design studio IV (strategic design) - auto ethnography / bitacora
hey there :-) here is my intro-perspective journal of strategic design.
HOW TO READ MY BITACORA:
this color is theory, class take aways, and case study references.
this color is project advancements
anddd this color is personal references + reflections/ analysis from my life that relate to strategic design / final project
this color is theory, class take aways, and case study references.
this color is project advancements
anddd this color is personal references + reflections/ analysis from my life that relate to strategic design / final project
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4/9
* Vázquez is pushing back against the modern/colonial idea of a universal, detached self (the “view from nowhere”) and calling for a decolonial understanding of identity. To be a positioned self means:
- recognizing your specific place in power relations
- respecting the multiplicity of worlds and histories.
- and accepting responsibility for how you are implicated in ongoing structures of inequality.
* VUCA World
designing considering the VUCA terms: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complex, and Ambiguity
* Strategic Design is about creating your own model or framework.
* Desire in Design
importance of directing energy and effort towards movements that give rise to form and meaning, coexist within the same plane rather than apart.
11/9
* complex systems, understanding that complex systems are a variety of connections and multilayered. these systems entail of non linear relationships and unpredictable results.
* the importance of understanding the consequences of designing.
* complicated versus complex systems
each system to an extent relies on the other. for example a pilot flying a plane is a complicated system, it requieres time and effort but it can be done, on the other hand a complex system in this scenario would be the conditions the pilot is flying in, unpredictable and incalculable.
*separate pieces in order to bring back together: “the whole is more than the sum of its parts.” Aristotle
*emotions can cloud reality and as a result not allowing you to see the patterns in systems.
4/9
*Barcelona Super Blocks*
redesigning streets to favor pedestrians over automobiles
*Forest Fires Madrid Outskirts*
design decisions can lead to the problem, importance in analyzing all possible outcomes of design, negative or positive.
*Liz Sanders Strategic Design Diagram*
tools
11/9
*Donella Meadows, Dancing with Systems*
how you cannot control or design systems but you can dance with them to understand them.
PROJECT ADVANCEMENTS
4/9
group formation (Charles Martel, Isabel Valero, Pao Gutierrez, Anya Gomez)
sdg selection (sdg 9- industry, innovation, and infrastructure)
9/9
initial stages of unpacking and addressing our SDG 9 (industry, innovation, + infrastructure) from the root of the problem.
we began by analyzing certain realms of this SDG. one of those being hydro energy and analyzing the impact of AI data centers to our communities. we analyzed the possibility of creating a hydro clean data center around madrid. after research and better understandings we left this route and began the pursue of a new route
11/9
mapping why we care about this sdg and understanding the stakeholders within it. wanting to promote degrowth and controlled city growth, we began investigating and
mapping our interests and thoughts.
14/9
* in ontology design it is important to address what kind of world we are designing from and for who?
* shifting narratives
changing the narrative of human domination to ecological participation when considering life centered design.
* Arturo Escobar: rejected one size fits all solutions, he believed in designing with, rather than for, communities and systems.
Escobar rejects modernist principles of functionality, profit, and unilinear definitions, believes that these have led to our current overproduction and consumption.
strongly believed in the degrowth of modernism: he questions excess of rationalism, commodification, and ecological domination. reflects the coupling of progress with exponential growth. a life centered design advocate, believes that having an only exclusive focus on the human user ultimately blinds us from broader, ecological, and ethical concerns. stated how the user is not just the consumer but the whole ecosystem.
*Escobar and the Pluriverse*
the pluriverse is the concept of a world where many worlds fit. Escobar believed in unlearning 3 main principles of design in order to design adequately and for a pluriverse.
1. unlearning the idea of designers as experts
- designers must let go of control, and learn to embrace uncertainty
- expertise becomes shared and distributed, almost invisible
2. unlearning the idea that problems are universal
- challenges the concept that every challenge must be framed as a “problem” in order to be fixed.
3. unlearning that all knowledge is designable
- not everything can or should be a framework.
- lives in stories, rituals, landscapes, or symbols cannot be captured or translated into design terms, doing so can flatten context or harm the information shared
- not everything needs to be mapped, visualized, or made actionable
- SOME INSIGHTS ARE MEANT TO INFORM BEING, NOT DOING, RESPECT OPACITY.
14/9
*Arturo Escobar*
author of designs for the pluriverse
*Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and Making of Worlds. *
* “The notion of one world world signals the predominant idea in the west that we all live within a single world, made up of one, underlying reality and many cultures. This imperialistic notion supposes the west’s ability to arrogate for itself the right to be the world.” - arturo escobar
15/9
*brainstorming intervention points of our SDG.
16/9
*presentation day and feedback,
-rethink incentives through business growth and discuss internal growth
- understand the essence of our project and where we want to go
18/9
*understanding complex adaptive systems and their ability to adapt, organize, and evolve.
*Ezio Manzini, Everybody Design
diffuse design versus expert design
*Participatory Design, 1970 Scandinavia
- leads to workplace democract and social empowerment
18/9
*Ezio Manzini*
When Everybody Designs
* Participatory Design
PROJECT ADVANCEMENTS
(Click on photo for Link)
*Over the summer I attended the Worlds Hangliding and Paragliding International Competition in Ager, Lerida. Where I witnessed first hand the stable growth of this small town through the sports industry.
*Colorado Springs Olympic Sports Center Case Study
*This led us to consider how different industries can bring economic and stable population growth
*After choosing our case study of a town; Patones de Arriba we began our research. Patones de Arriba is a small town located 1 hour from the capital. The town has a total population of 48 full time residents and a slowly dying economy according to sources we found.
-considering this knowledge it could be interesting to explore a route in this direction.
- how can we utilize the environment surrounding Patones de Arriba to promote sustainable natural growth and relocation of high adrenaline sports?
-what can we learn from Ager, Lerida and its economic + population boom from flight sports?
-could Patones de Arriba possibly be redesigned to utilize its surroundings to become the next Colorado Springs Olympic Facility but for the Spanish Capital with a highlight on outdoor sports?
This weekend I watched a movie based on the true story of one of Tinders original Co-Founders. This true story is about the lack of credit she received and the sexual and workplace abuse she endured as an original founder of the app. The movie had many key points that stood out to me but at the very beginning of the movie Whitney Wolfe is asked what she wants to dedicate her life to. She pauses and proceeds to say that she doesn’t know, but knows what she doesn’t want to do.
“I know what I don’t want to do I don’t want to sell people things they don’t need, I don’t want to have a job that I have to pretend is interesting when I tell my friends, and I don’t want to do something that I have to tell myself has value when it actually kind of doesn’t”
What stood out to me about this was the initial part of her quote, how she sets her values and barriers in what she believes in. If I want to relay this in the terms of design, consumers need to stop being sold and marketed products or services that they don’t need. But how can this relate to my project?
I think we should consider the butterfly effects that design can create. I believe its important for designers to consider the idea that not every thing needs to be “designed” or maybe the very possible outcome that a design or a design solution can cause more harm then good or cause more disruptions for the systems directly surrounding our design “solution.” I have a confusing way of framing this but Arturo Escobar has a better way of explaining things. He says we need to unlearn the idea that problems are universal through methods of pluriverse design, being a framework that critiques:
“the idea that every challenge must be framed as a “problem” to be fixed. What appears problematic from a modern, external perspective may be an expression of a different logic, which might be in the real of the spiritual, ecological, or relational. Some conditions call for stewardship, not intervention. Unlearning this means resisting the impulse to define the situation and instead learning to witness, wait, and ask what care might look like. “
What I understand from this is to be conscious of what a problem truly is and how it can affect the environments around. Therefore I want the project outcome of this project to be something that can positively affect peoples lives at a long term scale.
“the idea that every challenge must be framed as a “problem” to be fixed. What appears problematic from a modern, external perspective may be an expression of a different logic, which might be in the real of the spiritual, ecological, or relational. Some conditions call for stewardship, not intervention. Unlearning this means resisting the impulse to define the situation and instead learning to witness, wait, and ask what care might look like. “
What I understand from this is to be conscious of what a problem truly is and how it can affect the environments around. Therefore I want the project outcome of this project to be something that can positively affect peoples lives at a long term scale.