Can Design Save the World?
Can Design Save the World? Ezio Manzini certainly thinks that design can shape the world and he explains why in a lecture tour on the occasion of his new book Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation,” (MIT Press, 2015).
Manzini is a Professor and the Chair of Design for Social Innovation at the University of the Arts London (UK), Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and Guest Professor at two universities in China, he is considered by many the guru of "social design" a term that only recently became popular. Naturally, his lecture was hosted by the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) which added a few years ago a program for social design which aptly resides in a strip of Baltimore's North Avenue where MICA has become a real game changer by being socially and financially active.
Manzini begins his lecture by explaining why "design" has become such an expansive term that today "everybody designs." His explanation why design has become such a fuzzy term is interesting, indeed: The term has become "diffuse" and ubiquitous because, so he proclaims, "Modernity is where people can design their own biography." Before modernity, he explains, biographies and lives were pretty pre-ordained and without much choice. Consequently there was less of a need for design (especially not processes), and design experts had the field for themselves for the design of products. Now "we have to learn to navigate in increasing complexity" he says and adds "complexity is good because it means more opportunity".
The notion that we who live in modernity have more choices than in all of human history is clearly worth a moment of reflection. This is a point that is rarely made and which we don't typically consider when we compare ourselves to history. I was first struck by a similar statement in the book "The Beginning of Infinity" written by the physicist and mathematician David Deutsch. His focus was knowledge and not design. Nevertheless, after introducing the term "memes" (roughly defined as thought structures) he, too, observed that: "Static societies repeated and refined successful 'memes' by truthful replication and discouraging deviation." Deutsch points out how much it has always been a virtue to keep everything as it was before and how little the world used to change from one generation to the other until the Age of Enlightenment, when the acquisition of knowledge became an accepted driving force. Like Manzini, Deutsch draws a lot of optimism from the explosion of knowledge, choice and options that come from it. Manzini ("Towards a new Civilization") credits design for more innovation: “Design for social innovation is everything that expert design can do to activate, sustain and orient processes of social change towards sustainability.”
Once Manzini makes it clear that design plays a central role in this modern life of choices, he has the attention of the young aspiring designers in the audience.. Even more importantly, by setting an optimistic tone he changes the conversation about social responsibility and sustainability which is often rather gloomy and replete with frightful predictions for the decline of social skills, the change of climate or the loss of biodiversity. To Manzini the trajectory is not one of reduction and austerity. With proper design and good choices, he says, all seven or ten billion people can live in prosperity.
This teleological thrust in his presentation becomes clear in his main slide in which a number of arrows reach from the valley of "multiple crisis" to the heights of a "sustainable society". This is, indeed, not unlike religion or even Marxism which ascends from class warfare and ends in the workers paradise. Many have become skeptical about such ideologies and Manzini knows that. He is quick to state that he is not peddling any ideology, quite to the contrary, he emphasizes how social design needs to be "practical."
He observes that "Bottom up initiatives (of design) are oriented on problem solving not ideology...they produce not only ideas but prototypes." The broad based approach is important to him vertical systems are fragile, horizontal systems are resilient... Socially distributed systems need collaboration and cooperation," he proclaims. Should anybody doubt this, he adds that systems theory teaches us that complex systems don't change wholesale but through local disruptions that then fan out. He encourages designers to start with small problems to make a difference. He calls this "cosmopolitan localism". He doesn't want designers to be prophets. He admonishes that often, " the narratives don't need to be invented by us but be read and discovered because the narrative is already there." He described it as one of the challenges that while we need diversity, we need to be capable to live together in that diversity.
"Networks change the concept of economy of scale...", the implication is, of course, that the new economy doesn't require those gigantic capital outlays of the old economy. By now even the sleepiest person in the audience has perked up. How could one not be excited about a world that promises to need design for dealing with its complexity, that is bottom up, practical, collaborative, diverse and beyond all that, also resilient?
Demonstrating the value of design in addressing social problems what MICA's new School for Social Design promises, and Manzini is the guru of this motto. His lecture with all its optimism can probably explain better than any academic paper why "social design" has become such an attractive term and MICA's new branch of education is one of the big draws of the institution. Architects, for sure, can draw comfort from his read of the world as well. We always did have a penchant for saving the world; now we are in good company.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
edited by Ben Groff
The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch (NYT book review)
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Manzini is a Professor and the Chair of Design for Social Innovation at the University of the Arts London (UK), Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and Guest Professor at two universities in China, he is considered by many the guru of "social design" a term that only recently became popular. Naturally, his lecture was hosted by the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) which added a few years ago a program for social design which aptly resides in a strip of Baltimore's North Avenue where MICA has become a real game changer by being socially and financially active.
 |
| Lecture poster |
Manzini begins his lecture by explaining why "design" has become such an expansive term that today "everybody designs." His explanation why design has become such a fuzzy term is interesting, indeed: The term has become "diffuse" and ubiquitous because, so he proclaims, "Modernity is where people can design their own biography." Before modernity, he explains, biographies and lives were pretty pre-ordained and without much choice. Consequently there was less of a need for design (especially not processes), and design experts had the field for themselves for the design of products. Now "we have to learn to navigate in increasing complexity" he says and adds "complexity is good because it means more opportunity".
The notion that we who live in modernity have more choices than in all of human history is clearly worth a moment of reflection. This is a point that is rarely made and which we don't typically consider when we compare ourselves to history. I was first struck by a similar statement in the book "The Beginning of Infinity" written by the physicist and mathematician David Deutsch. His focus was knowledge and not design. Nevertheless, after introducing the term "memes" (roughly defined as thought structures) he, too, observed that: "Static societies repeated and refined successful 'memes' by truthful replication and discouraging deviation." Deutsch points out how much it has always been a virtue to keep everything as it was before and how little the world used to change from one generation to the other until the Age of Enlightenment, when the acquisition of knowledge became an accepted driving force. Like Manzini, Deutsch draws a lot of optimism from the explosion of knowledge, choice and options that come from it. Manzini ("Towards a new Civilization") credits design for more innovation: “Design for social innovation is everything that expert design can do to activate, sustain and orient processes of social change towards sustainability.”
 |
Manzini's central slide shows the trajectory of society with arrows. |
This teleological thrust in his presentation becomes clear in his main slide in which a number of arrows reach from the valley of "multiple crisis" to the heights of a "sustainable society". This is, indeed, not unlike religion or even Marxism which ascends from class warfare and ends in the workers paradise. Many have become skeptical about such ideologies and Manzini knows that. He is quick to state that he is not peddling any ideology, quite to the contrary, he emphasizes how social design needs to be "practical."
 |
Manzini while walking the Brown lecture hall during the discussion |
He observes that "Bottom up initiatives (of design) are oriented on problem solving not ideology...they produce not only ideas but prototypes." The broad based approach is important to him vertical systems are fragile, horizontal systems are resilient... Socially distributed systems need collaboration and cooperation," he proclaims. Should anybody doubt this, he adds that systems theory teaches us that complex systems don't change wholesale but through local disruptions that then fan out. He encourages designers to start with small problems to make a difference. He calls this "cosmopolitan localism". He doesn't want designers to be prophets. He admonishes that often, " the narratives don't need to be invented by us but be read and discovered because the narrative is already there." He described it as one of the challenges that while we need diversity, we need to be capable to live together in that diversity.
"Networks change the concept of economy of scale...", the implication is, of course, that the new economy doesn't require those gigantic capital outlays of the old economy. By now even the sleepiest person in the audience has perked up. How could one not be excited about a world that promises to need design for dealing with its complexity, that is bottom up, practical, collaborative, diverse and beyond all that, also resilient?
Demonstrating the value of design in addressing social problems what MICA's new School for Social Design promises, and Manzini is the guru of this motto. His lecture with all its optimism can probably explain better than any academic paper why "social design" has become such an attractive term and MICA's new branch of education is one of the big draws of the institution. Architects, for sure, can draw comfort from his read of the world as well. We always did have a penchant for saving the world; now we are in good company.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
edited by Ben Groff
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