A Date with Destiny
Posted on November 13, 2012 | posted by:
Destiny was calling me. She called me again, this time with force: “Assistant! Come here now!” My grade-school Destiny, more Condi Rice than Cinderella, took it upon her tiny shoulders to lead our team’s activities and “make it better” (according to her). With clipboard in hand, she set out to engage participants in a leadership-role exercise. I followed her, attending to her needs while secretly observing how she adapted and improved our idea about youth empowerment. While she was my “boss,” Destiny also took on the role of co-creator for our design project.
We met at an event called My Park Day that Parsons’ Transdisciplinary Design and NYC’s Partnership for Parks were running in Soundview Park. Our team had carefully designed activities to gauge the community’s interest in youth empowerment programs. We arrived, intending to guide participants through our exercise; along the way, the roles had switched. Participants like Destiny were driving the conversation, not a team of designers.
What was so poignant about our encounter with Destiny was that she became an active collaborator with us. We weren’t deciding what was best for her or what we thought she wanted, only to realize that we were wrong. She started experimenting with our ideas and, in the process, began to embody the kind of change we hoped to achieve.
As John Thackara says, “…old-style top-down, outside-in design simply won’t work. The days of the celebrity solo designer are over” (In the Bubble, p. 7). Our director often talks about this myth of the “lone genius” that Thackara also references: one who approaches design from an authoritative standpoint rather than a collaborative one. We as transdisciplinary designers see greater potential in messy, participatory systems design that are continuously refined. Only by engaging a conversation around a problem can it truly be examined, refined and addressed.
Observing Destiny’s take-charge attitude revealed deep insights to us that no amount of theoretical musing could ever have reached. Our team has taken a new direction with our idea, thanks to the discussions and interactions from that day. All we can hope for is someone like Destiny to say, “Great idea. Let’s see how we can make it better.” And then we’ll do it together, again.
Image courtesy of Min Chung