dvdl

Hello Everybody; Welcome back to the live chat. I was wondering if we could speak about laziness today in several aspects related to design. First of all lets start with the designers themselves: although the field of product designers, graphic designers, architects etc.

dvdl

is probably a field with the hardest working among many fields I sometimes wonder if too easily is chosen for the design of yet another fancy object instead of things that really matter on a day to day basis. So to start: let me ask you what designs do you really miss in your daily life?

domenick

What do you mean “miss,” dvdl?

dvdl

Hi Domenick thanks for joining the chat. I meant what things do you think would make the everyday better besides yet another incredibly well designed kettle ;-)

Francesca

Hello! Francesca here in Guggenheim Marketing. If you are tweeting about the chat, please kindly use #GuggForum, or follow the Guggenheim at twitter.com/Guggenheim throughout the chat. Thanks!

dvdl

Coming from Europe I am still a little surprised by the amounts of packaging here.

dvdl

Actually while we are at it: do we have any non-americans yet on the blog? I would like to chat a little about education and design.

dvdl

What was happening in your schools? Do you have the feeling you got trained to develop an awareness of how the world around you is designed?

domenick

It's funny you mention education, dvdl, because I feel like the panel discussion overall leads to the topic of education: how do we educate people to want better design? which seems slightly messianic to me

dvdl

Well a little bit of a design messiah in education might not harm actually

domenick

david, what kind of design education did you have in the Netherlands?

dvdl

actually we have a pretty open education system with a lot of attention for the arts and creativity in general 

dvdl

However I wonder if it is not so much the education in school but more in general the amount of designed spaces, objects etc that you are faced with in a land as holland or switzerland that teaches you about design.

dvdl

I am very interested in those little things that we do to organize our lives better and more pleasantly

dvdl

and here I mean ourselves? Design an innovative hanging system for your shower curtain, a great countertop for your kitchen that you could not find anywhere else?

domenick

Dvdl, are you implicitly arguing for a more DIY approach to design? It fits with the kind of specific pragmatism Ellen Lupton's advocated in our Forum discussion

domenick

At the same time, doesn't advocating a DIY approach promote a certain anarchy that is precisely what causes the stereotypical design problems in say the US?

EthosErlanger

DIY implies a stronger motive for the learner with deeper investigation that a teacher-pupil approach

domenick

to clarify my comment about DIY: I'm suggesting that "doing it yourself" melds into laissez faire. If we all do as we want, don't we end up with a disordered landscape?

dvdl

Programs as at the University of Utah - Design/Built Bluff are very interesting. Do you know that one?

dvdl

They are invited to work closely with the clients on their requirements and then the students are doing all of the construction work. Actually something that is tremendously important to all young architects

EthosErlanger

when a client collaborates with the designer/architect the results take on a bit of the DIY character with the designer guiding the outcome

dvdl

Domenick to get back to your laissez-faire story: I don’t agree. You can have a very elaborate system of DIY in a society going, but that actually becomes a little more interesting with good regulation. I think DIY also means you are more aware of what is happening around you...and then also being more inclined to not harm the others around you

dvdl

Do we have any participants from Asia on the chat?

jennifer

i lived in asia for 2 years

EthosErlanger

the corporate (USA) environment, many companies are striving to have their "style" show on the outside of their built environments. Much like home buyers in the USA want their homes to be uniquely their own and not look like their neighbors. but on the inside, they are pretty comfortable living in spaces that are no different from their neighbors

dvdl

having a few technical difficulties at the moment.

dvdl

I think there is something to say to look for the widest variety of things that you can do yourself

dvdl

and to get back to Ethos: there is also something to say for a wider variety in easily available products. We don't all need a nice flower sofa of course

dvdl

Actually thinking from the client's perspective I find a good topic for the last 2 min...are we not too easily satisfied as clients?

EthosErlanger

outcomes are so often tied to costs, and variety increases cost of inventories unless more companies begin to provide "made to order" product lines

dvdl

I don’t think it is always related to cost. Don’t Muji, the  Hema and Target show us that design can be within reach (aha) to all?

EthosErlanger

time also is a controlling factor and we as a society are driven to achieve results quickly rather than taking the time needed for some unique items to be produced or delivered. ... in other words we make compromises in favor of quick results

dvdl

Time is a very good point. I actually find it amazing that we do take time all day to communicate about the most useless topics ('HI there I am buying an avocado) but not to sit back and think a little.

mooseandsquirrel

yes, but designers like Wm Morris found that making quality objects inevitably led to selling them at a high price and the creation of an exclusive market, exactly what he wanted to avoid. It's very hard as a designer to avoid that dilemma

dvdl

OK. I think we are going to wrap up and get some work done on the technical 'design' of our blog. Nice chatting though. Perhaps we should do it for half an hour every morning

EthosErlanger

cost leads to homogenized products that are meant to serve the widest audience

dvdl

Try to have good summer - take some time off to design something small yourself and have fun with it (and let me know what you come up with). Thanks, Dvdl

domenick

Yes, we should be wrapping up. Thanks very much to you David, and to everyone else who participated.

Francesca

Thanks all! The Guggenheim Forum conversation will continue here on guggenheim.org/forum and on twitter.com/Guggenheim, #GuggForum.