The annual Bioneers conference, from San Rafael, CA, is “a gathering of scientific and social innovators who have demonstrated visionary and practical models for restoring the Earth and communities”. The event features powerful speakers representing diverse approaches to sustainability.
Lucky for Bloomington residents, this weekend’s conference plenaries are being broadcast live via satellite to IU (click here for details). I stopped in today and checked out a provocative talk by Jay Hartmann, CEO of PAX scientific. PAX is an industrial design firm that uses patterns found in nature to improve industrial products. As Hartmann explained, millions of years of evolution have resulted in forms and systems that are unparalleled by human technology in their elegance and efficiency. PAX studies these ‘optimized geometries’ and applies them to design cleaner, more efficient and benign industrial products. For example the natural spirals have been used to create better fans with a variety of applications.
This overall approach to industrial design is known as Biomimicry and has been written about by Janine Benyus (see more here). Of course the strategy of using natural models as a means to design sustainably is not new. Permaculture design is based on this approach applied to food production, landscaping, and land-use. In the context of architecture, Christopher Alexander advocated for structure preserving transformations in his book Nature of Order. And most recently, Alexander’s work has inspired Eli Blevis to include the principle of “using natural models and reflection” in his manifesto for Sustainable Interaction design.
Hartmann’s talk suggests that this approach is gaining traction in the industrial world, which can only have positive implications for sustainability.
This week in Design Theory there was some interesting reading and discussion about the relationship between design and craft. Here are a couple open-ended questions that were brought to my mind:
1) In his book, Design Methods, John Chris Jones describes how in traditional craftsmanship, small incremental changes are made over long periods of time based upon successes and failures of use. This results in extremely well-adapted artifacts, refined to specific conditions of use and to the environment. In contrast, the modern design process is characterized by a separation among design, production, and use, as well as a rapid rate of innovation. In this context, I wonder, is it still possible to produce technology that is well-adapted and does no harm?
2) Uday Gajendar makes a strong case for how striving for craft can elevate quality and improve the user experience of an interaction design. I believe it is implied in this statement that interaction designers should be involved in the production of, for example, graphics, code, or interaction hardware. There are many complex skills involved in the production of interactive systems. How should a designer balance these production skills with all of the other skills need in design?
3) The notion of craftsmanship has connotations of an intimate, tangible relationship between the craftsperson and their material. The craftsperson works in an intensive hands-on way in the creation of each artifact and as a result, each artifact is unique and has an aura of authenticity. Is such possible when the material is digital? As mentioned above I think designers can experience an intimate, semi-tangible relationship with their creations, especially by participating in production. The “tangibleness” of this might grow as we increase the materiality of interactive experiences. But can interaction designers ever achieve an aura of authenticity when their works can be perfectly and infinitely reproduced without cost?
This was written for and originally posted on the Interaction Culture class blog
As Gillian Smith points out (in her forward to Designing Interactions), Interaction Design has drawn heavily on the ‘existing expressive languages’ of non-digital mediums. She breaks these traditional languages down into 4 ‘dimensions’: 1 – words and literature, 2 – painting, graphic design, iconography, 3 – product design, 4 – film and TV. Continue »