Since I've just completed my PhD entitled Light and Embodied Experience in the Reimagined Birth Environment I'd like to argue strongly that 'aesthetics' is a crucial aspect of design for the user. Indeed the phenomenological and ecological aspects of environment (think Merleau-Ponty and Gibson) are intimately engaged with aesthetics and poetics. These are not just 'artistic' concerns but are now understood through neuroscience, epigenetics and biological and social sciences as fundamentally related to health not only of humans but of the entire biosphere. The concept of Venustas (Vitruvius) includes beauty, delight, emotionality, sensuality and sexuality - all of these are related to the concept of 'vital beauty' (see Spuybroek et al, Christopher Alexander, Perez-Gomez, and many others).
Corbusier cannot be so summarily dismissed if one has experienced his best works. Design separated from art is reductivist and sadly lacking in an understanding of the meaning and power of the visual and sensory aspects of our being and becoming (nature our best teacher - see McHarg). Those elements amd qualities of the world that are (in above posts) being rather derogatorily dismissed as 'aesthetics' are crucial for best practices for sensitive design for human and multispecies flourishing. There are many users in any situation but one common denominator is that beauty alters their embodied experience, impacting the body as well as the mind - embodiment always includes agency, intentionality, perception and physical and emotional health....the 'things themselves' show us their deep beauty as fully implicated in how they work - if we look, experience and reflect upon them (see Goethe and 'empathic observation' as articulated by Seamon, Zajonc and others).
Doreen Balabanoff, PhD
Professor, Faculty of Design
OCAD University
Toronto
> On Jun 27, 2017, at 12:46 PM, Johann van der Merwe <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Martin
> I am surprised that you would respond to Klaus in this manner ... the
> abstract conception of any aesthetic leads to the user-unfriendly
> architecture of Le Corbusier, instead of to what Papanek meant by good
> design.
> Johann
>
> On 27 June 2017 at 14:20, Salisbury, Martin <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> In response to what I thought was an eminently sensible contribution from
>> Richard Herriott, Klaus Krippendorff stated:
>>
>> "maybe improving the lives of others is a more important aim of design
>> than the abstract conception of an aesthetics (sic)."
>>
>> I am sure it was not intended to do so, but this observation comes across
>> as pompous, sanctimonious and reductive. It is so laden, groaning with
>> implication, that it is difficult to know where to begin with a response.
>> But perhaps we might start by entertaining the possibility that a concern
>> for the visual and a concern for improving people's lives are not mutually
>> exclusive?
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> Professor Martin Salisbury
>> Course Leader, MA Children's Book Illustration
>> Director, The Centre for Children's Book Studies
>> Cambridge School of Art
>> 0845 196 2351
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> http://www.cambridgemashow.com
>>
>> http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/ccbs.html
>>
>>
>> --
>> Please click here to view our e-mail disclaimer
>> http://www.anglia.ac.uk/email-disclaimer
>>
>>
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>> PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
>> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
>> Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Johann van der Merwe
> Independent Design Researcher
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
> Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|