M.Sc. bauhaus COOP Design Research
 

Abstract

In my previous project-based design research practice, I proposed a pavilion to explore hybrid space usage which aims to emphasise collective experience combining mixed reality and physical space. It is a design practice based on social design methodology with empathy, a problem-solving approach for the social issue and democrat the space-making process in the local neighbourhood. The concept develops into a mobile interdisciplinary lab that provides events or workshops to practice participatory design. It extends as a community hub with a local and global connections through the network. Which ends as a speculative concept in the unbuilt graduate project realm along with the social issue that I wish to voice out. With this, the thesis aims to investigate the possibility of practice that can raise social awareness alongside, additional or even prior to applying design methodology and strategy. And in what manner should we explore the information of the crisis in a holistic aspect?
 

The research context focuses on social innovation, which leads to the matter of the common good, collaboration and collective intelligence. It aims to investigate the source behind the current obstacle that designer encounters when facing projects that are related to the complex of crisis. The impact of connecting the practice of design with entrepreneurship, interdisciplinary and community with technology. The goal is to experiment and analyse ways to practice co-design manner. May it be a decentralise global dialogue on social issues with the transfer of knowledge between different disciplines and the public. Through Tony Fry’s ontological design concept as a political practice ’to recognise the insufficiency of design practice’ and ‘to take account of what design does.’ It aims to investigate how to establish a social practice on understanding the ontological design which connects the social design and community design within the hybrid spatial environment. Explore the possibility of a non-problem-solving social practice to the discourse in the transition design framework and community-based social innovation design practice. It searches a way to experience unlearning and to rethink methodology, theory and tools with different directions of time and space. The purpose of this is to explore the possibility of a social practice related to design as a groundwork to raise awareness of the complexity of the design research on the crisis. It is to question the current situation under the technocene by examining how to establish a social practice as a ‘message’ to assembly as a form of ‘medium’. More importantly, what could a social practice that decolonizes our predisposition and generates a common ground be like?
 

Keywords
ontological design, social innovation, social practice, transition design, design science, unlearning, design philosophy, plug-in theory, experimental learning environment, experience 

M.Sc. bauhaus COOP Design Research

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Introduction

Can design practice as a bridge and act as an interactive being within the system to connect to a better world? By reviewing works of literature related to the notion of design or non-design theorists proposes for the complex world. We can gain a better understanding of where we are currently in the process of change.

 

In this paper, the structure is of three parts. First, are we in the process of utopia? From a bigger scale of utopian theory literature and the relationship between social science and design science problem solving, we can examine what they have in common and in the nature of the 'means to an end' problem-solving attitude. Second, from the theory of common to the question of design philosophy towards the complex crisis. Third, review works related to social innovation and community design practice.

 

The objective of the essay is to explore and analyse the 'common' as a factor in the complexity of a complex crisis in different fields. The aim is to provide new insight and question of the complex and considers their relationship to the world of common.

 

Keywords
ontological design, social innovation, social system, transition design

M.Sc. bauhaus COOP Design Research

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Introduction

In the article “RFID: Human Agency and Meaning in Information-Intensive Environments”, N. Katherine Hayles lay down her concerns addressing the fabric of society’s issues that bond to RFID technology application, for example, military, politics, capitalism, surveillance, ethics and free will. She argues that science fiction can be considered an important model for examining new technologies and increasing ethical awarenesses through investigating science fiction writings’ epistemological and ontological meaning and interpretation. Hayles reflects on human literature’s linguistic approach to the issues and demonstrates how they can deal with the complexity of society. Within this complex, Technology reveals the relationship of its technological agent to human agency and explores the meaning of being a human or posthuman through literature that expressed the future world.

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In regard to the essay, I’m interested in further elaborating on the questions that emerge from Hayles’s argument and reflecting on her “Modest proposal: Reconnecting information and meaning” towards technology application issues. Through this, we can develop the notion of how can we can be prepared for the ‘technological unconscious’. Before we attempt to find the solution, first we need to understand the whole complex of the problem and find out the complexity of this network through its concerns of it. Due to the complexity of the discourse about the technological crisis, to understand the background of the concern regarding technology is necessary. In order to truly apprehend the science fiction connection with technology development, what will these concerns bring us to? Is ethical enhancement our only solution? Would examining science fiction be enough to assist us in this crisis?

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The objective of this elaboration is to discuss and examine the complexity of a complex crisis. The complex refers to technology development and its relationship with science fiction literature. The complexity refers to the environmental factors connected to the complex. The aim is to provide new insight and question into the complexity of this complex and considers their influences and connection with human agency in the new media era.

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The structure of the essay first reviews the concern regarding technology development and human agency up to the latest development of technology. How science fiction writers see their relationship between technology development and social background of the complexity. Following the questions refer to the complex and from that, examine whether science fiction does help the current situation of the technological unconscious.

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The outcome is to bring out the urgency of questioning concerns the technology and science fiction development. It is crucial under the technocene, and as we are part of the problem itself, understanding the complexity and concerning their influence on humankind is an important step.

M.Sc. bauhaus COOP Design Research

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In Tim Ingold's book the perception of the environment (chapter nineteen), he explains that art and technology were etymologically supposed to be from the same origin. But yet, following the history of humans and due to the art academy up raising, 'art' trend to relate with "creativity and imagination”. (Ingold 2000, 350) He addresses that study of art and technology were absence in the field of anthropology until they finally acknowledged the missing "social context and embodies cultural meaning" in art and the "social embeddedness of technological systems" from technology. (Ingold 2000, 351) As he argues that by going back to the fundamental essences of art and techne as skill, anthropology can reveal a satisfying result on "socially and environmentally situated practices of real human agents”. (ibid.)

 

So then I have to ask, isn't art and technology also being part of the design? And for us, the generation that chasing innovation and changes, Design is also being separated into various applications and into several disciplines. Isn't what we can work on the matter regarding the industry by returning to the study of the essence of the design itself? With this, I am wondering if this is also relevant or could take it as a rethink on design education. From his argument regarding the separation of art and technology and his perspective concerning anthropology on this matter, I would like to refer back to the field of design education, as a reflection on my opinion on transdisciplinary knowledge and its development.

 

With the cultural and societal changes and contrast, an all-rounded education is hard to last long, be it innovative or back to the basics, following the movement on design regarding the sharing economy, the outcome is not that glamorous at all. What troubles me is that, in medieval times, there was already forming this workshop pattern of co-working and living together. (Sennett 2008, 53-80) Then why don't we take a careful analysis of their background, of their pros and cons, to discover what we can learn from it? Or some of them did, but again won't last long, either without enough funding or political reason. Design education development history is always tangled with its historical background, within the complex environment (culture, politics and geography), training of technique, art and craft, practice on critical thinking, consideration of personal growth and personality are nonetheless becoming the forgotten basics. Institutions are more focused on practical and technical an instrument, seemingly for preparing the next generation for industry use. However, these are the thought of the last generation. It does not apply to us, under the technosphere anymore. Where design is not only unique for the designer but applied everywhere possible. We came out from an industrial institute and we got swallowed in the very same big company driven the industry. Being on earth we are all part of the team, so to speak, but which team exactly? Just like what Slavoj Zizek claims in his book Like a Thief in Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Human Capitalism, he states that "The young undergo the educational process in order to be integrated into the hegemonic social order, which is why their education plays a pivotal role in the reproduction of the ruling ideology." (Zizek 2019)

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There is a gap in education in which the innovation of study can no longer follow the footstep of technology development. The factory of mass production in the product industry is employed heavily in the robotic and automated manufacturing mode. Two years ago, when I had a chance to visit a furniture company's factory in Germany, the representative manager proudly told me the exciting news that they were transforming into a smart factory in the next few years, fully autonomous systems with machine learning indeed, into the Industry 4.0 (the fourth Industrial Revolution). As a designer, under the technosphere, this is bad news, because with machine learning, the work of design is learnable and the input is analysable, which means we are replaceable. So then, who makes this design process becomes an input for the data scientist to code? What design education can do about this change of our time? And what responsibility do we, as design research students have for this?

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Bibliography

Ingold, Tim. The perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling & skill, New York: Routledge, 2000. Sennett, Richard. The craftsman. Yale University Press, 2008.

Zizek, Slavoj. Like a Thief in Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Human Capitalism. Seven Stories Press, 2019.

M.Sc. bauhaus COOP Design Research

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"volksbedarf statt luxusbedarf”[1] or "funktion mal ökonomie”[2], sounds so normal and it seems so right fitting in the uprising collective economy or co-design trend in the industry these days. Though, it is an urge from the "unknown" second Bauhaus director, an architect and the co-operative practice master - Hannes Meyer in his late 20s. Whether the idea was considered "normal" back then? What leads him to this concept and why?

The assignment for us was to read the text written by Meyer and look into two architectural drawings from the project "School of the ADGB" in Bernau. I first went to the museum and when I was up close tracing the hand-drawing, I see characters, minor mistakes that erase and replace, the assemblage way of putting all layout, elevation and sunlight diagrams on one page, the way human's draw lines that are with flaws, imperfect and not of an exact and precise stopped. What's in front of me is the human touch. That’s lacking and makes architectural drawing cold nowadays, while drawing is fulfilling the requirement rather than an expression. It was pleasant to study the plan and I admire the effort not only of the architectural design but also the hard work that Bauhaus's students set together, showcasing the collective work that Meyer cares about the most. Still, what overwhelmed me is when I read his text of a nearly poetic approach to describing such a rational thought that is so fascinating.

Viewing through Meyer's text “The New World, 1926”, we can grasp his perspective that the Weimar Republic, a nation that was devastated fighting the Hyperinflation and economic crisis after WWI, was in need of evolving to a new world, in his words "Each age demands its own form. It is our mission to give our new world a new shape with the means of today." In this new machinery industrial uprising and science-focused era, he focused on the part that he himself can do for society, his profession as an architect, and offered a new way of living - for all instead of the individual. Encouraging and challenging us to think about the relationship between art, architecture, nature, living and society's needs. In April 1927, Hannes Meyer is appointed as the head of the architecture department in Bauhaus. What he laid down in the text in 1926 about the essential criteria and material he proposed that later on listed in his writing "building,1928" as the houses building requirements and further reflected on the layout plan from the ADGB project. In this writing, he explained his view on why art doesn't fit with architecture - that composition doesn't have an end, and life is always changing and with function, so it is not a work of art and that building is not merely a piece of "machine for living" but should also serve the human's mind and body need. The outcome is without a place of origin but organising the materials that match with economics will automatically form the shape, structure, texture, colour and so on. As he mentioned an architect is an organiser, maybe this is why he likes to include all to work together. All for the greater good?

Through investigating his background and personal political interest, it is hard not to notice his passion for the new architecture formula is almost corresponding to his passion as a Marxist. Before his departure from the Bauhaus in 1930 due to his communist orientation. It is fairly reflected in his manifesto-like message "Bauhaus and Society, 1929". In that, he expressed his ideology and calls creative designers the servants of the community and their work is a service to the people. With these writing from him nearly 90 years ago, it touches me with his enthusiasm for building a new world towards a collective society of the future. I wonder why the architect today knows about him so little? Does his political view shatter his effort at work?[3] Or something makes him less visible in history? No matter what's the reason, this keeps me thinking, does politics deceive us in any way? Dragging us away with prejudice and pushing us towards a politically correct attitude of learning? If Meyer without his passion for his left-politics, would he stay longer in Bauhaus? Or will that even alter his opinion on architectural practice?

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Notes

1. Meyer’s motto “Volksbedarf statt Luxusbedarf” (The needs of the people instead of the need for luxury) ”The Co-Op Principle Hannes Meyer And The Concept Of Collective Design". 2017. Bauhaus-Dessau.De. https://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/en/exhibitions/exhibitions-international/the-co-op-principle-mexico.html.

2. "funktion mal ökonomie” (function times economics) all things in this world are a product of the formula according to Meyer. 

Meyer, Hannes, and Claude Schnaidt. Hannes, Meyer: Bauten, Projekte und Schriften. Buildings, Projects, and Writings.[Von] Claude Schnaidt. A. Niggli, 1965: 94.

3. Schnaidt, Claude. Was man ueber das Bauhaus weiss, zu wissen glaubt und ignoriert. Professur Theorie und Geschichte der modernen Architektur, 2007.


Reference 

Meyer, Hannes, and Claude Schnaidt. Hannes, Meyer: Bauten, Projekte und Schriften. Buildings, Projects, and Writings.[Von] Claude Schnaidt. A. Niggli, 1965: 90-99.
 Hannes Meyer Trade Union School Bernau Technical Explanation Report. 1928.

M.A. Interior Design

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Spatial Design Solution for Social Issues and Changes

A spatial design project that can inspire people to do something about society and participate to solve the social problem.
 A mixed-use space for children, young adults, and senior citizens to communicate with the traveller and learn about social issues from a global aspect.

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The purpose of this project is through spatial design as a media to visualise one of the potential prototypes of specific or several social problems and issues. The project framework comprises examining critical thinking solutions to the social problem and connects the social research by the creative design practice.
 The design approach is to examine innovative social design models from feasibility studies on spatial design, service design and creative problem-solving tactics.
 This unique complex model aims to create an echo of the contemporary social design movement and demonstrate how creative design can be a method to help to solve social problems. The intention is to provide a collective design community and a new form of participated-centred design centre for the public. And offer the opportunity to affect real social changes to recognise the social issues and participate in this spatial project.

 

In a world of separation and isolation, I want to challenge society through space arrangement. Through envisioning the design thinking and problem, visualise the spatial experience of democratic socialism and the utopia social design in a non-political aspect. Spatial design is a practice of social change and response to a social problem. The component of the research is combined with multiple fields of knowledge and concepts to create a new vision of how to respond to the issue. Which consolidates a range of social-related research and investigates innovative insights and methods for contemporary context on material and spatial relationships with human activities.

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The methodology of the proposal is based on the Iterative design cycle and by continuing to investigate various layers to the core question, multiple methodologies will apply to the research proposal, including positivistic (surveys and experimental studies) and phenomenological (case studies, action research and participant observation). Research processes are through the intersection of questioning and discovery, a new model can integrate the most suitable part from a different perspective for the practice.


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The research intended to explore a unique approach to responding to the social topic through spatial design. Examining the issue through creative thinking, gathering information and preparing to visualise the possible model. By researching and surveying people via various user groups, making spatial arrangement models that can reflect on the issue.

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Can spatial design be a practice of social change?

How to explore the relationship between space and social issues through creative design? 


What kind of spatial design associates the society to respond to the solution?

 

THEORETICAL, CRITICAL, HISTORICAL

Using abandoned site location to further develop the link between the new structure and the past. There are a few abandoned school locations which are waiting for the Hong Kong government to further develop. However, some districts have waited for more than 15 years. One of the places, which is the potential project proposed site location, is within a traditional living district that is dated back to the British-Hong Kong period. Further site study and visits will represent how restoration and renovation are the ways to preserve local history.

 

SOCIAL, ETHICAL, GLOBAL

Social problems and issues always depended on the government and charity to improve. However, those complicated problems are not good enough for just using single thinking methods to solve, especially in the section of the ageing population, the generation gap, and the housing problem. This project proposal will be a good example of how spatial design can help communicate within two or more generation clusters by spatial experience.

 

CONTEMPORARY PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE WITHIN INTERIOR DESIGN

With the intention to realise the problem and create echo from the potential user group, the spatial design contents exhibition & experience zone and housing. Design themes are social design, new technology and sustainable design.

 

PROCESSES, MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES

VR technology is a tool that can show individual scenes, and further study to investigate the technology within the spatial development.
 The future of the material process is about additive manufacturing and computer design, further studies will develop in the biomimetic and synthetic material practice for the project.

 

DESIGN BRIEF PROJECT BACKGROUND

The design proposal is hypothetically a beta design project from a social enterprise studio. The core of the design brief is to turn an abandoned school location, that hasn’t been developed in more than 20 years, into a new form of a community centre that encourages design thinking to all participants and to face the social problem.

 

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

After research and news reports, considering all voices for the usage in this location and the local social issues, a new form of community centre plus a residential campus is being developed.
 In previous practice, interviews with the kindergarten teacher and senior caregiver about their current working environment and the opinion of this community centre have been taken. This is one of the key methods using human-centred design methods apply to the Daycare centre design for the major studies alongside to analyse the most sustainable spatial planning and development.
 In the second module, user feedback from the model and further development of the daycare centre will be carried out.

 

AUDIENCES AND USERS

The target user groups are young adults, seniors and kids, the audience is for all ages and the potential client includes the social enterprise group, government development departments and NGO organisations.

 

DESIGN OUTCOME

Three main buildings with a multi-use courtyard will be introduced in this practice.

There are four main activities within the site:
Block 0. Co-operative Design + Social Laboratory Hub
Block 1. Residential

Block 2. Library Cafe Block 3. Daycare centre

M.A. Interior Design

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At the moment in this world now, we are pretty much attached to technology and nowadays we are almost impossible to separate from it. We encounter all sorts of technology on various levels in different places and periods of time in our daily life. It is no longer restricted to a product or tools but interacting with our physical activities and emotional connection. This revolution has started many years ago and it has no limits, merging with the creative human mind or even now with machine learning, this is our tomorrow. A world surrounded by technology, which in the end might alter our perception of space in this existing world or it already did.

The question is if it is such an inevitable path, can it help to improve the current situation? Will we use it to help us to find a way to build a better society as a tool? Or will some of us be trapped in a world full of technology fantasy and let the world be even more divided?

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what is the impact of tangible interaction design on the spatial environment?
How far can this technology apply to our design experience?
And why this might be the key to the future of collective social design?

Before we further on exploring these questions, we need to determine the scope of each element that we are going to focus on later. And investigate the relationship between their intersection field and connection. So that we can understand why it is essential for a designer to consider interactive design applications on spatial design, their potential and possibilities for social design engagement.
 

The first element is technology.
There are different levels of interactive design application on concepts, development and to the final product. No matter it is computer-generated virtual reality, augmented or mixed reality, they are all the emerging technology of the future world. In this issue, we will mostly be focusing on the action that connects digital reality to the physical environment through interactive objects and space, which is the tangible interaction design. The composition includes bodily materials factors, human-computer interfaces design, installation and set-up in physical surroundings and sensor or human action input-output framework. This physical object and digital behaviour create an interaction between human action and computer reaction. The setting stimulates a give and takes intention, which allows the designer and the people who cooperate to think about what they want to do with this system. As a tool, it helps us to achieve that new boundary in between.

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And this brings us to the second element, the design world.

As a spatial designer, space is like our canvas, we build on it with all the site investigation, consideration, thoughts and ideas and then we develop the look and feel - the colour, material and texture, and we propose and examine their functional use. We all wanted to create an aesthetic, meaningful and inspiring place for people because, in the end, they are the one who interacts with space and makes it complete.

 

The following discussion is distributed to specific spatial design practices, we are moving on to individual designers and co-design-involved projects and introducing participatory design in social design project development. And we are going to investigate the intentional design aspect that allows people to communicate ideas, get inspired, share and learn with each other. This will include educational exhibitions and installations, workshops in the community lab, public space, social enterprise, and non-profit organisation-related projects.

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Which is connected to the last element, social responsibilities and engagement.
The social issue is a problem for all, the principle of social layers that connected to various additional matters. The complexity is true. But imagine if there is a community where people from different sectors contribute their knowledge for greater purposes, can this collaboration create a better solution for social change-related issues?
As a designer, we need to ask ourselves what can we offer from our knowledge and experience to share. And more important is how can we encourage people to participate in this possible society? For example, we can start with the design thinking process that we use to solve our creativity problem. Or we can adopt the human-centred design approach to various level of application, to think about what society and the people needs. The goal is to find an innovative way to achieve a better solution and deliver a social design impact for the community.

 

Video essay

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