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Design Participation
4 12
Conferences
Design Participation MANCHESTER
September
A DesignResearch
1971
Society Conference
The baring and masochistic scratching of two running sores on the design profession’s flesh were the chief preoccupations of this design participation conference. The sores were the selfidentify crisis of the profession-as Reyner Banham put it: “we’re not sure what we’re about, or how we should go about it”-and the apparently intractable futuristic concept of user participation and what this means in practice. Designers appear as a loosely defined group sandwiched somewhere between the people, the administraters and the politicians. Traditionally, they selfeffacingly admit, they have had little time for any of these groups which have merely provided the means for them to pursue their exclusive role of imaginative creativity. No longer so. Distributed knowledge and the expressed desire for the balance between administrative efficiency and natural justice to be weighted in favour of the latter have brought with them the radicals’ demand that the designer abdicate in favour of the user. Such forces of social change have characterised developments in all professions. Indeed, Professor Page pointed out that the designer should not see his role in terms of having to demote himself independently of everyone else. Doctors and social workers have met similar circumstances by being more humble about the extent of their own expertise and more participant in their work. Designers, on the other hand, while appearing frightened at the extent to which they are able to manipulate peoples’ lives, blanch at the logical alternative-a society in which the man next door has as much power as
the next. Working analogies were sought in the planning field to give credence to a variety of conceptions of how this distributed power could be effected. Some liked participation of the Consumer Council sort, some saw hope in the kind of popular pressure that helped revoke the decision of the siting of the third London Airport, others made reference to dwellingareas that have grown up on the outskirts of towns in, say, South America, which Jeff Nutall described as urban collage, and which were naturally artistic and impermanent and really reflected people’s needs. More practical problems concerning userparticipationwere scarcely touched. How broadly can one define ‘the user’, for instance ? Is he merely the person who will actually ‘use’ the object under consideration or does the notion incorporate all those within the environment where the object will be situated ? And how far does this environment extend ? What about the existing political system ? Professor Page pointed out that designers as a breed have a lack of interest in the political machine; design is ego-intensive and its practitioners tend to ignore it in the hope that one day it will wither away and something new and enlightened will arrive. There was greater emphasis placed on modern technological aids to assist participation. Computer-aided design and computer models were particularly mentioned. Christopher Evans of the Natural Physical Laboratory, Teddington, explained how the chief obstacles to the computer having an impact on people and the sciences over the last 25 years-ie, cost, size and language, have been dramatically broken down over the last few years. Nevertheless, the planning models that were lavishly illustrated by William Mitchell and Peter Kamnitzer of the school of Architecture and Urban Planning, UCLA, relied on extremely expensive
FUTURES
December 1871
Books
equipment, and included all the inherent weaknesses of simulation. The 150 people who were attracted by the ambiguous words in the title of this conference were obviously conscious of the need to serve people’s changing liberal attitudes. The attempt at experimentation in the conference’s organisation, however, reflected the absence of positive conviction in many of the ideas expressed. For, although tv equipment relayed and recorded the proceedings, and the bar stayed open late, the conference consistently resorted to a tradional organised form which, on the whole, was perfectly satisfactory. The lasting impression of the conference was more radical; it comes in the form of a message and it is paraphrased from Robert Jungk’s concluding remarks; we have too few ideas about what is possible: we must not encourage a master-pupil dialogue in design but rather a pupil-pupil dialogue, designers are trained to cope with what they know, perhaps they should be trained to cope with G.F.S. what they don’t know.
Presentations and speakers included: Alternative networks for the alternative culture? by Reyner Banham Participation in planning decisions, by Peter Levin Information processes for participatory design. bv Yona Friedman Proi%ti& consumer interests, by William Osborne How to use technology, by Jeff Nuttall Choosing the future, by Robin Roy Participation, communication and education, by Peter Stringer Putting television to work for the community, by Roy Madron Adaptive conditional architecture, by Charles Eastman Self-organising environments, by Sean Wellesley-Miller A doughnut model of the environment and its design, by Tom Markus Living in an architecture machine, by Nicholas Negroponte Chatting with computers, by Christopher Evans Simulation and solution teams in architectural decision-making, by Tom Maver Experiments with participation-oriented computer systems, by William Mitchell Organised creativity, by D. H. Chaddock Value theory as a vehicle for user participation in design, by J. N. Siddall Planning and protest, by John Page
BOOKS THE SCIENCE PEACE
OF WAR
AND
by ROBIN CLARKE 348 pages, E2.95. Jonathan Cape, London History tells us that wars recur in fifty-year cycles, growing ever more lethal. (In the nineteenth century they killed an average of 15 people for every thousand of the population ; in the twentieth the figure was 90 per 1 000.) They occur at mathematicallyprecise intervals after alliances are made: war is predicted to break out three years and seven months after Russia allies with the USA. In this important book-for what subject could be more important ?-
FUTURES
December 1971
Robin Clarke details the elaborate preparations that are being made, from the orbiting bomb to the DOMIS or Deep Ocean Manned Instrumented Stations. One-fifth of the world’s scientists are working on what is politely known as ‘deterrence’, he tells expenditure us, and world military equals the entire national income of the countries of Latin America, South Asia and the Near East put together. All this makes gloomy reading: most of us already feel that another world war is only too probable and that it will be unprecedentedly nasty. To be told so with chapter and verse is almost too much to endure. It is when he turns to the science of peace that our hopes begin to rise.
413
Conferences
Design Participation MANCHESTER
September
A DesignResearch
1971
Society Conference
The baring and masochistic scratching of two running sores on the design profession’s flesh were the chief preoccupations of this design participation conference. The sores were the selfidentify crisis of the profession-as Reyner Banham put it: “we’re not sure what we’re about, or how we should go about it”-and the apparently intractable futuristic concept of user participation and what this means in practice. Designers appear as a loosely defined group sandwiched somewhere between the people, the administraters and the politicians. Traditionally, they selfeffacingly admit, they have had little time for any of these groups which have merely provided the means for them to pursue their exclusive role of imaginative creativity. No longer so. Distributed knowledge and the expressed desire for the balance between administrative efficiency and natural justice to be weighted in favour of the latter have brought with them the radicals’ demand that the designer abdicate in favour of the user. Such forces of social change have characterised developments in all professions. Indeed, Professor Page pointed out that the designer should not see his role in terms of having to demote himself independently of everyone else. Doctors and social workers have met similar circumstances by being more humble about the extent of their own expertise and more participant in their work. Designers, on the other hand, while appearing frightened at the extent to which they are able to manipulate peoples’ lives, blanch at the logical alternative-a society in which the man next door has as much power as
the next. Working analogies were sought in the planning field to give credence to a variety of conceptions of how this distributed power could be effected. Some liked participation of the Consumer Council sort, some saw hope in the kind of popular pressure that helped revoke the decision of the siting of the third London Airport, others made reference to dwellingareas that have grown up on the outskirts of towns in, say, South America, which Jeff Nutall described as urban collage, and which were naturally artistic and impermanent and really reflected people’s needs. More practical problems concerning userparticipationwere scarcely touched. How broadly can one define ‘the user’, for instance ? Is he merely the person who will actually ‘use’ the object under consideration or does the notion incorporate all those within the environment where the object will be situated ? And how far does this environment extend ? What about the existing political system ? Professor Page pointed out that designers as a breed have a lack of interest in the political machine; design is ego-intensive and its practitioners tend to ignore it in the hope that one day it will wither away and something new and enlightened will arrive. There was greater emphasis placed on modern technological aids to assist participation. Computer-aided design and computer models were particularly mentioned. Christopher Evans of the Natural Physical Laboratory, Teddington, explained how the chief obstacles to the computer having an impact on people and the sciences over the last 25 years-ie, cost, size and language, have been dramatically broken down over the last few years. Nevertheless, the planning models that were lavishly illustrated by William Mitchell and Peter Kamnitzer of the school of Architecture and Urban Planning, UCLA, relied on extremely expensive
FUTURES
December 1871
Books
equipment, and included all the inherent weaknesses of simulation. The 150 people who were attracted by the ambiguous words in the title of this conference were obviously conscious of the need to serve people’s changing liberal attitudes. The attempt at experimentation in the conference’s organisation, however, reflected the absence of positive conviction in many of the ideas expressed. For, although tv equipment relayed and recorded the proceedings, and the bar stayed open late, the conference consistently resorted to a tradional organised form which, on the whole, was perfectly satisfactory. The lasting impression of the conference was more radical; it comes in the form of a message and it is paraphrased from Robert Jungk’s concluding remarks; we have too few ideas about what is possible: we must not encourage a master-pupil dialogue in design but rather a pupil-pupil dialogue, designers are trained to cope with what they know, perhaps they should be trained to cope with G.F.S. what they don’t know.
Presentations and speakers included: Alternative networks for the alternative culture? by Reyner Banham Participation in planning decisions, by Peter Levin Information processes for participatory design. bv Yona Friedman Proi%ti& consumer interests, by William Osborne How to use technology, by Jeff Nuttall Choosing the future, by Robin Roy Participation, communication and education, by Peter Stringer Putting television to work for the community, by Roy Madron Adaptive conditional architecture, by Charles Eastman Self-organising environments, by Sean Wellesley-Miller A doughnut model of the environment and its design, by Tom Markus Living in an architecture machine, by Nicholas Negroponte Chatting with computers, by Christopher Evans Simulation and solution teams in architectural decision-making, by Tom Maver Experiments with participation-oriented computer systems, by William Mitchell Organised creativity, by D. H. Chaddock Value theory as a vehicle for user participation in design, by J. N. Siddall Planning and protest, by John Page
BOOKS THE SCIENCE PEACE
OF WAR
AND
by ROBIN CLARKE 348 pages, E2.95. Jonathan Cape, London History tells us that wars recur in fifty-year cycles, growing ever more lethal. (In the nineteenth century they killed an average of 15 people for every thousand of the population ; in the twentieth the figure was 90 per 1 000.) They occur at mathematicallyprecise intervals after alliances are made: war is predicted to break out three years and seven months after Russia allies with the USA. In this important book-for what subject could be more important ?-
FUTURES
December 1971
Robin Clarke details the elaborate preparations that are being made, from the orbiting bomb to the DOMIS or Deep Ocean Manned Instrumented Stations. One-fifth of the world’s scientists are working on what is politely known as ‘deterrence’, he tells expenditure us, and world military equals the entire national income of the countries of Latin America, South Asia and the Near East put together. All this makes gloomy reading: most of us already feel that another world war is only too probable and that it will be unprecedentedly nasty. To be told so with chapter and verse is almost too much to endure. It is when he turns to the science of peace that our hopes begin to rise.
413