What we're getting into.

In the Bubble is one of those  books that will send you thinking sideways. You’ll find yourself staring into space and daydreaming about what’s possible. Its the kind of work that forces you to rethink your everyday approach to things and question them anew. John Thackara has done a great job at synthesizing work going on in multiple disciplines to create a thoughtful framework through which we can focus design thinking moving forward.

Thackara sees the future of the design profession as one in which designers must evolve, "from being the individual authors of objects, or buildings, to being facilitators of change among large groups of people". He proposes a new kind of design mindfulness which values and balances both human needs and environmental needs while focusing on service creation rather than the design and production of more unneeded objects and technologies. He describes a system of 10 factors to consider  to create more innovate and sustainable outcomes. These concepts structure the book by chapter and include, lightness, speed, mobility, locality, situation, conviviality, learning, literacy, smartness, and flow. Each chapter weaves together a narrative combining philosophy, science, and design examples to tell the story of why these issues are critical  to  the  current  design landscape.

Read this book now!

Groove’s very own resident writer extraordinaire Sam McMillan is featured in the current issue of Communication Arts (Issue #358). Sam wrote a wonderful expose on San Francisco design firm Turner Duckworth.  T/D does fantastic work and even employs several of my former students. Check out the issue and the great work by both Turner Duckworth and Mr. McMillan.

Sustainable, green, mindful, business-driven.

All these terms appear to be principles shaping the future of design but what do they really mean for our day-to-day practice?  My resolution for 2008 is to gain a deeper understanding of what’s behind the buzzwords. So, being that I’m a serious book geek, I’ve assembled a starter reading list. I’d love more suggestions and anyone interested in doing a book group should contact me at: rainey@groove11.com. I’ll report back as I go.

Green Design
by Buzz Poole (Editor)

By examining how companies such as American Apparel and Lego have been able to understand their places in the business world as places in the physical world, Green Design shows how designers and companies that take progressive, creative approaches to products and product marketing can satisfy bottom lines as they maintain environmental and social values.

Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century
by Alex Steffen

This 600-page companion to the eco-friendly website of the same name (www.worldchanging.com) is chock-a-block with information about what is going on right now to create an environmentally and economically sustainable future–and what stands in opposition.

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
by William McDonough, Michael Braungart

Cradle to Cradle maps the lineaments of McDonough and Braungart’s new design paradigm, offering practical steps on how to innovate within today’s economic environment. Part social history, part green business primer, part design manual, the book makes plain that the reinvention of human industry is not only within our grasp, it is our best hope for a future of sustaining prosperity.

In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World
by John Thackara

"Design with a conscience: that’s the take-home message of this important, provocative book. John Thackara, long a major force in design, now takes on an even more important challenge: making the world safe for future inhabitants. We need, he says, to design from the edge, to learn from the world, and to stop designing for, but instead design with. If everyone heeded his prescriptions, the world would indeed be a better place. Required reading — required behavior."
–Don Norman, Nielsen Norman Group, author of Emotional Design

Last Thursday night Groove producer Melanie Barter and I decided we needed a little fine art infusion so we headed to SF MOMA to hear installation artist Anne Hamilton speak about her work. Hamilton’s grand scale installation practice explores the body, language, time, place and labor. Her work feels like an invitation to slow down and ponder the more embodied experience around us and is a stark contrast to our daily fasted paced data filled lives. Her lecture was a combination book release party and a marking of SF MOMA’s acquisition of Hamilton’s piece, “Indigo Blue” to the permanent collection.

In general I love Hamilton’s work but for me so much of its success is the dialog between the material and the installation spaces themselves. “Indigo Blue” was originally created for the Spoleto Festival in South Caroline in 1991and was an investigation of the history, economy and loss. The piece’s main element, centered on 14,000 pounds of folded used blue cotton work clothing framed by a live attendant who continually erases text from a book back to front. It’s recreation and installation in the SF MOMA galleries felt more like a strange Gap store display than like the richly patina-ed original. This phenomena certainly opens up many issues related to site specificity and questions whether certain kinds of works can move forward in space and time while retaining their initial power.

Despite the fact that I was disappointed by seeing “Indigo Blue” in a sterile gallery setting, hearing Hamilton speak was a pleasure all it’s own. As I would expect this was no linear lecture, but one that gave the listener the sense of entering into an already ongoing interior dialog, leaving one with the sense of listening to Hamilton as she tried to sort out for herself the ongoing trajectory and connections within her work.

For more on Anne Hamilton visit:
http://www.sfmoma.org/msoma/artists/hamilton.html
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/hamilton/index.html
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/?m=20070619