To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

— R. Buckminster Fuller

I want to start a conversation about the world we are creating, and the world we would love to live in. I want to begin formulating the creative brief that might lead us to manifesting it with as much fidelity as we are able.

We have arrived at a moment in human evolution when we are capable – by virtue of the remarkable scientific and technological prowess we have achieved – of creating just about anything we set our minds to. Yet it would be hard to contend that we’re on our way to achieving the world of our heart’s desire. [Read more…]

“Less is more.”  — Robert Browning, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, and others

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I’ve been exploring the theme of simplification. It began with a meditation on the election of Donald Trump.

There are an abundance of rationales offered for this vile eruption on the body of American society, from sublimated racism and misogyny, to the internet’s corruption of the media and the media’s corruption of itself. And genuine anger at the depredations of global capitalism. There is some truth in all of them. But, being a designer, my mind turns to the problem of complexity. More specifically, our psychic, even spiritual if you’re comfortable with that word, ability to adapt to a world that seems to be leaving our humanity behind.

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Every day, millions of people engage in making the world more like the place they would love to live in, by design. I’m referring to people with no formal design training, determined to make their part of the world a little better.

I’m talking about the protesters at Standing Rock, struggling over the design of a pipeline that would put their water at risk and desecrate their sacred sites. I’m talking about the disability rights activists who fought for design guidelines to be incorporated into legislation to ensure access to civic spaces by people with disabilities. I’m thinking about neighbors on suburban architectural commissions that ensure that the sense of place they live in is well cared for. I’m referring to lawyers, nurses, teachers, social workers, housewives, police, first responders and politicians who design things as an intrinsic part of their daily work.  They all are engaged in a design process, whether they are aware of it, or not.

They aren’t designers with a capital “D”. They are all Citizen Designers.(1)

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The unfolding of design discipline since the 19th century has been a tussle over what objects can be given the “good design” stamp of approval.

Through the lens of creative consciousness –  the instinct that compels us to continuously adapt our world to suit our selves – we can see clearly where we have missed the mark in a world of our own design – pollution, degrading poverty, environmental destruction, alienation and anxiety on a massive scale. But I resist imposing a judgment of “good” or “bad” on any particular object.

On a recent wintery Berkeley night with rain streaking past the streetlamp outside my window, I was settling into Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne’s 2003 collection of essays, Citizen Designer. It offers 70 or so designer’s takes on what it takes to do “socially conscious design”. In the introduction to the introductory essay, Heller poses the question “What is good design?” Struggling with the presumptuousness of this question, I found myself writing the following note in the “margin” of my iPad:

“Good” resides in the things we create that reflects the best of the human spirit. It is those things that, in some small way, make the world more like the world that we would love to live in.

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