Clive,
A vitally important question, which I see has rapidly got diverted down the techno track. You asked:
"Does the use of the word 'design" in relation to the operating configuration and disposition (the capabilities) of the Fukushima plant suggest this third road: design as the organization of the potential capabilities of a thing or system?"
Short answer is yes.

Now to your second question:  " to what extent does the failure of the Fukushima plant throw up the generic failure of purely technological models of design with respect to the construction, operation and implication(s) of complex systems?"

It is answered by an email I just received and am pasting in below.   Though what it asks is a big challenge, requiring  research, thought and maybe collaboration with appropriate scientists, it's an urgent request indeed  to visual communications designers. 

'Design', like radiation is leaking in all directions as these events unfold.

best wishes,

Anne-Marie 

Anne-Marie Willis
Editor, Design Philosophy Papers
www.desphilosophy.com 
[log in to unmask]

Team D/E/S Publications
PO Box 159, Crows Nest,
QLD  4355  Australia




dear ANNE-MARIE WILLIS

during the past days we have seen events of unimaginable destruction unfolding. the catastrophic break downs with direct physical impact are ungraspable for all of us not being there where it happens.
developments at the nuclear power stations are even more difficult to comprehend - we have little cues which would help us relate the short-.mid-/long-term effects to the scale of urgency we use in our everyday judgments and decision making.

unfortunately the news provided by official media is short on factual/objective/integral information needed for guidance and acting decisively.

we ask for your help to collect and/or produce visualization that could help the people here in japan in understanding and assessing of what is going on, providing references for personal judgements as to what to do best.
the situation we experience requires us to make decisions, some of which do have a fundamental impact on the lives we lived so far.

these are our most urgent questions:

	- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
	what do the various measure-units used in news-updates mean
		how do they relate to each other
			ex: measures of Sievert/year, milliSievert/hour, microSievert/hour 
			are used throughout-- sometimes the per/time identifier is missing
			can one apply simple math to convert from one to the other?
			how do they relate to other measures such as nGy/h

		how do they relate to a reasonable scale of everyday experience
			can we identify ONE normalized measure that would help to put numbers in context?

	- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
	what are the radiation levels - at any part of the country
		we do not have access to MAPS of current levels- some of the official maps simply omit locations of most concern...

	- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
	what are the expected levels
		forecasts which take into account not only wind speed/direction but also altitude levels of air-mass movements, precipitations.. and the impact of each of these factors on the ground

	- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
	what are the options to act/move
		visualizations of advisories concerning direct/indirect exposure to radiation and food intake.


we know that we are asking a lot - but we are sure that some of you are able to distill essential data out of the many sources and translate these into meaningful and usable communications.


we are planning to publish the returns of this call on a dedicated site but also to send them to news outlets here in japan hoping they would share them with the large audiences desparate for help.

the visualizations should speak for themselves, please use as little textual information as possible - always keep in mind that the audience sopeaks JAPANESE. if you have access to native speakers, ask for their help.

please submit your presentations as editable PDF files - that will help us to do the necessary translations.
in your return include the following data

	your name
	the affilition if exists
	address
	the source(s) of the data used
	a waiver confirming your agreement to the free distribution and usage of your submission

thank you very much for your support,

IIDj
Institute for Information Design Japan

	Tokyo 103-0012
	Chuo Ku, Nihonbashi
	Horidome Cho 1.2.9

	map: http://iidj.net/map