the second one: to develop the design knowledge that is needed to improve the welfare of the whole society, while we move towards sustainability. That is, while we have all to learn how to succeed in living better consuming less. And improving the quality of our social fabric.
