Dear colleagues:
The discussion of Victor Papanek reminds me of some other examples of
social design, though not case studies. I believe that all design
changes society in some way. What I think of when conjuring up the
term 'social design' is design that explicitly directed at addressing
a particular social problem, something like social work for material
culture. The examples that Lubomir gives from architecture would fit
that definition for me. There is an ample literature on
socially-directed projects in architecture including the Byker
Housing in Newcastle by the Swedish architect Ralph Erskine and
projects in Belgium by Lucian Kroll. Also work by Aldo van Eyck in
Holland. In the design realm, there was the conference, Design for
Need, at the Royal College of Art some years ago; the work on
participatory design from the design methods movement with a book
edited by Nigel Cross. And I don't want to forget Buckminster Fuller.
Although his politics were unrealistic and naive, he made a call for
designers to solve the world's problems at the macro level and
throughout his life he financed many pilot projects - the Dymaxion
House, the Dymaxion Car, the World Game, his project at Southern
Illinois University to display data on the world's resources, the
World Design Science Decade. Papanek was influential through his
identification of areas of need - the disabled, the Third World, etc.
but Fuller had a vision of change on the macro level that was more
difficult to implement but still useful as a frame for design
practice. In the product design field, all the work on sustainable
design, and here I think of Martin Charter and a number of others in
England, particularly at Cranfield University, as being appropriate
to this discussion. Then also the Design Against Crime project of
Mike Press and Rachel Cooper. There is a website with a lot of
information.
Best, Victor Margolin
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