Friday November 28 2014, 9.00 –11.00
Mandelgren
Industrial Design is honored to host this talk by Cameron Tonkinwise, who is Director of Design Studies, School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University, where he also is Chair of the design PhD school. Previously Cameron Tonkinwise was the Associate Dean for Sustainability at Parsons, The New School in New York.
His interests are (post)sustainable service systems, (post)critical design thinking, contemporary (post)classical music, he is a bemoaner of US (post)politics and his research Interests are: Design as a multi-disciplinary practice, Philosophy, Actor Network Theory, Service Design, Design thinking, and Environmental Sustainability.
Just at the end of the talk above, unfortunately the video camera's battery needed to be changed, so there are a few minutes missing.
Below you find the 45 minute discussion that followed the talk.
"Design Terminable and Interminable: The Problem of Motivating Transition Designers
(aka 'Cautious Promethei')"
"Designers seem to swing between thinking of themselves as
a) being in service (Nelson and Stolterman)
b) creative (wicked) problem solvers
c) new product innovators
These modernist options have been tempered by the promotion of more Facilitative Co-Design. What all have in common however is a sense of occasional accomplishment.
Transition by contrast is a multi-level, multi-stage process in which conditions for change are created. Transition Design is a process Tony Fry calls futuring. This can be much less satisfying, more without-end in both senses (without a clear vision of the end state and so continuous). This is why Transition Design requires designers to learn a new disposition toward their work, what we at CMU School of Design refer to as the 'posture and mindset' of Transition Designers.
Another perspective on this new designerly disposition is available by contrasting it with the opposition between the Precautionary (the undesignerly version of sustainability) and the libertarian Proactionary (the undesignerly version of a startup techculture)."
You can prepare yourself by reading through some if his quite interesting writings:
"Design's (Dis)Orders & Transition Design"
"Transition Design as Postindustrial Interaction Design?"