I’ve written and spoken quite a lot in recent times about the changes designs institutions need to make. Sometimes, I was even asked to do so.
Examples include a talk I did in Delhi earlier this year, What kind Of Design Institutes for India?; and a paper for Cumulus, the design schools network, called ‘Make Sense Not Stuff: A three step plan to connect design schools with the green economy’.
I’m also having encounters [that I write about on this site and here] with a growing number of inspirational projects.
Wherever I go, I usually meet one or two people who are ready and eager to make a fundamental transition to a new kind of design. But only one or two.
At the edges, where I often hang out, things are moving faster than at any time I can remember. But the mainstream remains stubbornly wedded to business as usual.
So I have a question: Does the world need a professional development programme for mid-career designers, architects and design professors? Do they – you – need organized help to acquire the ideas, skills and connections needed to help your organization, or community, change course more determinedly than is happening now?
Second menu
A smooth journey
Two images have preoccupied me in recent days.
The first one [below] was taken in a lounge at Paris airport. I remember being struck by the intense design effort that had been made to create a controlled and insulated environment. On the tv screen were images of the popular revolt that is unfolding, bloodily, in Yemen. But the sound was off, and the effect was to dampen any awareness we global travellers might have of the outside world – such as those guys fighting for freedom on the Arab street.
The second image that’s bugged me is this new shot of Unit 3 at Fukushima.
Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve been under the impression that the situation in Fukushima, although dramatic, is qualitatively less serious than Chernobyl. I’ve read reports [sometimes whilst sitting in lounges like the one in Paris] that the Japanese plants have a more modern design, and that those long-distance shots of smoke coming from the buildings were ‘more of a leak than an explosion.’
Then I saw this photograph: Does that look like a ‘leak’ to you?
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