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PHD-DESIGN  2005

PHD-DESIGN 2005

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Subject:

Problem, solution, opportunity and design

From:

M P Ranjan <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

M P Ranjan <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 01:20:52 +0530

Content-Type:

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> From: M P Ranjan <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 19 August 2005 1:18:16 AM GMT+05:30
> To: Jerome Diethelm <[log in to unmask]>
> Cc: M P Ranjan <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] I|d like a copy -- Re: a specific proposal 
> that   fits?
>
> Dear Jerry
>
> Your description of the Bucky experience is no exaggeration, at least  
> from what I remember of my own experience from his visit to NID in the 
> late seventies (? - need to check my dates), he conserved his strength 
> through the day, looking sharply with his eyes (and mind) at the 
> Institute and the city, did not utter a word in casual conversation, 
> but in the evening lecture in Ahmedabad went on and on for many hours 
> non stop, taking the audience of Ahmedabad on a mind blowing journey 
> through the exciting perspectives that he brought to design thinking 
> and philosophy. Some of us at NID, faculty and student got together 
> and built domes for many months after his visit, with much discussion 
> and reading, late into the night.....
>
> About the "problem - solution" debate, I have the following thoughts 
> to offer, may be theoretically unsound but here it is anyway.
>
> I have given up, many years ago trying to define design in terms of 
> "problem solving", many other professions do that too, and it is not 
> necessarily very beneficial in describing and in communicating exactly 
> what designers do, either to design students or the industry and 
> government clients who know very little about design at all its levels 
> of manifestation, especially at the systems level. I have found it far 
> more effective and fruitful to talk about locating opportunities and 
> in mapping and modeling the contours of these situations without 
> really using the word "problem" in the discourse, identify the gaps 
> and possibilities. The word "problem", somehow has a very negative 
> connotation especially to young students who are literally sent out of 
> the Institute campus in search of new assignments to handle in their 
> classroom and/or diploma projects, and invariably they used to come 
> back with a clutch of very morbid perceptions from the field, (we have 
> plenty of problems in India if anyone wants to know about these) and 
> the enormity of some of these sometimes discourages the student s (and 
> faculty) from  even attempting to enter that discourse, very 
> disheartening, for a novice and even for the hardened professional. 
> However if you ask them to list opportunities for improving what they 
> see around them in the city roads, hospitals, schools, shops, malls 
> and hotels, and homes, to name a few typical places that they fan out 
> to at the beginning of an assignment in design, they come back from 
> field observation and brainstorming and discussions, with each other 
> and with faculty, with a very long list of possible directions, a germ 
> of an idea which they believe is do-able, which in my view is a great 
> way to start building "intentions' and then "convictions' to make some 
> of these "opportunities" a part of their own career goals, very deep 
> commitments indeed, some life-long.
>
> While yes the 'Problems' are there to be 'Solved', we may need to look 
> at these from the corner of our sights rather than head-on and then 
> feel dejected by the enormity of the perceived task, and not take it 
> on at all as a result. Many of our 'problems" are in this category, 
> but all these desperately need design, (230 sectors in India in my 
> count - Ken and Terry have a longer list) not just the science and 
> technology and even marketing spends that are today being funneled 
> towards these "problems" in India, particularly  when compared to very 
> meager design spends which in my view needs to be hugely enhanced 
> soon. But that is a long story, for another day.
>
> With warm regards
>
> M P Ranjan
> from my office at NID
> 19 August 2005 at 01.05 am IST
>
> PS: I checked the dates of Bucky's visit to Ahmedabad
>
> Quote from <http://www.amaindia.org/act_popular.html>
> Series on Human in Universe by Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller, the 
> well-known geometer, architect, philosopher, and inventor (December 
> 15-16, 1978)
> UnQuote
>
> ___________________________________________________________________
>
> Prof M P Ranjan
> Faculty of Design
> Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives
> Faculty Member on NID Governing Council (2003 -2005)
> National Institute of Design
> Paldi
> Ahmedabad 380 007 INDIA
>
> Tel: 91+79+26610054 (Res)
> Tel: 91+79+26639692 ext 1090 (Off)
> Tel: 91+79+26639692 ext 4095 (Off)
> Fax: 91+79+26605242
>
> email: <[log in to unmask]
> web archive: <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/>
> __________________________________________________________________
>
>
> On 18-Aug-05, at 12:23 AM, Jerome Diethelm wrote:
>
>>  enjoyed seeing the Bucky process again and remembered the last time 
>> I heard him speak - as usual for four hours without a break.  I’m 
>> sure you’ve experienced the unique unfolding of that marvelous mind. 
>>  I remember him beginning haltingly at first, with a staccato like 
>> stuttering of grounding ideas and phrases that left the uninitiated 
>> wondering if this was the real Bucky Fuller.  We’d all fallen for a 
>> fake Andy Warhol and his sidekick Viva in purple boots some years 
>> before.  
>>
>>  But by the second hour, he had once more rebuilt his conceptual 
>> world before our very eyes, drawn his audience into it, and was 
>> picking up the pace.  By the third hour, for those of us with the 
>> stamina (and bladders – I was younger then) he was of course fluid, 
>> fluent, brilliant, as in radiant, and exceeding the speed limit. At 
>> the end of the fourth hour, he scraped us all off the floor and then 
>> we went outside and built a dome.  Well, OK, I exaggerate a little, 
>> but not too much.
>>
>>  I always think of Fuller’s “tension and compression always mutually 
>> co-exist” when I am asserting that valuing and meaning always 
>> mutually co-exist in design (as in interests/matter).  And I’m quite 
>> sure it’s from his evolution1 - evolution2 that I have drawn what I 
>> prefer to call the same continuum: natural selection – human natural 
>> selection.  I like the special flavor of consciousness, the fruit of 
>> the tree, applying it’s own language of evaluating and choosing 
>> (selection) backward on its mother matrix.  Prototype isn’t always my 
>> first choice for describing a formative expression, mainly because 
>> its industrial connotations don’t quite fit my work, but why quibble 
>> (as in “problem”) and “purposefully” miss the point.
>

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