Academia needs help from design

The problem I have with academia is not about learning being a bad thing, it just happens that academia taught us ALL to design badly and that this is the accepted premise. Unfortunately, under the flow of this academic mindset, I myself fall into the trap.

It was known that 95% of the presentations suck, irregardless of who the presenter is (Duarte, 2008). Why is it so? I am not telling the lecturers to undergo design presentation training but what is the point of conducting a lecture that nobody is mentally strong enough to listen?

Why are most of the lectures so boring? I certainly do not find the content or subject matter all that dull, in fact I quite enjoyed learning with the professors.

Designing is not about the use of tools, its about the use of mind. If PowerPoint is the only presentation tool one is able to use, make full use of it. Don't get me wrong, I am not teaching design 101, and I certainly do not think that I am in the right position to do so. The idea of “because I hold a pen and therefore I can’t hold a pencil” mindset should not be imprinted into every academic’s mind.

There is a huge misconception within academia about design being decorations and ornamentations. Design is more about problem solving (Veen, 2000), improving the functions to connect the presenter to the audiences. 

Duarte. N. (2008). Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. Retrieved on 2012, 28 November from http://www.slideshare.net/macasagi/slideology-9866222 

Veen, J. (2000)The art and science of web design(1 ed.). New Riders Press.

We are all designers?

Here is a quote from a famous designer on the meaning of design before moving on to the question:

“Design is about the betterment of our lives poetically, aesthetically, experientially, sensorally and emotionally.

My real desire is to see people live in the modus of our time, to participate in the contemporary world, and to release themselves from nostalgia, antiquated tradition, old rituals, kitsch and the meaningless.”

–Karim Rashid, Industrial designer—

 “Huh? What the hell does that mean?” I suppose most people will give a big frown on the face. You might catch a glimpse of it if you study design, do design or work on design. But for some people, it just does not mean anything. So what exactly does that mean?

Design = art?

Design = for the rich?

Design = fashion?

Design = decoration?

Design = aesthetics?

Design = branding?

Design = beauty?

Design = utility/ functions?

Design = meaning?

Design = ideology?

Design = quality?

All these may be part of the answer but definitely not the final answer. This quote is what most designers see in the value of design:

“To design is to purposely put things together to accomplish something better.

Humans are design-beings. We cannot help but design all day long, because we are all designers.”

 – David Butler, Vice president of global design of The Coca-Cola Company.  

Nowadays, design has become a form of new language or a new subject, like English or Japanese, Maths or Science. This creates a huge barrier of communication for those who think that they do not engage in design work, just like people who will immediately shut off the computer the moment they see the word “design”. The theory applies to those who do not study in that particular language or subject.

Whether you are a junior designer, senior designer or even a creative director, designer is not just about a job position. This job position comes in only when we talk about the value of money.

We design our career path, design our image, design our study program, design our plans for tomorrow, we design who we want to be. Even at this very moment, I am designing how my blog post should look like to the audiences.

For example, every lecture we attend is a form of design created by the conductor of the lecture. As lecture is often designed for mass audiences, there is no guarantee that every single individual will take likings to the design. For people who appreciate the design, they get engaged in the lecture. And for those who are not, they either shut off or sleep. If the majority of the class dozes off during the lecture, this might show that the conductor may not be a good designer for his lecture. Some reflections may be needed.

If designing is all about problem solving to our lives, why not design?

Jasmine 

Rashid, Karim. (n.d.). Quotation at Karim Rashid. Retrieved on 27 October 2012 from http://www.rashidglobal.net/?page_id=212

Butler, David (2009). Redesigning design. Retrieved on 27 October 2012 from http://www.aiga.org/video-makethink-2009-butler/

Lupton, Ellen (2009). Modern Design Theory. Retrieved on 28 October 2012 from http://elupton.com/2009/10/modern-design-theory/

Living room sweet living room by Jasmine

Tired? Have a rest at the world’s largest living room...outside your house.

Image taken from http://www.longville.ch/m-galerie.php

Located at St. Gallen, Switzerland, a collaboration project by architect Carlos Martinez and visual artist Pipilotti Rist

Nothing complicated. This project is just about having an ultra big piece of red carpet rolled out, spreading throughout the whole Bleicheli District.

BUT, it is a big piece of red carpet with protruding tables, benches, chairs, sofas, fountains, cars and some funny objects that are left for your imagination. 

For your information, Bleicheli District in St Gallen is a central business district (CBD) and like any other financial business district in the world, it is filled with a good concentration of retail and office buildings. 

And also for your information, CBD is ranked the least appealing place to work in my list. Formal wears, corporal name cards, 9am to 6pm, mondays to fridays (sometimes saturdays), clients, phone calls, staff ID card, rigid bosses, the general list of goes on. You will never want to imagine yourself relaxing in such an area. However, this piece of art successfully transformed Bleicheli District into a 24-hour accessible leisure, relaxation, and business oasis. The red carpet effect invites you to linger and offer a perfect setting for meet-ups. Glowing lamps suspended overhead, bathing the neighbourhood in diverse, subtly changing lighting moods. 

Image taken from http://freshome.com/2008/05/28/the-largest-public-living-room-city-lounge/

So, what is the "red carpet effect" that I'm talking about? A red carpet is traditionally used to mark the route taken by heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions. In recent decades, it has been extended to VIPs and even to celebrities at formal events. In other words, if you are welcomed by the red carpet, then you must be a somebody rather important. In current general interpretation, when one say the "red carpet treatment" or "rolling out the red carpet", it refers to any special efforts made in the interests of hospitality. [1]

The choice of colour and material within the Bleicheli District has a positive side effect towards visitors who patron the red zone. E.g. drivers making their way through the lounge will have to act more carefully towards their surroundings as well as the pedestrians. 

Also, what was once designed as an over-sized open air living room does not only make people living here sleep less, but their nerves are all on edge too. Just a little history of what had image Bleicheli District had portrayed before coming to the hands of the two designers. Previously in St Gallen newspaper,  the problem with the district is always parties till late night littering. In a radio feature, Swiss radio station DRS once called the District a "place to be avoided", and local innkeepers are suffering from low patronage. [2] After the revamp, people certainly overlap this space as an alternative of their personal living room. You do not want to destroy your own relaxation space, do you?  

Switzerland has a good reputation abroad, despite the clichés about the wealth of neutrality, discretion, Swiss cheese or other golden reserves. Last, but not least this reputation has been backed up by a study carried through by the Hochschulinstitut für öffentliche Verwaltung (IDHEAP) (college institute of public administration). However, the fact that the Swiss are capable of more than being able to keep things to themselves has been given proof of by the Raiffeisenbank through re-designing the Bleicheli District in St. Gallen. ”The architecture is a supporting pillar of Raiffeisen’s corporate identity“, says Martin Kaiser in 2005, Raiffeisenbank’s principal’s consultant. The same year, the Raiffeisen superstructure has taken over a major part of the Bleicheli Quarter. [2]

The logic result was to create a connective element of the building through cultivating the free areas. Martinez and Rist's idea of a “city lounge” has nothing to do with any clichés of neutrality, which is particularly true of the coloring.

source:

[1] Red Carpet. (n.d.). in Wikipedia. Retrieved on 12 July 2012 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_carpet


[2] Galinski, A. (2011, Dec 01). Mapholis architecture. Of coolly caculated art: Carols Martinez- St. Gallen City LoungeRetrieved on 12 July 2012 from http://architecture.mapolismagazin.com/carlos-martinez-st-gallen-city-lounge-st-gallen 

Sharifi Amin. (2011, May 10). My Landscape. St Gallen, Switzerland. Retrieved on 12 July 2012 from http://landscapeissharifi.blogspot.jp/2011/05/st-gallen-switzerland.html.

Less is alot More? Maybe. Jasmine

Let’s see… What is Spatial Design? Spatial design is the design of human environment, anywhere and everywhere we live in. It incorporates the aspects of interior design, architecture, urban design, landscape design, as well as public art. Well, the list goes on.

Traditionally, when designers deal with spaces, they stick to their field of specialty. That is, if you are an interior designer, there is no means for you to care about what the exterior façade looks like. Spatial design is a relatively new discipline that gives designers more rooms to explore the cross boundaries of traditional design discipline as mentioned. [1]

In the design world, every single designer has got his or her own design philosophy, or rather, his or her own design principle. E.g. Japanese are known to be simple yet sophisticated (generally when it comes to spatial design). Why is it so? Looking into their rich history of their architecture forms and culture, it is not difficult to relate how Japanese architects and designers develop their own principles. Take for example the Zen garden and Ikebana. Both are in their simplest form of presentation and yet produce breathtaking results.

In another words, Less is More.

Lets look into 2 very young architects' work. They are really outstanding in the current design world. 

This is a stand-alone cafe designed by Tanijiri Makoto, named Cafe la Miell located at Niihama, Ehime. The whole design form is so simple that it can easily be identified as a landmark. It is just an enlarged triangular-shaped cafe, yet it has its own impact.

However design is never simple. There is always a reason why the orientation is in this placing instead of the other way round.

Since the cafe needed parking, the wall facing the car is completely opaque, yet, as customer turn the corner, the cafe's dominant concrete components part allow light to flood into the seat area. From the inside, the dialogue between the heavy concrete and the open glass create a pleasant setting to enjoy a coffee. [2]  

 Image taken from official website of Suppose design office

Such design may be simple, but it is absolutely not boring. This form of design reflects deeply on what does it mean by less is more.  

Ever wonder about living in such an "opened space"? This is a house designed by Fujimoto Sou, a home for two + a dog. Imagine the house to be like a...hmmm... cabbage? With 3 layers of shells nesting between one another. The outermost shell covers the entire premise, creating a semi-secluded garden. [3]

Second shell encloses a space interconnected to the outermost shell. You can always enjoy your garden while having afternoon tea on your dining table.

Image taken from Archdaily

Last but not least, the third layer is definitely the interior space where the owners build their lives in.

Design rationale from the architect:
That is why life in this house resembles to living among the clouds. A distinct boundary is nowhere to be found, except for a gradual change in the domain. One might say that an ideal architecture is an outdoor space that feels like the indoors and an indoor space that feels like the outdoors. In a nested structure, the inside is invariably the outside, and vice versa. My intention was to make an architecture that is not about space nor about form, but simply about expressing the riches of what are `between` houses and streets. [4]

While not all designers adopt the same design principle due to their background and culture. But we do see the how it greatly influent their creativity into approaching design. Less is more

---

[1] Spatial Design (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved June 12, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_design

[2] Cafe la miel (n.d.). In Hidden Treasure Magazine. Retrieved June 12, 2012, from http://www.hiddentreasuresmag.com/index.php/architecture/1210-architecture-cafe-la-miel-japan
[3] House N/Sou Fujimoto (2011, September 14). In Archdaily. Retrieved June, 12, 2012, from http://www.archdaily.com/7484/house-n-sou-fujimoto/
[4]Ibid.

Do you folks know how a world map looks like? By Jasmine

Simple question: Do you folks know how a world map looks like?

I gave a solid yes.

Simple instruction: Okay, draw it out on a piece of paper.

I gave a strike-dumbest face, with an amplified big “huh?” nailed on my head. The instruction totally caught me off guard.

For some unknown reasons, the moment I took out my pencil and paper to begin my drawing, the image of the world map, which I thought it should be, quirked from vivid to blurry— like a camera’s rangefinder suddenly loses its focus. We had a couple of minutes to draft out the map, but most of us wasted half of the time thinking how to start it off. How the brain works is it tried to retrieve certain memories buried deep down in the storage. But apparently it had some problems with the retrieval; the “tip of the tongue” phenomenon. The brain will then start reconstructing on how exactly a world map should look like. Unfortunately, the brain tends to retrieve false memories sometimes. So you can’t really blame some people for having Australia bigger than Africa. It doesn't apply to everyone, just the majority.

There are some forms of psychological thoughts when one is asked to do something for the first time and asked again, to do it for a second time. Sometimes when one cannot figure out how to refactor certain things, they put it off and figure out how to do it right the second time; the state of mind sheers from “trying” to “doing”, and doing it right. Some people achieved it. Some need more push. Some just tried a little too hard.

There was an interval between the first and second round of map drawing. Another simple instruction: Walk around and “look” at other people’s drawings. 


Certainly, each individual ramified into different thoughts on their peers’ work. Most people did observations, or rather, palpable observations.

The word “look” was emphasized and quotation-marked; to “look” at things doesn’t mean you only do observations. Many of us, intentionally or not, incept into commentaries, questionings, comparing, or even start generating a new piece of drawing in the head during the process of “looking”. In other words, peer pressure plays a weighty role to determine the outcome of the second round of drawing.

Some people are confident with themselves but most are not. The confident ones think that when certain things are done right, they will never “change” it again. This explains why there was not much of a difference between their first and second draft. A little more details were rendered, however, on the second draft to make their drawing more complete.

“Looking” is also about information gathering. For most people, by looking at other’s drawing, they built up from what was lacked in the first round and implemented it on their second drawing. For people who tried a little too hard, they either snapped and shut off, or resort into overdoing it. The whole brain system sometimes paralyzed when it drops into the “information overwhelmed” mode—the backfire effect.

Even though peer pressure plays an important role to the outcome of our drawings, the key role often relies on individual habits, which include intentions, experiences and self-perceptions. E.g. Most of the Japanese started off their map by drawing their own country first. Why is it so? Because they are brought up to read/draw the map the way it is. You can’t expect a Singaporean to do the same; the map might end up as big as a baseball field.

Interestingly, even though the whole class was given the same instruction on what to do, different people with different thoughts, produces different result. Some people just never fail to amaze me. 


J-asmine-G