Changing the Change

Design Research Agenda for Sustainability

Ezio Manzini — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:30:50 +0000

“A conference may generate a final document: a text that captures the
“conference spirit”. Changing the Change did it too. It produced a document
where themes that appeared to the conference participants to be relevant (in the
perspective of sustainability) and demanding (in terms design knowledge) are
indicated. This document, the Design Research Agenda – Draft 1, clearly could
be considered as another “next step” of the conference: the possibility to
use the emerging issues that the conference has produced as “attractors,”
capable of orienting a multiplicity of on-going and brand new design research
programs.

Maybe this document could be seen as the most evident next step of Changing
the Change. But its meaning has to be attentively considered and its possible
practical implications discussed.

Please, read the following text and let us know what you think. Thank you!”
(Ezio Manzini, Jorge Frascara, Carla Cipolla)

CtC - Design Research Agenda DRAFT 1:
ON-LINE version [download HERE]
PDF version [download HERE]

Leave your comment here in the blog
or if you prefer send us a mail [HERE]

Post-conference. Next steps?

Ezio Manzini — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:58:37 +0000

This post has been written by Ezio Manzini and Jorge Frascara

Changing the Change ended two weeks ago. Concluding it, we felt enthusiastic: our emotional impression was the one of having participated in a very meaningful event. Now we are two weeks later. We have had the time to recover, rethink and digest the many stimuli … And we are still enthusiastic and convinced that Changing the Change has been a very meaningful event.

Given this enthusiasm a question arises immediately (one that has been asked by may friends): what will the next steps be? Frankly speaking, we don’t know yet: we need some other weeks of rethinking, recovering and discussing. Nevertheless, something, some “next steps”, already appear clearly:

A conference is a conference. Paraphrasing Magritte, with this statement we intend to say that we don’t have to ask to a conference more than what a conference can do. And a conference is a mainly a place of exchanges: we say something to others, we listen to others’ thoughts and experiences, and, if it is a good conference, we bring back home something useful in terms of new relationships and ideas. Given that, the only next steps that a conference has to generate are the ones that every participant will take on the basis of the new ideas and relationships that he/she will have brought home.
In the Changing the Change case, will this happen? Of course we hope so. But it is not up to the organizer to take these steps. It is up to you. The blog in the conference site will remain active (at least for some months): let us know if some of these steps have been taken.
A conference is also a book: a collection of papers that permits to those who had not had the opportunity to participate, to have an idea of what had been said at the conference, and get the address of who said it. And so, again, through its proceedings, a good conference may generate ideas and relationships.
In our case, the conference proceedings have already been published and you can find them on line in the Changing the Change site. Everybody interested can read them and, if very interested, download all the papers.
In principle, what has be said in the two previous points could be true for every conference, both the virtual and traditional ones. But traditional conferences have a different potential in terms of community building. In fact, they are places where you bring not only your ideas, but also your body. And this is what, in a successful conference, can make the difference. As everybody knows, physical interactions help the creation of a sense of community.
Changing the Change was a conference specifically dedicated to designer-researchers who think that sustainability should be the meta-objective of every design research. This large group of researchers has been until now rather weak and invisible. A very positive Changing the Change next step could be the empirical observation that this group has evolved towards a community. If this will be true or not, if this next step will be taken, it is now too early to be said. In this case too, we hope to see something on the Changing the Change Blog.
A conference may generate a final document: a text that captures the “conference spirit”. Changing the Change did it too. It produced a document where themes that appeared to the conference participants to be relevant (in the perspective of sustainability) and demanding (in terms design knowledge) are indicated. This document, the Design Research Agenda – Draft 1, clearly could be considered as another “next step” of the conference: the possibility to use the emerging issues that the conference has produced as “attractors,” capable of orienting a multiplicity of on-going and brand new design research programs.

Maybe this document could be seen as the most evident next step of Changing the Change. But its meaning has to be attentively considered and its possible practical implications discussed.

The Design Research Agenda has been presented in its first version, the Draft 1, as an open and collaborative research program. An open program, because it can be continuously integrated with other ideas and themes. And a collaborative program, because it is based on a p2p approach: each research team can bring its “contents” and consolidate a research line. That is, if it accepts some general visions and simple rules, each research team can bring its programs and its results into the system, contributing to consolidating and, possibly, reorienting some larger streams of research. The aim is moving from a multiplicity of researches in different directions (and incapable of interacting and of creating a clear image of what, as a whole, they are doing) to the possibility of mutually interacting and generating the design knowledge needed to produce larger and stronger visions and proposals.

As a matter of fact, this same document (the Design Research Agenda - Draft 1) has been generated in a p2p spirit: a series of formalized and informal discussions that, during the three days of the conference, progressively defined the proposed “emerging issues”. In conclusion, we could say that the first next step has been taken during the same conference , and it has produced this draft. Now, the next step is to see if this idea could work. Please, read the Design Research Agenda for Sustainablity text and let us know what you think.

Thank you!

A sustainable welcome

Claudio Germak — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:58:26 +0000

Changing the Change Conference has been organized according to the principles of sustainability, both in terms of environmentally friendly-efficiency, for what we could do, and on the base of the spirit of sharing and quality welcoming activities.
The Conference offered a highly scientific and academic agenda together with a research and a project regarding virtual spaces, physical spaces and services, thought to be coherent and sharable by Changing the Change community.
Changing the Change Conference may provide Turin with a sign of the future goals in terms of sustainability, by presenting visions, proposals and tools, which, if they are included in the Conference manifesto, would be extremely useful for our city and its local government to give new directions for the city’s future.
The Conference has been part of the Torino 2008 World Capital Design agenda, which has worked in this sense too: this year is a moment to reflect upon “flexibility”, the way through which design connects knowledge and values, reads the change and, sometimes, pinpoints new directions.

AzzeroCO₂

The preparatory step of the Conference has been designed to have a reduced impact on the environment, to eliminate the greenhouse gases emission resulting from energy consumption, use of materials, transports and staff’s activities.
The AzzeroCO₂ “curing” action regards the Po river park. This will allow the reintroduction of local flora and fauna: 35 tons of CO₂ will be eliminated thanks to this action, the same amount that would have been consumed for the preparatory phase of the conference.

The Conference sites

The Institute of Biotechnology, where we have been, has been carefully designed. We have chosen this location because a high-quality Conference requires highly expressive and functional rooms.
The 11th July dinner has been held at Castello del Valentino. This Savoy residence is especially meaningful for us: it is the headquarter of the Faculty of Architecture of Politecnico di Torino. It has been a friendly dinner party with typical local food which is a mark of our territory: the Paniere della Provincia di Torino-Basket of Typical Products of Turin Provincial Government, a very successful initiative that opted for the sustainable short food production chain: from producer to consumer.

Special opportunities

More than 100 participants used the 20 bicycles we prepared, completely free of charge, to get around the city in a more human way.
GTT Gruppo Trasporti Torinesi also offered the public transportation’s use free of charge.
A lot of exhibitions, Olivetti, una bella Società, Flexibility and Piemonte Torino Design have been kept open in the evening by the TO2008WDC circuit for Changing the Change Community, during the 3 days of the Conference.

Thanks

I finally would like to thank the sponsors (The Regional Council of Piedmont, Torino World Design Capital 2008, The Chamber of Commerce of Turin, GTT-Gruppo Trasporti Torinese, Fantoni Group, DEGA) and the staff of Politecnico di Torino, who contributed as volunteers to make this meeting of ours possible in terms of organization and reception.

Who are we?

Carla Cipolla — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:58:12 +0000

Changing the Change conference has made an invitation to build up a panorama of design research results today. Now, after the conference, it is possible to affirm - looking at the abstracts and papers received - that this invitation has been largely answered. First, considering the geographically representative number of countries that have an approved abstract – exactly 27 – from South and North America, through Europe, Africa and Asia.

The abstracts approved are 163: 101 from United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Denmark; 4 from Israel and Turkey; 5 from Kenya, Botswana and South Africa; 13 from China, India, Japan and South Korea; 18 from Brazil and Colombia; 13 from Canada and United States; and 9 from Australia.

Clearly Europe, particularly Italy, has sent the larger number of abstracts. This is explained by the fact that the conference took place in Turin. But if we exclude Italy, we arrive at a very balanced distribution between Europe and the other countries: 50 abstracts from United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, France, Portugal, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland; and 62 from all other countries. In synthesis, 1/3 for Italy, 1/3 for Europe and 1/3 for the rest of the world in 163 abstracts approved.

Interesting also that a country like Brazil, that has only one PhD School in Design, has 17 abstracts approved, the total representation from Latin America (Colombia had sent only one abstract). After the United Kingdom, with 26 abstracts approved, Brazil was the country (always excluding Italy) with the largest participation in Changing the Change.

Other numbers: 348 documents were uploaded as papers/visualizations in the conference web platform, from those 263 where sent to 40 reviewers, at the end totalizing 163 abstracts approved and 138 final papers.

But the interest in the conference themes is not restricted to these numbers: Changing the Change newsletter is sent today to more than 1300 subscribers.

Regarding contents, papers were divided by the scientific committee in 6 groups, around the 3 larger areas: visions, proposals and tools. Visions: ways of living and producing. Proposals: daily life solutions and enabling systems. Tools: design theories and methods. This can be seen in the proceedings, already on-line (www.changingthechange.org). The conference organizers have always considered Changing the Change conference not as a “final result” of a process but as a starting point. When reading these papers, a still unexplored richness of possible clusters comes out, sub themes, and more than that, possible collaborations; and here we hope that the “proceedings” could be considered also as work material, enabling potential post-conference activities and contacts.

Stardust

Andrea Mendoza — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:02:28 +0000

And now?

Every one is back, or about to go back home after the conference. Back to its small place on planet Earth, a small place on this mote of dust which is our planet in relation to the universe, a mote or as american scientist Carl Sagan called it: a Blue Pale Dot…

When the Voyager 1 finished its primary mission, Sagan convinced NASA to make its spacecraft turn back and photograph planet Earth. That turning back was a tremendous change in the way in which people used to think about the planet… and their place on it. But it is Sagan who can reminds us where is it that we are standing… and prompt us to think -again- about our “mission” after the conference…. without forgetting that we are also small motes of a living net…

Sagan:

¨Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.¨

You can listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

Being here.

Carla Cipolla — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:59:37 +0000

This post has been written by the conference coordination team:
Ezio Manzini, Jorge Frascara, Carla Cipolla,
Cludio Germak, Brunella Cozzo, Paolo Peruccio, Sergio Corsaro

The Changing the Change Conference is going to start. It will be the result of the efforts done by a large group of people: the coordination team, the advisory committees, the peer review committee, the invited speakers and discussants and, of course, and first of all, the many design researchers who prepared and sent their contributions.

As coordination team, we already know the selected papers contents, what the invited speakers and discussants will present and the side activities that will be proposed. On this basis, we are reasonably sure that these three days in Torino will be dense, interesting and agreeable. What we don’t know, because it cannot be planned, is if all these good ingredients will generate a real meaningful event: an initiative where the “being there” of many people generates a particular kind of positive energy. That is, a conference the value of which is much more than the sum of its formal presentations, discussions and entertaining activities.

Changing the Change has all the potentialities to become one of these meaningful events. But this possibility depends on a complex mix of factors and on the unforeseeable mesh of interactions that will be built in these three days.

In the next days we will be in Torino, driven by common interests: it will be up to us, and to our capability of “being here”, the possibility to transform a conference program in a meaningful event. And, therefore, the possibility to generate the energy we need to make this Conference an important step in the right direction. That is, in the direction of sustainability.

Design Research/3

Ezio Manzini — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:59:28 +0000

Design research is an activity that aims to produce knowledge useful to those who design: design knowledge that designer and non-designer (individuals, communities, institutions, companies) can use in their processes of designing and co-designing.

Design knowledge is a collection of different cognitive artifacts with different purposes: visions to stimulate and steer strategic discussion; proposals to integrate into the development of numerous specific projects; tools to help understand the state of things and implement design ideas; reflections on the sense of what we are doing or could do. Moving form contents to form, the design knowledge we are talking about must be explicit, discussable, transferrable and accumulable: knowledge that can be clearly expressed (by whoever produces it), discussed (by many interested interlocutors), applied (by other designers) and become the starting point for producing further knowledge (by other researchers).

Research that produces conceptual and operational tools for designing and/or to help understand the nature of what we are designing (research for and on design) is usually carried out adopting methodologies, and adapting them to specific requirements, proper to disciplines endowed with a consolidated research tradition. Vice versa, research that produces visions and proposals usually adopts original methodologies, using tools and skills proper to designer culture and practice (research through design). In this case, clearly the research modes are, and must be, very different from those of traditional scientific research: research through design necessarily brings into play a level of subjectivity that would be inadmissible in scientific tradition. At the same time, this is not typical “artistic research”, totally guided by the subjective dimension. Design is a discipline that combines creativity and subjectivity with a dose of reflection and arguments on its own choices. The same is obviously true for research through design, with the added factor in this case that the knowledge produced cannot be implicit and integrated in the design but, as we said, it must be explicit, discussable, transferable and accumulable.
Exactly what the acceptable level of subjectivity is in design through research is an open question. We have discussed this and we can continue to do so, but I do not believe that a precise definition of this limit is of such great interest. I believe that what is really important is to discuss the results we have achieved case by case and the contribution they can bring to solving the problems we have to face.

Design Research/2

Victor Margolin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:59:20 +0000

The phrase, “Changing the Change,” which the organizers have chosen for the title of this conference on design research, has meaning on different levels. In its largest sense, it connotes a change in the way we do research. I suspect that this was the fundamental reason for its choice.

We need a new collective process for introducing a different model of design research. This we might call the level of purpose. What should we do? Another meaning of “Changing the Change” relates to strategy. How do we as a community of researchers organize ourselves in order to achieve this new purpose. We have to change the way we organize our research activities in order to achieve new ends. And third, “Changing the Change” refers to new products or outcomes that might be developed through research. If we join together the three terms: purpose, strategy, and product, we have an agenda that can guide us as researchers in a powerful new direction.

Design Research/1

Ken Friedman — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:59:11 +0000

Many years ago, I studied anthropology with John Collier, Jr. John spent much of his life in two ethnic communities. He grew up with his family in the American Indian communities of New Mexico and Arizona. Later, he worked as an anthropologist in the fishing communities of Nova Scotia, where he helped to develop the research method of visual anthropology. John’s work was oriented toward creating positive change. He used to say that the problem of social change involves a simple paradox. We can’t change one aspect of an organization or society until we change everything, and we can never change everything — we’ve got to start with one thing.

This is true, yet it is not beyond solution. We can and must start somewhere by finding appropriate points for vital intervention. We create consensus through action, and we do so in part by making theory action.

Theory has at least two meanings for design research. One is a scientific theory of what things are and how things work. The other is an ethical or philosophical theory of desired states: a design outcome. A design research agenda for sustainability requires both.

Come as you are!

Andrea Mendoza — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:19:22 +0000

“He who would travel happily must travel light”.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry

COME AS YOU ARE!

So you are going to the CtC conference! Have you already packed?… I wonder what have you packed; I wonder what is it that you need to survive in Italy!?… the designers land… have you got all the accessories, night dresses and ¨crazy¨ outfits that can give account of how creative you are? Have you checked your luggage weight? Do you fill the cheap flight’s Kg. requirements? Have you left space for the goods you may take back home (most of them regarding Italian food?).

Much of the discussions around sustainability deal with the ¨travelling light¨ issue, but…, how many participants are actually packing just what’s necessary to attend a conference…? to share ideas, to reflect, to listen…, to think? How many of us go leaving a light footprint as we move backwards and forwards (from conference to conference) in life…?
Travelling light is an issue that concerns simplicity and it has a sort of ¨karma¨ sense within, meaning conscious or unconsciously every time you travel you carry with you a good deal of thoughts, feelings, unfinished issues, desires, whims, never-ending stories, ghosts and expectations that at times turn into material culture and all those: weight.

Now, the conference is not a gather of pilgrims who in a very ascetic way drift the world trying to get rid of their karma with their inventions and ideas (while fixing the planet), but still, could a spin in the mainstream ways of travelling be given this time? Maybe not out loud, because it is kind of late to organize an European car sharing or a biking crowd which moves towards Turin, but… on a very small, silent, personal scale… would it be something that you can leave behind…?

What if this time you travel just as you are right now, as in those ¨come as you are¨ parties? Would you lack of too much? …Ok maybe you’ll need your laptop and power point presentation… and your rack of USBs, and visit cards… and your camera and your mobile and your I-pod, your mp3 or your minidisk, and…, there we go again. Although, wait, these last accessories the ones regarding music, those yes, are fundamental!
Come as you are, if your life has an excess of luggage… then bring it along –you can’t do otherwise-, but in all cases, bring music, at least in your head, bring joy, smiles, good vibes and then, let us dance as those ancient tribes that gather asking for better times, for peace, for light, for wind and rain to come… and for that, all that we need is you to come: as you are.

Now, go and check your bags.