Changing the change

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.

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.

Society has been served well by the pursuit of deep knowledge (the cornerstone of any self respecting academic institution) but more and more the nature of today’s “big picture” problems resides at the intersection of what we know. What is – for example - healthcare? It’s not medicine, law, buildings, therapies, doctors, processes, ethics, or business but rather the convergence of all of them in a complex system. We need to first see the nature of these system problems to define the path towards more complete solutions. Not reductively, not as fragments, but in the complex, integrated and synthetic ways that drive them. These are the cornerstones of design, yet its not design as defined by our professions, rather design as defines by our needs.

But what does this call for “system design” have to do with Changing the Change? A lot when examined from two simple perspectives.

First, it captures many of the threads that seek to rethink design found within the conference Newsletter. Here alone there is much evidence for a call for design to sustain better solutions: Mugendi M’Rithaa places the question of Design in context of Africa’s future. The call, by Lou Yongqi, to “pause” and think strategically and systemically is apt not only in China, but throughout our geographies; Stefano Marzano places design in the context of economic systems. All seek more effective design, but discuss them within a broader context of systems.

Secondly, one could argue that the hallmark of a discipline is in the research that it pursues: as such the question of what kind of research is central to academia. At Harvard, President Drew Faust has spoken at great lengths about the challenge to work more effectively across disciplines. In this context design has a unique leadership opportunity across the university, but it’s the kind of opportunity that will only come if we are able see beyond the professions we serve to the value of our discipline.

To meet this opportunity, academia is going to have to challenge itself to define the right frameworks, incentivizing students and faculty to work in ways that may inherently contradict the established structures of success. The institutional dilemma is that with success comes rigidity towards change. The future will be in the hands of those whose past success won’t create an insurmountable barrier towards rethinking how they operate in this design driven age.

This article was co-written by Ezio Manzini and Jorge Frascara.

The Changing the Change Conference’s main aim is to present and discuss the design research contribution to the transition towards a sustainable knowledge society. That is, its capability to generate visions, proposals and tools to re-orient the emerging knowledge society towards more socially and environmentally sustainable directions.

This aim is based on some concepts that have to be clarified and discussed.

Knowledge society: it is the result of a large transformation that is taking place at a global scale. Its meaning overlaps the ones of service, information and network society: concepts that represent different expressions of the same on-going complex phenomenon.
In the Changing the Change conference we assume that the evolution towards the knowledge society, even if presents some positive characters, as it appears today, is not bringing us to a sustainable direction. It has to be well understood, but, at the same time it has to be re-orientated. In other words, the transition towards a knowledge society is the “big on-going change” that has to be changed.

Sustainability: in recent time the use of words “sustainability” (as a noun) and “sustainable” (as an adjective) has become quite common. This popularity can be seen as the positive expression of a growing concern for the environment. But, at the same time, it presents the risk of being mis-used. That is, used in superficial ways (little environmental improvements proposed as steps to sustainability) or even as “green washing” strategies (presenting some green initiatives to cover deeply un-sustainable ways of doing).
In the Changing the Change conference we use the term “sustainability” only in relation to deep and systemic changes in the ways of thinking, living and producing. In other words, systemic changes, in our view, are the pre-condition to generate visions or proposals that can be presented as “sustainable”.

Visions, proposals, tools: they summarise design’s main results. Visions are images of how a whole context could be like if new conditions where given (what if a new idea of wellbeing, of development, of production, of eating were disseminated?). Proposals are original combinations of products, services and communications capable to face specific issues (such as housing, mobility, health, food,…) in an original way. Tools are conceptual and practical instruments that permit the enhancing of these visions and proposals.
In the Changing the Change conference we assume that the social learning process that should bring us towards a sustainable society has to be fed by these visions and proposals. And supported by these design tools.

Design research: it is a research activity developed with design tools, skills and sensitivity; where “research” stands for the production of knowledge that can be shared and accumulated to become the starting point for new researches and specific projects; and where the expression “developed with design tools, skills and sensitivity“ stands for a research activity developed by designers who explore complex design issues and generate visions and solutions.
In the Changing the Change conference we assume that the transition towards a sustainable knowledge society is such a large and new challenge that individual design activities are only a good first step, but cannot be enough. They are a good first step because individuals can move with agility, explore possibilities and develop models, but design for sustainability calls for a community of designers working and debating with other actors to build a new design knowledge and a new set of visions and proposals.

If you are a designer and have done work in this direction, Changing the Change is the opportunity for you to share your experience and work toward the creation of the much needed change toward a sustainable society.