Fuad-Luke, A. 2009. Design Activism. Beautiful strangeness for a sustainable world. Earthscan, London. Chapter 2 and Appendix 1.
Notes & Quotes
Today’s omnipotent design culture, at least in the ‘developed’, plays a comprehensive role in suggesting and/or setting new values and, hence, inculcating societal change.
The idea of design culture as an agency of reform (or even revolution) directing design towards greater and more direct social and environmental benefit, indicates the necessity to include wider societal representation and control of design activities.
Fuad-Luke begins by asking when design history begins, noting the emergence of the term in the Italian Renaissance and popular use in the mid-18th century.
Yet, …”any artefact communicates and embeds design, and that designed artefacts predate the era of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution on which so much design history is focused.”
As economic models change so do our perceptions and the designs operating within the societal systems.
“As design helps materialize a ‘culturally acceptable’ form to represent the economic mode, then design has evolved with these economic models”
Design is a function of culture with products serving as texts in cultural flows.
“Design has occupied this central role as mediator of cultural acceptability and therefore provides a regulatory service in production and consumption.”
Seeing design as a product and a tool of the status quo: “Wahl and Baxter suggest that real forms are in themselves memes, but also carry a second meme, a vMEME or value meme. In giving form to the dominant socio-political and socio-economic norms, design simultaneously confers meaning and values, and affirms the dominant paradigm.”
Fuad-Luke summarises the major design movements and assesses their value in terms of sustainability – viewing the outcomes “in relation to positive economic, ecological, social and institutional contributions”.
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1750-1960: Mass Production and [Sporadic] Modernity
- rapid growth of mechanisation and mass production
- 1850s – first design activists resisting the Industrial Revolution – Morris, Marshall & Faulker & Co: “…simplicity combined with excellent craftsmanship…new ideas of craft as a means to promote social cohesion.
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Founded late 19th-century British Arts and Crafts movement, “the first design reformers intent on contributing to positive social change through improved design of artefacts, textiles, wallpapers and buildings.
- early design developments stimulating thought and early Art Nouveau expressions …
“The Deutscher Werkbund, 1907-1935 and 1947-present, emerged out of the expressive Jugendstil (representing Art Nouveau) to become the first significant organization to exploit and communicate the power of design as a vehicle for improving people’s lives.
Existenzminimum & other social housing projects by the Deutscher Werkbund – aimed at good design based on “utilitarian production methods that maximized quality but retained affordability”. Lead to foundations of Functionalism.
Bauhaus: “played a pivotal role in establishing the rationality and efficiency of the Modern movement‘s modes of design and production. In effect this was the third era of modernity culminating in the ‘designability of everything and everyone'”…
Functionalist Meyer (lead design activist of Bauhaus) believed that “design could elevate the welfare of the people and it could harmonize the requirements of dle individual with the community”.
The central ideal of modernism – design as a positive force to improve people’s lives – lost momentum. Organic design shifted to natural materials and human-centered design (architecture), with
“An early advocate of treading more lightly on the planet’s resources was Richard Buckminster Fuller, a maverick whose work ranged from mathematics to architecture and industrial product design. Buckminster Fuller was environmentally and socially aware, proposing numerous concepts and realizing diverse projects that addressed eco-efficiency and affordability…”
More critics of Modernism in mid 1950s:
“rejected the notions of an elite circumscribing and moralizing about what constituted ‘good design’ and embarked upon a design fiesta that marked the birth of the consumer economy, still with us today.”
2. 1960-2000: From Pop and Postmodernism to Postmodern Ecology and Beyond
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1960s heralded a social, technological and environmental watershed
- emergence of pop design then Radical Design and Anti-Design –
“This celebration of cultural pluralism recognized the ecology of the human condition, something Rationalism and Functionalism had ignored at its peril. In doing so, design genuinely sought to improve relationships between objects, spaces, the built environment and human fulfilment. Sadly, the genuine efforts of these proto-Postmodernists were easily subverted by commercial exploitation.”
- Desire to involve people in design emerged with ecological imperative at the fore in 1970s
Yet “Questions of greater import around the deleterious effects of mass consumption on society and the environment were left to an emergent group of Postmodern ecologists and ‘alternative’ designers.”
The Postmodern ecologists
“…photographs from the Apollo space missions in the 1960s first revealed the beauty and fragility of planet Earth and Buckminster Fuller coined the expression ‘Spaceship Earth’, the environmental movement found new momentum.”
- social and environmental awareness influenced global designers –
“manifestos and ambitions of the Postmodern ecologists are clearly expounded by Jencks and Kropf29 with Ian McHarg setting the foundation stone for this school of thought in his 1969 treatise, Design with Nature, firmly stating that the values of the economic system must embrace biophysical realities and human aspirations.”
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It had taken two decades to synthesize underlying environmental concerns into formative propositions for the design community. And it took a further two decades to progress the cause of Postmodern ecology…
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Advocacy varies from biocentric to humanist perspectives and some manage to combine both perspectives to encourage more symbiotic relationships between man and nature. Their voice is still growing and perhaps with more urgency today as issues such as climate change and ‘peak oil’ impact on architecture and the design of transportation and food production systems.
The alternative designers
1960 and 70s critique of mainstream design and culture –
“… critique of the commercial appropriation of all aspects of everyday life, and the acquiescence of creative professionals in this appropriation, not only tapped into the Zeitgeist but confronted all those involved in design with some searching questions.”
1964 First Things First manifesto – challenging graphic designers.
“This shift from profit-/self-/form-centred design to human-centred design was a big challenge to the graphic design community.”
- pop culture and design won out and the challenge was lost
Design for Need
1969 – design for nature (architects), design conference in London –
entitled ‘Design, Society and the Future’ – “encouraging designers to consider the economic, social and moral consequences of their work.
- leading to fresh design approaches – universal design, inclusive design and user-centred design,
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“In 1971, Victor Papanek launched his polemical book, Design for the Real World, striking deep into the design profession.34 Papanek’s pitch was straightforward – designers needed to take responsible decisions, spend less time designing ephemeral goods for the consumer economy, and spend more creative time on generating solutions to the real needs of the disadvantaged 80 per cent population of the planet. He was lauded and rejected in equal measure across the design world. lust a few years later, the Middle East oil price rise crisis in 1973-1974 gave another jolt to collective design thought. It even heralded the introduction of life cycle thinking (LCT) and life cycle analysis (LCA) by US design engineers challenged by the political administration to quickly find ways of becoming more energy efficient. In 1976, the Royal College of Art set up an exhibition and symposium called ‘Design for Need’ with Papanek as keynote speaker.”
Alternative, appropriate and DIY technology
Mix of ‘alternative design’ groups across the planet – seeking a “simpler life, downshifting from the consumerist society and its multiplicity of negative impacts”
- tools ssuch as – Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, a toolbox of ideas and equipment, to create an autonomous way of life.
- simultaneous trends in product design – recyclables and new methods (impact on design community)
- ‘alternative’ or ‘appropriate’ technology – “focused on issues of shelter, sanitation and potable water for poor communities in the North and South.” Search for practical and affordable solutions.
- One of alternative groups is a “form of ecological design – permaculture design – a holistic, minimal, interventionalist and ecological design approach. The founders of permaculture design were Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the mid-1970s.40 They have continued to refine and develop the design principles over the past 30 years41 with emphasis on three underlying ethical principles – care of the Earth, its people and a fair share for everyone. Since 2002, permaculture thinking and practice has stimulated new forms of grassroots localization, like the…”
The eco-efficiency activists
various design disciplines from 1980s – positive activists with environment as client
- Europe 1980s – shift to green consumer and ten-point code for green designers for the Design Council in the UK in 1986.
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Through the early 1990s this approach to product design acquired the catch-all
description of ‘design for the environment’ (DfE) and a well-developed toolbox emerged. DfE, also referred to as ‘eco-design’, was seen as a promising approach to improve environmental standards of companies.
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…the potential of design to communicate potential eco-design futures by proactive interventions, provocations, experimental prototypes (one-offs) and propositional or protest artefacts …linked to
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fresh avenue for exploration that was already being exploited by an exciting group of Dutch designers, Droog Design concerned with ecological, social, psychological and behavioural aspects of sustainability.
What are the Lessons Learnt?
Design community has spoken to itself and focussed on itself.
“While the heroes and heroines charting counter-narratives to the accepted design paradigm are few, they reveal a valuable lesson to aspiring design activists today – be very clear about your intentions, specify the target of your ambitions, and measure the results to ensure that the beneficiaries really do benefit.
“…The eco-efficiency and eco-tech agenda will not alone rescind the likely repercussions of 150 years of economic growth. Significant shifts in individual and collective behaviour are required in combination with eco-effective design.
“…Ironically, while design is acknowledged as a powerful communicative force, it has failed to communicate its own social and environmental ambitions to society, and so remains perceived as merely a servant to powerful economic imperatives.”
More notes:
Fuad-Luke stresses the importance of asking whether designers have intentionally sought to change design culture in the past. In his view modern design culture plays a major role in proposing, promoting and establishing new values that bring about change in society.
Sees government and business as controlling designers who in turn largely control design culture.
Design culture as an agency of reform – even revolution…
The idea of design culture as an agency of reform (or even revolution) directing design towards
greater and more direct social and environmental benefit, indicates the necessity to include wider societal representation and control of design activities.
Past Lessons: A Short
History of Design in
Activist Mode, 1 750-2000
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This canon of design history
often reveals an inwardly focused design culture examining the self, egoism, the
design community and its culture, rather than being orientated towards more
altruistic ambition for specifically defined social, ethnographic or global causes. In
reveal a valuable lesson to aspiring design activists today –
be very clear about your intentions, specify the target of your ambitions, and
measure the results to ensure that the beneficiaries really do benefit.
impacts. The eco-efficiency and eco-tech
agenda will not alone rescind the likely repercussions of 150 years of economic
growth. Significant shifts in individual and collective behaviour are required in
combination with eco-effective design.
There is a growing need for new design heroes and heroines to provide some
guidance to meet the enormity of the scale of the environmental, social and
economic crises in the global, and regional/local, economies (see Chapter 3).
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notable. Ironically, while design is
acknowledged as a powerful communicative force, it has failed to communicate its
own social and environmental ambitions to society, and so remains perceived as
merely a servant to powerful economic imperatives.
Transdisciplinary Design towards Transformation 