Of design, of philosophy, & of action

αἴσθησις • ‎(aísthēsis) : That which is perceived / Cognition of moral discernment in ethical matters

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Seattle...technological development at the expense of the arts... #Seattle #Art #Humanities #USA #Urban #Downtown #Design

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The blooms of Spring... #Spring #Seattle #City #Urban #PacificNorthwest #Change #USA #Flowers #Blossoms

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Re-release of ‘Kazimir Malevich, SUPREMATISM 34 Drawings’

What is it with September 2017!! I just found out from a friend that there’s going to be a new release on September this year of the facsimile edition of Kazimir Malevich’s, SUPREMATISM 34 Drawings. Super excited as this has been out of print for years now! It’s an excellent year for art books. 

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Re-shaping Beijing’s Hutong - design in/for context

Chinese architect Zhang Ke’s new work in Beijing’s hutong neighbourhood speaks to a range of issues current in cities around the world - issues of tradition, of modernity, of context, and of change...

As discussed in a recent piece in Dezeen, Ke and his team have built a 30m square hostel with rooms that emerge at varying angles to a central courtyard in order to present an increased feeling of spaciousness and to disrupt the monotonic nature of the space. The work is design as an example of a broader “search for possibilities of creating ultra-small scale social housing within the limitations of super-tight traditional hutong of Beiling.” 

Beautiful and functional, the project team used concrete mixed with Chinese ink poured in-situ and cast against wooden boards to help ensure that the hostel aligned with the broader aesthetic of the hutong within which it was embedded. For good design is, echoing Eero Saarinen, always considerate of the next larger context. 

Ke’s work is a great exemplar that change need not involve the erasure of the past (which, or course, is never possible) but can instead be seen as developing with, and from, that same past. Tensions are inevitable but it is these points or spaces of friction that in many ways drive our creative endeavours.

Thanks to Dezeen for the pictures used in this post. 

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(That) Seattle - left behind... #Seattle #CapitolHill #Urban #Growth #Change #City #Architecture #Design (at Capitol Hill (Seattle))

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Ethics in design: considering the impacts of our work

As someone who’s been involved in design education for almost twenty years now I still lament the limited amount of time and energy that is spent on helping our students understand the ethical implications of their, and our, work. 

It’s been over twenty years since Victor Papanek’s ground-breaking work The green imperative: ecology and ethics in design and architecture came out, and almost fifty years since his original book on the topic Design for the real world came out, yet precious little time is spent in design training (and unfortunately practise) exploring the ethical, let alone ecological, impacts of our practice. 

With the recent focus on the impact of the ‘dark’ side of behavioural design for organizations like Uber we need as a profession to more concretely pay attention to the very serious ethical considerations and impacts which underlie our work. 

As a practicing designer I realize that it is not within our abilities to modify the brief for every one of our assignments but there is always scope for discussion and change with our clients. 

We’re all used to working with clients to help them understand that the ‘idea’ that they had for bringing us on in a project might not be the actual best solution required, or even that they may not be asking the correct underlying question to the issue at hand. We can do the same with regards the broader ethical and ecological implications of our projects. 

In The green imperative Papanek explicitly described how he did this in his own practice, outlining how he worked to help his own clients understand how they may be able to approach a project in a more ethically and ecologically sound manner than they’d originally envisaged. 

As a profession we are obligated to not only consider the ethical and ecological implications of our work but to also actually act on those considerations. We need to do this not only for our won work, and the future work of our students, but for the long-term viability of our profession and our very planet.

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Thomas Nozkowski

Super excited to see that John Yau is releasing a new book on the work of Thomas Nozkowski later this year (release date is 1 September 2017). For those fans of Nozkowski’s work this is definitely something to look forward to. It’s already on my Christmas list!!

Thomas Nozkowski, "Untitled (8-130)" (2010). Oil on linen on panel. 22 × 28 in. (55.9 cm x 71.1 cm). Photo by: G.R. Christmas / Courtesy The Pace Gallery.

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Assemble win the Turner: rethinking the limits of art

We’re just one of many writing about the ‘shock’ upset at the Turner awards earlier this week when architectural collective Assemble came out of nowhere to win. 

The collective won the prestigious award for their work on the redevelopment of the housing estate at Granby Four Streets in Liverpool. A joint project between the collective and local residents the awarding of this prize - the first to a design or architectural studio - is sending shock waves through the art world. 

No stranger to controversy the awarding of the Turner generally leads to much heated discussion about the type of art that is awarded. (Although the award is for visual artists the judges generally work with a wide scope as to what this actually constitutes.) This is the first time though that the discussion is not about the quality or not of the work awarded - is this good art? - but rather with the question - is this art? 

This discussion seem particularly apt given the space of change we collectively, at a global level, seem to be operating within. 

Indeed, this re-thinking of the role of art, and what constitutes art, is an interesting continuation of our ongoing them we’ve explored in our posts on the Chinese government’s response to changes in the way they perceive art and our earlier piece on post-minimalism and the new economic order. 

Looking at this debate, and in the wake of Jacques Rancière’s statement (which we’ve quoted before) that: 

social revolution is the daughter of aesthetic revolution 

then maybe we can assume that the aesthetic revolution is definitely underway and so maybe the social revolution is closer than many think?

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“This is the end of fashion as we know it”

It’s been a few months since the release of Li Edelkoort’s Anti-Fashion manifesto with her ten-point argument on the obsolescence of the fashion industry. 

Edelkoort’s argument that the fashion industry is out of synch with the shifts in global society that have been occurring over the last forty years is in alignment with other shifts that we’ve written about over the last few years. 

In her own words, “the fashion world is still working in a 20th-century mode, celebrating the individual, elevating the it-people, developing the exception... in a society hungry for consensus and altruism.” This then "places fashion out of society and de facto makes it old-fashioned." This lack of movement and alignment then is exacerbated by a “rapid and sordid restructuring process, which has seen production leave the western world to profit from and exploit low-wage countries."

Edelkoort’s manifesto is a strident and much needed call that goes directly to the root causes of the underlying problems we are confronting in a world dealing with the excesses of industrialization and the related issue of hyper-consumerism. As she herself argues, as things are currently constituted in the global fashion industry, "prices profess that these clothes are to be thrown away, discarded as a condom and forgotten before being loved and savoured, teaching young consumers that fashion has no value." 

‘Anti-Fashion’ is a clarion call for those of us in the design community and those interested in the creative fields to engage seriously with where our various industries are positioned in the global production system. Change is coming and we need to be able to step up to the mark. We need to be part of the solution - not part of the problem! 

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To Instagram

John Baldessari has joined Instagram! 

Interesting shifts afoot as established artists such as Baldessari and Ai Weiwei and Richard Prince join platforms such as Instagram and begin to use these new media for their work. 

Hmm... 

You can see Baldessari’s instagram feed here @John_Baldessari 

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Chinese design: of small and intimate & of reconstruction

Famous for it's large-scale engineering - of the country itself at it's grandest scale - there is a growing movement towards an appreciation of the more intimate scale and of building on the country's storied past. 

This interesting short video by the team at Dezeen highlights the work of the work of Shanghai architectural firm Neri&Hu with their Design Republic Commune. 

Built from the framework of a nineteenth century police station the structure tries to link modern Chinese sensibilities with its longer history. 

An interesting content of things to come? Or, a respite until the next Year Zero... 

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'Standing out in a crowd' - my photo from today in Capitol Hill, Seattle

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Appropriate innovation: of context, of design, & of common sense

A great new innovation space has been created in Santiago, Chile for the Universidad Católica de Chile. Designed as a space where companies and businesses could converge with researchers the design studio - Elemental - felt a need to ensure that the building would avoid the typical environmental and design pitfalls associated with many of innovation spaces - read 'glass-fronted buildings' - in Santiago. 

Designed with deeply recessed alcoves the building is designed to minimize the need for costly air conditioning so characteristic of many of the modern buildings constructed in Santiago's arid environment. 

Elemental's studio director Alejandro Aravena, in an interview with Dezeen described how "the uncritical search for the contemporary has populated Santiago with glass towers that due to the desert climatic local condition have serious greenhouse effect in the interiors."

But, to be innovative is not to merely discard what-was or what-is in the search for what-will-be. True innovation, like all good design, is about working within constraints to produce a product that is appropriate for the environment in which it operates. 

Talking about the design of the building the architects felt that "the biggest threat to an innovation centre is obsolescence; functional and stylistic obsolescence." And, in that vein, they felt that "the response to the context was nothing but the rigorous use of common sense."

Innovation as the rigorous use of common sense. Makes sense to me! 

For more on this see, the article at Dezeen. 

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Rock of ages: of the permanence of the earth and the shifting nature of the seasons.

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Of powerful women - remembering our pasts and celebrating our futures: Coast Salish Art

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The olympic dream: London's living walls

In the wake of the 2012 Olympic games many of the structures of the games continue to be used - as a communal swimming space, as a events space and more. 

As part of this re-use program the hoardings around the site have been incorporated in a broader project Living Walls. 

Put together by Moniker Projects working in collaboration with local communities, artists, and Create London the various pieces that make up the broader work have been created over the last year. 

Together the various come together to weave a tapestry of colours and textures which commemorates both what was and what will be around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. 

For more detail on this project see the article at Cool Hunting. 

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Of urban forests - street life in Seattle