Response to Ken Friedman: Thoughts on three questions: by Prof M P
Ranjan, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India
Dear Ken,
Thank you for inviting me to be part of this wonderful but exhausting
intellectual experience. (My scheduled entry is in Session 5 as an
invited commentator)
A brief intro, I teach and practise design at the National Institute of
Design. I have been asssociated with the Institute for over 35 years
having joined as a student in 1969 and then as faculty since 1976. I
teach many subjects and have an active practice and research in
many fields of design including Industrial Design, HCI and Interface
Design, Crafts and in bamboo where I now head the NID Centre for
Bamboo Initiatives. I have been involved in setting up two new sectoral
design schools in India and in advising on curriculum planning and
design on two other schools including my own Institute.
I have been in the field for the past fifiteen days at the remote city of
Agartala where I could access the web to download the daily digests
from the list and read it offline each night. I could not find the time to
make any contributions till now. We are setting up a new school to
catalyse rapid development of the bamboo sector in India and this is
what brings me to Agartala quite frequently.
My brief response to Ken's comments on the three questions are as
follows:
Rosan Chow has raised some very fundamental questions about the
premises on which the School of Design report was concieved. Ken
has argued that the economic yardstick is a practical route through
which all other issues have been addressed quite adequately by the
committee. My reading of the report and the comments confirms this
view. If I understand the response correctly.
However these questions will not go away. As designers we are used
to asking the question "What if", and in the "What if" mode we build
alternate scenarios.
My question is therefore to the list - "What if - Design is accepted by
the California public and the local and federal governments and all the
other stake holders in academia and industry as one of the most
critical resources for the future of humanity on planet earth - Would the
report and its recommendations have come out different in terms of
scale, priority, emphasis and focus?
I will come back later with my own views when I get back to
Ahmedabad tomorrow.
It has been an exciting conference and I enjoyed every late evening
read so far. Thanks.
With warm regards
Prof M P Ranjan
on tour
writing from the Bamboo & Cane Development Institute, Agartala
27 November 2003 at 12.45 pm IST
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Prof M P Ranjan
Faculty of Design
and
Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives
and
Faculty Member on the Governing Council
National Institute of Design
Paldi
Ahmedabad 380 007
INDIA
Tel: 91+79+6629692 ext 1090 (off)
Tel: 91+79+6629692 ext 4095 (res)
Fax: 91+79+6605242
email: [log in to unmask]
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