LAUREN SHANTALL
We can’t expect design to save the planet, argues writer and publicist LAUREN SHANTALL. Changing the world for the better is nothing less than the key current task of human beings, she says – and what’s more, we already have all the tools we need with wh
Acarvery. An armoury. Both contain blades and invite the age-old philosophical discussion of knife as tool or knife as weapon. Design is much the same: the very problems for which Janus-like design is currently punted as saviour were generated by the other side of its coin.
Today, an architect can conceptualise a sustainable, skyscraping Smart City entirely from wood – a structural feat not possible previously – thanks to the introduction of cross-laminated timber. Yet design has also been used to modify attack drones.
In short, I don’t believe design can save the world. It is not a panacea. Such sloganeering should be saved for rousing support, championing a cause. I tenuously clutch at the belief that people can beat their swords into ploughshares. Intention is all.
The Biblical reference to Isaiah is, of course, very much intended. His call for peace and change rang out in approximately 700 BC. Yet man-made strife, warfare, wanton destruction of the environment and profiteering have continued to dog us since way, way back. At what expense came even the mighty cultural monuments we uphold? Impossibly tall pyramids triangulated by slaves; Easter Island denuded of trees to raise carved stone heads…
So is it with misguided optimism that people intend to use design as a tool for betterment? Can they alter the course of human history? Perhaps. Nonetheless, I’ll willingly pitch my tent in this camp of beautiful fools, and no white flag will I raise. It’s more likely that we’ll be forced to change out of necessity to avert self-annihilation – indeed, a monumental shift looms in which design will play an indispensable part.
Radical re-visioning is required to change how societies and industries are allowed to function, and the responsibility for this cannot be laid solely at design’s feet. Design artefacts and design thinking cannot be applied in isolation. A concept for a Smart City is reduced to mere musing unless there is a political, logistical, commercial, civic and legislative framework to usher it into existence. The juncture of all these is what will change the world. Design is one tine in a many-pronged fork – although many will argue it is design itself that will allow us to re-vision our outmoded systems in the first place.
Faced with the prospect of dwindling resources, overpopulation and pollution, we’re looking to extreme, mission-critical environmentalism and futurism. Environmentalism seeks to repair, conserve and introduce non-harmful modes of preserving life on – and for – the planet. The possibly unintended consequence of futurist attempts to design life-support systems that aid in colonising other planets (Mars being foremost in mind) is that these designs are opening up new paths for life on Earth itself – such as closed-circuit ways to farm food, conserve and generate energy, and produce clean air. Ironically, we’re birthing the very solutions that can help avert an exodus spawned by desperation and greed.
At this precise moment, it is already feasible to address the ills that plague our contemporary world with the alternative solutions we have at hand. Yes, design was woven into the creation of these answers, but it’s not the answer to implementation. It is we who are the agents of change.