Sunday 20 December 2009

What are the discussion on Design by these days?

fig 1

Some days ago I read in WYSIWYW a really interesting and visceral post about Design & Art. This relationship has been discussed (above all in design schools, I have never hear an artist say a word about that) since the beginning of the design as a discipline, and to be honest I’m quite tired of hear arguments going in both ways, and I agree when the people from ''Sindicato de la Imagen'' says Art is Art and Design is Design, get over, don't lose more time in nonsense.

But this closure leaves us another question: what is the discussion in design by these days? And, what are the topics of that discussion?

Design, as any other consolidated discipline, has several components that converge to give substance to his theoretical and practical body: Methodology, Ethics, Technical issues, Aesthetics, Relation with the industry, Connection with other disciplines and Cultural relevance, just for say some. All these components can also be analyze by them self to find new areas to debate and to extract polar concept that define the extension of the discussion. For example, if we look the arguments in Methodology we can find ''Design thinking'' as one of the mayor driver of the praxis by these days, but also we can find ''Problem solving'' (coming from engineering) as one of the most common approaches to design. In other areas like Aesthetics polar concepts can be a little more diffuse, and they can go from naturalism (Bouroullec) to new rationalism (Lehanneur), from the nostalgia (Hayon) to the material and structural efficiency (Grcic) (fig 1).

In the same way of analysis we can find polar concept in Ethics. Today in design every day we can contrast the Super luxury -of cars, yachts, interiors, electronics, high-end audio systems, clothes, watches and almost a endless list of product focus on give pleasure and social relevance to his owners- with product and projects focus on solving social issues like education (OLXC), Health (Lifestraw), shelter ( rectionhousingsystem), energy ( ceramic jiko). Social focus has permeated design even further than poverty issues to address health and social behaviors in the developed world (NYC Condom).

The word Design its use today almost as a synonym of innovation, and in this relationship lays the Cultural relevance of design. As material culture dynamo, Design has the responsibility to innovate, but innovation can also be decompose in the polar concepts of Incremental Innovation and Conceptual Innovation. The difference lies in if the innovation comes to improve something that already exists (incremental) or introduces a new way to achieve a desire effect. For example you can design a new washing machine in which you can wash color and white clothes at the same time without worry about the white clothes get stained in the process, which would be a really good improvement in washing. That would be an incremental innovation. But if you make yourself the question: why do we need a big and complex machine to wash our clothes? Or even better, why do we need water to wash our clothes? You can find some new ideas on how to clean the clothes that can drive you to develop new objects and process of cleaning, which would be a conceptual break through, a conceptual innovation. The main difference between this two ways of innovate is the physical product of them. In incremental innovation the most of the cases ends in a new variation of a pre-existing product (like a better washing machine), but the product of conceptual innovation usually is a complete new item, that open a new branch on the technological tree (like self cleaning surfaces).

Another big difference between incremental and conceptual innovation it’s the risk level, improve an existing product it’s a safer road than develop something complete new one. But that is a subject of business rather than design, as it is also the scale of the production. Design is –and this it’s my position- in the solution, not in the repetition or the scale of the production.

The discussion on today Design it is a lot bigger than we just talk here, and we have to be aware that this isn’t a light conversation about taste or how improve the business strategy. This is about what to do in a discipline that every day has a more relevant role in society and culture.

This conversation should continue and I think one good introduction is this video where Tim Brow talk about different aspects of Design and Design thinking.



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Tuesday 15 December 2009

Now we have metal that work as a tree

Recently have been unveiled a piece of metal that can transport water in a vertical way, defying the gravity force, just as trees in nature.

In Nature trees pump water up by a combined mechanism called ''the cohesion-tension theory''. Water travels up by capillarity and a difference in the water potential produced by the transpiration pull.

In Capillarity - or Wicking- the narrow the tube, the highest the column. So, if you have a extremly powerfull laser with the highest frecuency that you can imagine, a Femtosecond, what would you do? of course, the most thinnest tubes ever. That was the idea of Chunlei Guo optics scientist, from the Rochester University.

The potential aplications for this new material goes from microprocessors to clean hydrophobic surfaces...for now(when the paper that describe the process and the material is not even published yet), in the future we will hear, for sure, about more ways to apply the etched-metal.

more information on:
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Tuesday 8 December 2009

GREEN FOOTSTEP, a design tool for sustainable buildings


''Your building, your carbon, and what you can do about it'' ...it's the main idea behind this useful tool for architects. For sure it's not the first carbon footprint calculator but it is the first to include multiple building emissions over the building lifetime, also this tool gives you directions on what to do to decrease the footprint of your projects. This on-line resource was developed by the Rocky Mountain Institut, a group of very prepared people that are very concern about how we use our energetic resources and how we can improve the performance of our built-environments, so concern are they about this topics that not only they make realy good tools to help us to meke good decitions related to the footprint of our projects, but they also explain us the teory and the legislation behind this issues in a realy clear way and with all the reference needed. So, check the site and start to design in a little bit greener way.