I have always been interested in design, but often cringe at the word because of the connotations of aesthetics it often carries with it. Visuals are important, but design to me is always linked more to function and the stories it tells rather than looks.

I just finished John Thackara’s book In the Bubble, and was pretty astonished how closely his design aesthetic matches mine. He largely avoids the sort of ridiculous “design can solve all our problems” futurism and sticks more to what’s most important to design: people and context. He encourages a “. . . shift in emphasis from what things look like to how they behave - from designing on the world to designing in the world . . .”

In a world where “design” too-often connotes fancy Voss water bottles, visually-pleasing but meaningless tubular steel chairs designed by famous architects, or modernist buildings which purposefully reject both history and the context in which they are built, Thackara’s point of view is refreshing. He writes:

Designers are needlessly constrained by the myth that everything they do has to be a unique and creative act. Rather than design everything from scratch, we should search far and wide for tried-and-tested solutions that others have already created . . . The capacity to think across boundaries, to spot opportunities at the juncture of two or more industries, and to draw relevant analogies from seemingly unrelated industries is as valuable as deep experience of a single sector . . . We need to recombine relationships - among people, ideas, and organizations and knowledge domains - and exploit scientific, natural, and cultural knowledge that is usually ignored, whether it be mimicking biology or learning from storytellers in India. Putting old knowledge into new context creates new knowledge.

Tags: Architecture, Business