HERE’S WHY REGION’S NEW RANKING SHOULD GET EVERYONE EXCITED
In what is an unprecedented event, the cities of San Diego and Tijuana have won in a joint bid for the biennial title of 2024 World Design Capital. This means that for the first time ever, it is not an individual city but a binational region that has been awarded this title. This is a big win and is terrific news not just for our two cities and the many organizations that were part of this collective effort but, ultimately, for the world because it is an opportunity to bring the innovative theme of our bid, HOME, into the world’s spotlight: Human-centered, Open, Multidisciplinary/Multicultural and Experimental.
Our eventual goal is to make it a model of borderless collaboration not just for other border cities around the world but for all cities and nations in general.
Everyone who lives in San Diego or Tijuana can accept the economic, cultural and ecological interconnectedness of our two cities as common wisdom. This connectedness reflects the broader connections between the two nations of
Mexico and the U.S. as well as the interdependence of the entire world (which the COVID-19 pandemic proved once and for all). In fact, the pandemic showed us the interdependence of not just the world but also the links between our biggest societal challenges and problems. For example, the U.S.-Mexico border has only recently reopened for nonessential travel after being closed for almost two years due to COVID-19.
We believe that one of the biggest reasons that the joint bid we helped prepare was selected for the World Design Capital title is the way that our ideas and proposals reflect what will increasingly need to be the approach that is adopted across the world for both current and future challenges. This approach can be summarized by the word — and acronym — HOME.
“Human-centered” means to put the needs of people and their communities, as well as the physical and mental well-being of those people and communities, at the center of industrial design of systems, services, resources and products. An excellent example of humancentered design is the concept of “15-Minute Cities,” which are pedestrian-friendly areas with all life’s needs close by. Other examples include artist Raul Cardenas’s Torolab and CROstudio’s Casa de las Ideas.
“Open” means that we want to be as inclusive as possible with newcomers and new ideas instead of being rigidly protective of traditional hierarchies and barriers that characterize big cities.
As we know, despite the shared economic, cultural and ecological linkages of our two cities, there are also some differences. These make it all the more important that we work together, collaboratively and inclusively, to solve our problems. This is where “multidisciplinary” and “multicultural” come in.
“Multidisciplinary” reflects the shared commitment from the many individuals and organizations from both San Diego and Tijuana — across education, government, business, design and the arts — that collaborated on this bid. The commitment all of us share is to include the perspectives of all these various sectors simultaneously. The perspectives of governments and businesses regarding specific problems must be paired and harmonized with the perspectives of the best minds from education, design, the humanities and the arts if we are to be true to our professed value of human-centered design, for example.
“Multicultural” means that we will take advantage of the diversity of our region and be as inclusive of that diversity as possible. In general, diversity and inclusion are two values that were very important in this bid. For example, one of the things that the World Design Capital selection committee wanted to see was how San Diego and Tijuana were already practicing the themes and principles of HOME. One of the ways we showed this was by demonstrating pre-existing educational collaborations between the university where the two of us teach, CETYS, and numerous other universities in the region such as UC San Diego and the University of San Diego.
Finally, “experimental” reflects our willingness to think outside the box and try new things, especially in the early stages of brainstorming, prototyping and testing. The complex challenges and crises of our time — be it the pandemic, supply chain problems, climate change and sustainability, or the challenge of homelessness — will probably not be solved by sticking to old, outdated models of problem-solving.
One of these outdated models is the idea of the border. Whether it’s “borderless professors” or “borderless design,” the solutions of the future will have to transcend traditional geographic borders and require all of us to work together in a way that highlights and strengthens the interconnectedness that our two cities have already shared throughout its histories. And now that we have been selected as the first binational region to be named World Design Capital, we will be able to showcase what we achieve together on the global stage and become a model of borderless, inclusive, transdisciplinary, human-centered design for the future and for the rest of the world. We are very excited to get to work. We hope you are, too.
Solutions of the future will have to transcend traditional geographic borders and require us to work together.