How design must respond to disruption.
As part of Munich Creative Business Week, the IF Universal Design initiative invited people to reflect on the future of the concept of universal design. I started with this short paper.
The term disruption is currently on everyone’s lips. Digital marketers are using it to declare their own products as the only sensible and viable ones. Companies in all sectors are using the term to legitimize the radical restructuring of their own business foundations and job losses. Cult companies such as Facebook and Apple use it to sell their own power strategies as the result of an inevitable evolution of human interaction.
At the same time, a very different and very real disruption is taking place at a societal level. Assumed certainties are being thrown overboard by the European crisis or washed away by the wave of refugees. At the same time, certain achievements in the culture of political debate seem to be disappearing of their own accord. In politics, “disruption” seems to have a lot to do with “plucking out”. Not an innovation-driving process of creative destruction, but a return to a partial barbarism or at least to grayer times.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that disruption is here to stay. And we need to find an answer to it. Or rather: many answers. I would like to illustrate this with four core concepts. And with terms that are not the usual positive terms á la “inclusion, sustainability, harmony”. The latter are not wrong. But I am interested in possibly more controversial terms that nevertheless characterize our society – and which can certainly provide new insights as an impulse.
1. chaos
Angela Merkel’s “We can do it” was perhaps problematic because it came across as strangely out of context. Optimism and self-confidence are good. But they must be fed by concrete sources. These sources exist. But Merkel failed to mention them. As a result, they were unable to counter today’s uncertain social topography. The refugee crisis is not the first time that societies in the western world have found themselves in a state of declining security.
The events at Cologne Central Station around New Year’s Eve have shown this: Even spatially, we can no longer rely on the security of given patterns of design, architecture and associated ideas. The cathedral was still there. But outrageous events took place in its shadow. This means for architecture and design: Their role as symbolizers of a safe world is undermined. They no longer represent security. This may seem negative, but it also offers opportunities. Also for design. But it must respond proactively to the challenge. We need forms that correspond to a world that has become insecure.
2. fear
The world out there is hostile. The world out there is terribly complex. This leads to defensive reactions. In politics, we are currently seeing this in the discourse on new borders or border closures. Even intellectuals like Peter Sloterdijk, actually a pioneer of globalization, are falling into reactive thought patterns. And new fences and walls are being built. It is striking how unspeakably ugly the borders between our worlds are. The “border wall” type of building is the least designed object in the world. And rightly so. It embodies pure negation. This refusal to design reflects the guilty conscience of the border demarcators. Unconsciously, they know: Anyone who draws a line is acting defensively, uncreatively. This form of uncreativity is sometimes necessary in politics. But it is always the worst of all solutions.
Incidentally, the same applies to companies. They also tend to isolate themselves at first. The design centers of the big car companies resemble fortresses. But the future looks different. And there is also a change in thinking at company headquarters. In my book “Urban Innovation Networks”, I described this in relation to the creative space of the city. In it, I describe how companies are tentatively but visibly beginning to guide urban diversity into their factory gates. The Trojan horse of the city ideas machine. Siemens, BMW, Audi, Ikea – they are all pursuing urban strategies. These are strategies of courage, strategies of openness. Strategies against fear.
3. conflict
Which city do we want to live in? I am currently thinking a lot about the honesty with which urban centers deal with their own conflict potential. Especially here in Munich. All too often, a form of urbanity is invoked that simply ignores the natural conflicts in urban space. The result is historicizing forms of architecture such as the anticipated new Mandarin Oriental by Hild and K. Conversely, the city is already in an uproar over a small high-rise building by Auer & Weber at the central station. Just a reminder: six DAX 30 companies are based in this city. Through its subsidiary Allianz Global Investors, Allianz alone holds assets under management of 1,500 billion euros. 1.5 trillion. This is no Meister Eder city. And you can see that in the city. Because we should not forget one thing: Meister Eder would have closed up store long ago. Incidentally, he would no longer live in Munich either – unless he had inherited it.
4. robbery
Design today is characterized by a culture of robbery. And that’s a good thing. What I mean is: Design is democratizing. In the magazine “New Media and Society”, author Mark Richardson sings the praises of hacker culture. His thesis: not only pieces of music, but also three-dimensional design pieces are increasingly becoming the object of creative change and copying, possibly also changing. For him, this is a liberation from traditional hierarchies.
As propagandists of the author principle in the design of products and buildings, we may dislike this. But perhaps it is time to give people space for their own creativity. And not in the sense of giving up their own author status. This is also the misunderstanding that architects such as Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid) fall victim to in comparison to their more integrative colleagues such as Alejandro Aravena. It is not a question of giving up one’s own design aspirations. It is a matter of understanding that this claim does not give rise to design sovereignty. It is also about designing with self-confidence – but also about knowing that every realized design is only the starting point for a series of appropriations, creative interpretations – and also transformations.
All in all, this means: The designed future and the future of design are not harmonious or conflict-free. But they are immensely rich in potential.
