This post is about our final project proposals.

Firstly, I´d like to return to something that was stated in the last week´s readings: that the roots of PD (Participatory Design) were in the 60s, with the growth of the “Norwegian Industrial Democracy Project” (ref: ASARO). And then you´ll see what this has to do with my final project proposal.

Design, in its essence (if one can use that term), is participatory. Taking the user into account is in the heart of this activity, of this field of knowledge. From an engineering point of view, perhaps, that thought may be relatively new. But from the perspective of design as a manifestation of human creativity, it already embraces this principle itself, intrinsically. In Bauhaus (founded in 1919), for example, which is considered a landmark of design activity, there was already a transdisciplinary approach to design and an approach that put real users at the center of the process, considering their real needs. Ergonomics, which existed at Bauhaus, is an example of this thinking.

(See also this paper, that shows episodes of collective inventions since tre 1850s).

Still regarding the notion of participatory design: in a country which is ´in development´ such as Brazil, the notion of designing in an empirical way is quite culturally pervasive: due to the fact that people don´t have everything readily at hand, people are necessarily required to establish a relationship with the means (the means as the environment and the means of accomplishing their designs), without the burden of an environmental rigidity (in terms of what is considered a ´best practice´), since everything is still under construction and deconstruction. In this regard, there are scholars who study the ´gambiarra´ (a sort of ´ugly hack´) as a contemporary utilitarian improvisation in its socioeconomic context. Vilém Flusser also discusses about designing in an empirical way in his book “Philosophy of Design”, using as example the first lever invented.

What it has to do with my proposal: during my studies, design methodologies that were presented to me were very linear, and in a way that should give as much control as possible to the project manager: 1- outlining the problem; 2- accumulation of data; 3- incubation + ideation; 4- production and verification, or, altertatively: analytical phase, creative phase and implementation phase. In practice, I realized that those methodologies were like a utopia: the actual design process was never straight and clean in that way proscribed – even considering the iterations anticipated in these methods – , nor did the manager ever have such a degree of control over the process.

Indeed, the more control, the less openness to the unexpected, to the emergence of languages, that can occur at various levels: the emergence of a new behavior, of a novel cultural expression (since my main references are projects that involve citizens in their spaces); the emergence of a visual, audiovisual and / or interactive pattern (standard?); the incorporation of the unpredictable to the system itself; or the redesign of a sequence of actions in the project development, in order to adapt to new inputs (user interaction, incorporation of content from users, who thereby become co-creators), among others.

(these emergent behaviors, patterns, events – in one word: languages – , might also come from some kind of machine learning. I´m still working on this topic, but it won´t be the focus here).

Actually, processes of creation don´t begin from a well-defined problem: the design problem is constantly redefined in the process, with the entry of new information. Contemporary objects present themselves as complex objects (in the sense that remain open to other functions, to other appropriations by users, uses unforeseen in the initial project).

This is in contrast with an environment that avoids the noise and closes its doors to the unexpected, before AND after the ´product´ is launched (the term ´product´ is understood here as a process in constant evolution, not as an end point).

Focusing on the theme of the proposal: with the growth of collaborative projects, the unexpected has increasingly begun to be understood not as a failure (or noise) of the process, but as something that should be embraced as an opportunity to expand the product´s possibilities. Design solutions became provisional, not final. This approach has an element of opening and it is precisely the nature of this openness that I want to investigate.

From my humble view – as someone who works in design within the market context, and as a teacher – the design process is a living organism, akin to living systems. As a teacher, every time I was required to suggest readings about design methodologies for students, I always had to indicate these traditional concepts, seemingly perfect, as if design processes were in fact developed that way. In fact, I don´t think this is how they work.

ROZENFELD, H.; et al., 2006.

At IDEO, for example, design involves three fields of activities: inspiration, ideation and implementation (BROWN, 2010). I have the impression that this process still appears as a sequence and not as a living organism. Of course I need to study more, to be able to say.

The process outlined below may serve a clue, the role of the designer in this figure may be replaced by regular users, or communities, or even combined with some kind of artificial intelligence:

Generative Design – Onformative Studio

Here at the Media Lab, the apparent absence of a super pre-defined work methodology for all projects (or even: the variety of existing methods) suggests a huge opening.

So, I want to investigate this opening element as a means of revising the traditional design concepts nowadays. The field of practice is already aware about these issues, perhaps theories are slow to catch up. Of course there are authors with different conceptions of creation (mainly in the arts) as a much more flexible process. I hope to meet more authors with this line of thinking, especially in the field of Design (focused on interactive artifacts).

I wonder: what is the design of this process (a live process) like? What are its dynamics? And I recognize that when one tries to grasp it, one loses its pulse. Any explicit representation would destroy its pulse wave. Any truly useful interpretation could not be fit into a defined structure.

However, I´m not interested in philosophizing if it´s not practical. Philosophy is practical. The world demands action. This is why I became involved with the ZL Vortex project. Design serves to that: to contribute to the technological and cultural development and well-being of humanity within its environment.

Translations from the project blog can be found here.

Starting from the definition of the ZL Vórtice project problem (although it will be redefined “N” times during the project), the next step is to conduct a study of similar projects, along with the collection of information for the project. Map Kibera, NGO 2.0 and Promise Tracker are good reference projects for ZL Vórtice. Below, in brief, is how I plan to conduct the studies:

• Seemingly contradictory characteristics of a project used as a reference will be problematized in a complex view: the elements / components that favor the openness of the system will be described, as well as elements that do not, such as their adaptability and self-organization, or even possible constraints, not necessarily related to technology;

• Technologies used for the development of the project will be investigated. This investigation will explore questions like: to what extent can the project be considered as a reprogrammable system, in co-evolution with other involved systems, such as social, cultural and aesthetic systems;

• I will investigate whether the productions (projects used as references), as systems, respond to user interactions in an inventive way.

I would really appreciate suggestions of readings from colleagues, especially when it comes to the approach I outline here, focused on this opening of the system, considering design methodology as a living system.

Adeline Gil – adelineg@mit.edu / adeline@quicadesign.com.br