Where do I find myself in this world?
Posted on November 21, 2016Over the past months, the readings and debates have made me ask myself a number of questions around my profession. It is hard to answer them all when different scales of issues start to mingle and not only my values and beliefs play the main role, but other’s perspectives are also part of the equation. Sometimes we need to turn things around, change our focus and question our assumptions and way of seeing the world, something that I believe is crucial in our practice if we intend to drive social change.
Some of my first questions were, and still are: How do we even start changing our current systems? Do we as designers have enough influence to interfere in them? If so, how can our designs affect the world at large and create sustainable changes over time?
The world has been, is and will continue to be inundated with what Webber and Rittlel dubbed in 1973 wicked problems. In the article Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning, the authors differentiate these problems from others by defining them as intractable, since the volume of participants involved, their interconnections to other difficulties and ultimately the non-existence of a correct answer make them impossible to solve.[1] This made me reflect upon what place I occupy in the world and what role I want to play as a designer in it.
Donella Meadows’ book Thinking in Systems makes it, at least for me, more visible. She proposes a mode of looking at complex problems as expressions of twisted systems, and how by breaking them down into simpler models a more clear and defined idea of how the elements’ interaction can be understood.[2] Of course these models will always remain as a reduced representation of the real world, but they certainly offer a useful overall view to start comprehending how they work. Climate change, food shortage, inequality and racism are just a few of the problems we are facing nowadays and for which traditional methods have shown unsuccessful solutions. As an answer to the urgent need of new and innovative outcomes, Transdisciplinary Design arose; and if its unconventional process can leads me to understand and ideally to create large-scale strategies to tackle these problems, it is where I believe myself and my hope to bring about a better world can find a place in the tangle of systems.
Transdisciplinary Design has intrigued me since the first moment I read about it. I could understand it but not fully put it into words, something that my classmates also expressed the first week of class. It was after reading Jamer Hunt’s Letter from the Editor text that I finally calmed down my anxiety of trying to describe it perfectly and decided to show with actions what it means to be a Transdisciplinary Designer in the complexity of today’s world. [3]
If there is something I would like to emphasize about the practice after this few months of school, it is its nature of teamwork. Collaboration is key. Following the idea of Steven Johnson in his book Emergence, the interacting agents of a bottom-up group responding to a specific environmental need have a distinctive strength in comparison to one expert working unaided.[4] Participatory design in our process permits multiple approaches, allowing the emergence of undiscovered and meaningful responses, and ultimately extends to society an incredible opportunity to join forces in the path towards an optimistic future.
[1] Horst Rittlel and Melvin Webber, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Policy Sciences 4 (1973): 155-169.
[2] Donella Meadows, “Thinking in Systems: A Primer,” (United States of America: Sustainability Institute, 2008): ch: 1-7.
[3] Jamer Hunt, “Letter from the Editor,” The Journal of Design Strategies Vol. 5 (2012) accessed October 15, 2016.
[4] Steven Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, (New York: Touchstone Press, 2002)
Celina Lacaze