What is design?

Aristotle in his book Metaphysics was amongst the first ones to point out that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This idea leads to the foundations of what centuries later would become the General Systems Theory. To understand the complexity of our reality we must first observe it in its entireness; in terms of its elements, the relationships between them and of it with others. These ideas are on the antipodes of the positions that has mainly prevailed in sciences for centuries, a reductionist and mechanistic view. Science due to its evolution towards specialization, lost the capacity for a holistic observation closing down into countless niches where it can only see a segmented perspective of reality. This is what Niklas Luhmann defined as one of the most characteristic features of today's societies. He called this fenomena Functional Differentiation. Design has not escaped from this and has ?become internally segmented with countless subdivisions (UX, UI, graphics, interior, industrial, communicational, product, social, services…).

Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (Chilean biologists) stated in the 70’s that realities are built based on the observations we do and what we are capable of doing with those observations. What this means, is that only designers observe the environment in certain way and are able to construct this social idea of “design”. We as a group are capable of perceiving it as a discipline, an identifiable unit. As we saw in our previous newsletter, social groups internally produce the elements and relationships that constitute them. Since we are all independent individuals and each one of us has a distinctive career path, different schools, unique working environments, personal interest… making it impossible to agree on a common definition to what design is. But should we have a single definition? Could we have a single definition?

Let’s do some history, again.

Design according to the power groups I mentioned last week, has been around for one hundred years if you consider the Bauhaus or around two hundred years if you go back to the Industrial Revolution. According to this, it is quite a young discipline if you compare it to other “older” ones. But is it really this way? Does it really appear a couple of centuries ago? If you visit the Pre-Columbian Art Museum in Chile, you will find thousands of objects that were once utilitarian. The denomination “art” appears as a denial of their real value based on a colonialist perception. They were not created under a trans culturized conception of “art” since the concept and history behind this word wasn’t even present in their cultures. These objects responded to other practical, cultural and political objectives. They were the manifestation of a way more complex observation and understanding of their reality, they manifested their cosmovision. If you go to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, or the British Museum in London or any other mayor museum, you will probably see the same thing happening. What comes from overseas, or nonmembers of the power groups can be diminished and categorized as minor art, their beliefs degraded to myths and not granted the religious status degrading century old knowledge into a second or thirds level status (remember the first and third world country categories). I could go on and on. Now, do you really still think design started in the XIX century in Europe? Really? If you do, there is no more for you in this newsletter, but if you are open minded, please go on.

By the way, these museums and other institutions should return the stolen patrimony back to their original owners. And I'm specially thinking of the Hoa Hakananai'a Moai, which was stolen from Rapa Nui in 1869 and until now is in the British Museum. A Moai is no decoration and is an actual family member for the Rapa Nui people. It’s not an object or a piece of art that can be exhibited, it’s a living entity for them. It must be returned to the island, since it has been captive by the British Museum for the last one hundred and fifty years. This makes me remember the human zoos that wandered around Europe with encaged humans that had been brought from distant territories in the XVIII and XIX centuries. If we want a sustainable future, we must start by acknowledging our mistakes and repairing them. We must recognize other realities, their value and their wisdom. Without this recognition, design will not be able to incorporate their knowledge and thus enrich its actions helping our planets life. Because here, we are talking about the survival of the biosphere!

The idea that we could disconnect function from form, comes from the old European preconception that design was a “minor art”. It was considered a craft that was handover through traditions, it was considered to be old paleoteric knowledge. This in opposition to the neoteric knowledge or the modern one, where science was in the center of the creative process. It was a general acceptance that theory and practice where usually seen as exclusionary, and design was conceived in Europe as such. But for other cultures, the union of these was in the basis of their creation processes. We can consider the perspective that Kirstine Riis lately introduced to the theory of design, where she pointed out that it is the designer who allows the union of these two views. She argues that the incorporation of an internal observer serves to establish the relations between them, saving the delimitation of each of the identities and their operational closure. In other word, designers through their observations and actions are responsible of making design what it is, making practice and theory work together. When they are doing so internally, they become part of the system or discipline we call design. Just as with definitions, each individual designer will create the relations inside design in a different way, based on his individual capacities. And here is where unsustainable design founds his origins, design processes aren’t validated beyond our personal experience. Under these conditions, designers tend to work in the way that accommodates them best, prioritizing the areas where they are stronger and those where they feel more comfortable. Relegating or avoiding those in which they lack experience or don’t feel necessary. This means that there are certain areas of the project that are not being taken care of, leaving them unsolved. This finally translates into critical areas where the project begins to falter, opening doors for its obsolescence, inefficiency or making it inappropriate for the challenge. Making it non sustainable.

Design when observed from an holistic perspective, as it was during my PhD research, is a composite discipline with all the semantic load that this implies. Edward Willatt in 2010, pointed out that there are two ways to define a discipline. The first one, would be by defining its method and the second according to its object of study. This would be like trying to encapsulate design as either a practical or a theoretical discipline. But as we all know, design’s object of study and methodology change in accordance with the project we are dealing with. Defining design only in base of his method or object of study, could lead to erroneous disciplinary definitions. Other authors state that Design has a third variable, and that this new variable could be placed in the field of exploration (Fallman 2008). Others point out, that before and since the appearance of the Bauhaus we can see the first attempts to explore through the joint work between crafts and art (Bayasit 2004). Undoubtedly the ways in which design has and could be defined are innumerable. Literature about this is abundant, choose any book and you will find a new definition of design. Ask any designer and they will respond uniquely.

From an environmental perspective, the theoretical, practical, experimental and mixed models assumed so far are not working, and a paradigm shift is needed. It is not enough to continue with the way we understand Design as we have been doing. Design as we now it, is obsolete. Definitions that rise from tradition are useless in our complex context. The new wicked problems design is confronting are beyond our simplistic current models. Buckminster Fuller knew it and proposed us to “change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

However, it is necessary to ask us: how can a paradigm change be made, without making Design no longer be Design?

Remember that realities are built based on the observations we do and what we are capable of doing with them. During my research I did not fragment design, but rather applied the concept that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This guided me to find my answer to the question: what is design? ?If we focus on the collective construct of design as a whole, not only based on an individual perspective of the power group of the moment to solve our problems, then we are going to be able to find truly sustainable answers to our questions. Design movements that have been successful in achieving the goals did so as a group, not as isolated individuals. If we embrace the whole design community, then we will have that holistic view. The framework that is needed to help us solve those wicked problems, must be inclusive.

Symbiotic Design is based in the collective relations created inside design by the broad design community. Symbiotic Design is dynamic enough to manage any wicked problem you can through at him and easy enough so it can be implemented at any level. This framework will be presented in my online courses and is the product of thirty years of design practice, twenty-five years of design teaching and six years of doctoral research combined with hundreds of interviews and surveys.

Just to answer the initial question briefly, as a community there is no consensus for a correct answer to that question. I personally believe that design is a complex systemic discipline, were good designers start by making the right questions. And the Symbiotic Design Framework I developed will help you make all of those nasty, uncomfortable and relevant questions that will evidence the forgotten areas in your design practice, making you a sustainable practitioner.

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