introduzione
Together, the articles in this issue define key points of design’s evo-
lution. Design originated in pre-industrial economies that were bat-
tling with nature; it was then followed by the relatively brief period
of powerful, industrial economies in which their exponential pro-
duction of material goods had significant effect on design’s growth;
E, currently, the emergence of post-industrial societies have
caused many of design’s objects to be dematerialized and, così, Avere
shifted the sites of action.
Stuart Reeves, Murray Goulden and Robert Dingwall open
this discussion by considering The Future as a Design Problem. They
use the example of ubiquitous computing to demonstrate how the
twin methods of “grand vision” and “pragmatic projection” were
combined to realize a design for the future, at least in terms of ubiq-
uitous computing. They conclude by suggesting these methods need
enhancement in the current context if social legitimization, Quale
is a precondition for the achievement of better futures, is to be
achieved. They see this as a participatory process with non-experts
in which the creation of fiction should be incorporated into the
design practice—particularly to create futures that do not follow the
familiar shapes of corporate planning exercises.
This discussion continues throughout Ilpo Koskinen’s article,
Agonistic, Convivial, and Conceptual Aesthetics in New Social Design, In
which he identifies a parallel between post-war art and the condi-
tions of a new social design. Koskinen points out that artists, come
as Joseph Beuys and Fluxus, dematerialized their art to include
activities, events, happenings, and performances, as well as lan-
guage and information in conceptual art alongside social relations.
Like these post-war artists, new social designers demonstrate that
it is possible to dematerialize design to the point that material real-
ity does not disappear but becomes a marginal issue. This leads
Koskinen to ask, “Is aesthetics, Poi, a sine qua non of new social
progetto?” and to conclude that it is, but not in any obvious way.
In Systems Intertwined: A Systemic View on the Design Situation,
the twin concepts of “sense-making” and “judgment-making” are
explored by Sigrun Luras. Rather than taking user experiences as
their starting point, this approach emphasizes specific situations in
which designers find themselves. It further implies a shift from
viewing information as objective, to an approach in which infor-
mation is defined as an outcome of human cognitive processes;
doi:10.1162/DESI_e_00394
© 2016 Istituto di Tecnologia del Massachussetts
Problemi di progettazione: Volume 32, Numero 3 Estate 2016
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and humans, in this case—designers, are the sense-makers of
changing and sometimes elusive conditions. In this context, progetto
is informed both by making sense of that which exists already and
by making sense of, and judging, that which designers create in the
design process.
Following, Laura Forlano explores the tensions between a
city infrastructure and its citizens in Decentering the Human in the
Design of Collaborative Cities. In this she emphasizes the increasing
role of designers who must go beyond crafting individual graphics
or products toward designing services, organizations, systems, plat-
forme, and experiences in their project development. As designers
take on these roles, they now engage in the active creation and cura-
tion of complex socio-technical networks that coalesce around prob-
lems, issues, and controversies that have distinct politics, values,
and ethics. These, she concludes, are the artifacts of contemporary
design work as it relates to collaborative citymaking for the benefit
of all citizens.
In Baudrillard and the Bauhaus: The Political Economy of Design,
Matthew Holt explores the shift from an industrial, product-driven
modernity to a new political economy based on the primacy of the
sign, such as communication, informazione, and the media—
described by Baudrillard as the passage from a “metallurgic” to a
“semiurgic” society. È interessante notare, he discusses Baudrillard’s asser-
tion that this shift is exemplified through the work of the Bauhaus
which he says, “marks the point of departure of a veritable political
economy of the sign,” further arguing that it was the apotheosis of
the Industrial Revolution—“a second revolution, the crowning per-
fection of the industrial revolution, resolving all the contradictions
that the latter had left behind it.” So the Bauhaus is argued to be the
genesis of the universal extension of design as we now know it to
be. This has led to the design of totally artificial worlds and begs
Holt to question, “why design today is still considered primarily
commercial art and still consigned, for all intents and purposes, A
the margins of academia.”
In the next article Veronica Devalle traces the emergence of
Graphic Design as a University Discipline in Argentina, 1958–1985.
Devalle identifies the historical backdrop in which avant-garde
European movements set out to fuse the arts and architecture to
redefine the human environment. The Bauhaus and the Athens
Charter were references to this modernization of the human envi-
ronment as was the influence of the Hochschule für Gestaltung
(HfG), in Ulm, Germany. By the 1980’s design in Argentina was
established in the public perception and the cultural arena as a pro-
fession in its own right.
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Problemi di progettazione: Volume 32, Numero 3 Estate 2016
In Beyond Resolving Dilemmas: Three Design Directions for
Addressing Intrapersonal Concern Conflicts, co-authors Deger Ozkara-
manli, Pieter Desmet, and Elif Özcan discuss ways to manage the
conflicting concerns that people experience from a user-centered
approach to design and, hence, the dilemmas they often will
face. They argue that such dilemmas are pervasive phenomena of
everyday life, and that products play an important role in help-
ing people manage the dilemmas they will encounter each day. In
this they describe approaches for designers that include resolving
dilemmas, moderating dilemmas, and triggering dilemmas that
they illustrate through a series of nine case studies. These
approaches will, they argue, have implications for various fields of
design in which conflicting concerns are used as the driver for new
product innovation.
Victor Margolin’s visually depicted article, The Bicycles of
China, illustrates how inventive adaptations of a single form have
enabled and supported a flourishing economy of small business
enterprises. These bicycles enable vendors, cooks, mechanics, E
others to set up enterprises on the street. Not only can they move
from one site to another when business is slow, but they can also
transport everything they require to conduct business without the
need for a gas-powered vehicle. Così, the savings in gasoline and
the reduction in atmospheric pollution are enormous.
Alexandre Apsan Frediani goes on to explore participatory
design in processes of urban development. In Re-imagining Partici-
patory Design: Reflecting on the ASF-UK Change by Design Methodol-
ogy, Frediani redefines the concept and practice of participatory
design so as to move away from typically understanding it primar-
ily as a tool of conflict resolution, instead, to re-conceptualizing it
as a practice of learning and action concerned with the production
of a more just city. Frediani’s article contributes to the re-imagining
of participatory design into something that will instigate, provoke,
imagine, and transform cities into more just ones.
Grace Lees-Maffei’s review of the first two volumes of Victor
Margolin’s World History of Design offers a well-balanced overview
of this ambitious project that is yet to be completed. In particular,
she notes Margolin’s extension of the historical time-frame to
include pre-industrial and pre-historic materials. Questo, in and of
itself, forces some reconsideration of the premise that design, as we
know it, first emerged with the Industrial Revolution when produc-
tion cycles caused a separation of design from the other craft pro-
cesses. This is particularly important to some parts of the
non-Western world where the effects of industrialization were not
felt until much later in the time-frame, if at all, so they are at risk of
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Problemi di progettazione: Volume 32, Numero 3 Estate 2016
being seen to have had no history of design. Therefore, design his-
torians may, as a result of Margolin’s position, have to reconceptu-
alize their models of design in pursuing global design history.
Volume II of Margolin’s World History focuses on the period 1905–
45 which is his specialist area. Overall, as Lees-Maffei points out,
this single-authored World History draws on the enormous knowl-
edge-base gathered throughout a long career in such a way as to
give the history both a coherence and a distinctive voice.
In the review of Unrelenting Innovation: How to Build a Culture
for Market Dominance by Gerard J. Tellis, Kalle Lyytinen notes the
plethora of books that have been published on innovation over
recent years and suggests that this one should be read by profes-
sionals and scholars. In particular, he notes the author’s willingness
to subject his research questions to systematic and rigorous tests;
hence, the book is full of useful statistics, figures and graphs. How-
ever, Lyytinen also notes that the book does not address other forms
of contemporary innovation that are user-driven or of digital prod-
uct platforms, such as Facebook or Google.
Ashis Jalote Parmar’s review of Design Attitude by Kamil
Michlewski underlines the position that design professionals can
create, within organizations, a different and distinctive culture that
contributes to the nurturing innovation. The book notes the subor-
dinate position in which design professionals and their design
methods exist in relation to an organization’s established turf of
marketing, and the author argues that a critical mass of an organi-
zation’s design professionals can leverage its cultural significance
and be agents of change.
Finalmente, Stan Ruecker’s review of Information Design as Princi-
pled Action, edited by Jorge Frascara, highlights this book’s value by
bringing together materials about a field that first emerged in the
early 1970’s. The overall message is that good information design is
the right of every citizen; it is not an option but a necessity.
As debates, such as these, have grown and matured with
each volume of Design Issues, so too has the journal sought to enrich
both the range and the inter-cultural context of our work. Accord-
ingly, two new co-editors and two new contributing editors have
joined the editorial board. Co-editor Kipum Lee is director of Inno-
vation at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio. As an organiza-
tional designer with a PhD in management, he is interested in the
shaping of quality experiences for all stakeholders served by orga-
nizations through human-centered design. Co-editor Ramia Mazé is
professor of New Frontiers in Design at Aalto University in Finland.
She specializes in participatory, critical, and politically-engaged
design practices. The two new contributing editors are Aric Chen,
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Problemi di progettazione: Volume 32, Numero 3 Estate 2016
who is based in Hong Kong, and Alpay Er, in Istanbul. Aric is lead
curator for Design and Architecture at M+, the new museum for
visual culture being built in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural
District. He previously served as creative director of Beijing Design
Week. Alpay is professor and head of the Industrial Design Depart-
ment at Ozyeğin University (OzU) / Istanbul Institute of Design
(İID). Alpay is a member of the Design Research Society (DRS), E
was conferred with “Fellowship of DRS” in 2006. He served in the
International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (lcsid) as a
member of the executive board (2011–2013) and is currently a
member of the board of directors of World Design Organization
(WDO/Icsid).
Bruce Brown
Richard Buchanan
Carlo Di Salvo
Dennis Doordan
Kipum Lee
Vittorio Margolin
Ramia Mazé
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Problemi di progettazione: Volume 32, Numero 3 Estate 2016
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