Dear Jerry
I too am in complete agreement with your views and experiences about
the group processes that influence design thought and action. Many a
times official funding or the lack of it determines the scope and
directions of design action and rersearch even if groups of designers
wish to act in a certain direction, it may or may not be possible if
support is not forthcoming from a variety of sources.
We have experienced this in our own work and as designers working
with communities in areas of development initiatives we see this even
more starkly than in industry funded design research since the
stakeholders are many and the forces that act on the design process
to enable and empower design are manifold and complex. At times . as
designers we have a clear conception of new and exciting
opportunities but without official financial support it is difficult
and time consuming to take it forward to the next level of action and
the gestation time required for social and financial sanction is
pretty long drawn and fraught with many political discussions and
'flying under the radar" types of action where the design intent is
not visible for a long period of time. As design activists and
development advocates, yes there is such a space, in the areas of
environmental, social & political change, we will need to foster many
new kinds of communication activities to sensitise the stakeholders
before any meaningful action can take place and this can be a long
and frustrating journey indeed if the objectives are significantly
large and the mission is to achieve massive change which may indeed
be needed.
The "Flying under the Radar" is the title for my new paper which has
my reflections and critique on the new Indian National Design Policy
and you can see it at the "Design with India" website at this link
below which was posted today. In case anyone is interested in
obtaining pdf files of the 1979 "Ahmedabad Declaration" from the
UNIDO-ICSID conference at NID as well as the "Major Recommendations"
that I have mentioned in the paper, do write to me directly so that I
can forward it off list to your address directly.
<http://web.mac.com/udaydandavate/iWeb/Site/Ranjan_Paper.html>
My comments will show how difficult it has been to get the Government
of India to accept design as a critical discipline for development
action in India although much work has been done here in India but
these are yet to come into the frame of acceptance by the political
bosses as much as science and technology and management disciplines
have found such acceptance and drawn in the tax dollar for Govenmnent
funded action in India today. Our National Design Policy which can be
seen at this website link below is a beginning (much delayed) that we
hope will bring in a better understanding of what design can do in a
complex social and economic landscape such as India, in the years ahead.
<http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=24647>
I hope that members from this list will be able to give some
direction to the debates that are taking place in India, particularly
about how we can muster the support of diverse stakeholders in the
country and through these we can hope to find a foothold at the
policy level for serious design use in the developing world as a whole.
With warm regards
M P Ranjan
from my office at NID
19 April 2007 at 5.35 pm IST
Prof M P Ranjan
Faculty of Design
Head, Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID (CFBI-NID)
Chairman, GeoVisualisation Task Group (DST, Govt. of India) (2006-2008)
Faculty Member on Governing Council (2003 - 2005)
National Institute of Design
Paldi
Ahmedabad 380 007 India
Tel: (off) 91 79 26623692 ext 1090 (changed in January 2006)
Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054
Fax: 91 79 26605242
email: [log in to unmask]
web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/
web domain: http://www.ranjanmp.in
On 19-Apr-07, at 4:34 AM, Jerry Diethelm wrote:
> 3Users2
>
> I consider the terms users and user groups, stakeholders,
> constituents, and
> shareholders under discussion as all being central to the political
> structure of designing. The variation in their use and meaning is
> probably
> mostly due to an historically situated professional semantic. But
> they all
> relate to the power of deciding - who and how people participate in
> transformative processes - who initiates and how a process is
> initiated -
> how an existing situation is described and who gets to do the
> describing -
> who decides and how it is determined that a situation has been
> resolved.
>
>> From my perspective as a planning and urban design consultant, the
>> political
> dimension of designing is a major contributor to the wickedness of
> 3problems2 in designing. The social construction of 3existing
> conditions2 is
> hardly ever tidy, and the designer (usually a design team of
> consultants)
> plays an important role in setting up a process in which 3problems2
> evolve
> and everyone learns - one of the public ways I prefer to explain
> designing
> (instead of having to say heuristic).
>
> In the 70s and 80s, I worked with 3users2 and 3user groups,2 mainly
> as a
> result of the University of Oregon9s 3Oregon Experiment2 with the
> pattern
> language. The process as most everyone remembers had 3users2 doing the
> designing. Deans and others with administrative responsibility
> weren9t
> considered 3users,2 at least initially, and professional designers
> were
> asked to try to keep their experience to themselves so as not to
> corrupt the
> process.
>
> It is more common these days for the design teams I am a part of to
> work
> with stakeholders, Citizen Advisory Committees, and Technical Advisory
> Committees. The makeup of these groups is every bit as political and
> power-oriented as ever, with interest groups all maneuvering to put
> their
> people in a position to influence the outcome. It really does
> matter what
> mind sets are brought to the table. People who view themselves, to use
> Terry9s example, as investors in a university conceived as a
> business, tend
> to process information, describe situations and desirable outcomes
> from that
> point of view.
>
> Which is why I believe that theoretically it is important to see
> designing
> (of the kind that I practice, anyway) as a valuing experience from
> initiation in the poly-perception of difference - with a will to do
> something about it - to a state of resolution in some manner of
> politically
> achievable formative expression.
>
> Best to all,
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> Jerry Diethelm
> Architect - Landscape Architect
> Planning & Urban Design Consultant
>
> Prof. Emeritus of Landscape Architecture
> and Community Service
> 2652 Agate St., Eugene, OR 97403
>
>
>
>
>
|