THESIS

My role as a designer is to develop solu­tions that are sen­si­tive to and acces­si­ble to the needs of all social, cul­tural and eco­nomic needs. Fur­ther­more my design solu­tions need to have lit­tle to no impact on the nat­ural envi­ron­ment. And the design must com­mu­ni­cate and trans­late to all intended and unin­tended users.

INTRODUCTION

As an emerg­ing designer, get­ting ready to make the tran­si­tion from stu­dent to a prac­tic­ing pro­fes­sional – I am set to join in on a new rev­o­lu­tion. Cli­mate change and eco aware­ness are now more impor­tant than ever and prob­lems exist now that have been ignored since the devel­op­ment of indus­tri­al­ized pro­duc­tion. As a designer I will be pre­sented with or will iden­tify prob­lems that need solu­tions. These solu­tions could have a pos­i­tive impact on an enor­mous scale. My role as a designer is to under­stand these prob­lems and develop solu­tions that min­i­mize the impact on the envi­ron­ment as well as being sen­si­tive to the user’s health and safety. Addi­tion­ally I must be con­sid­er­ate of human fac­tors by incor­po­rat­ing uni­ver­sal design stan­dards. This how­ever means noth­ing with­out the abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate my design solu­tions. I must be detailed in order to trans­late my ideas to the user, thus my designs need to be digestible and con­cise – oth­er­wise my hard work is unre­spon­sive and wasteful.

My role as a designer starts by first hav­ing a cog­ni­tive under­stand­ing of the basic prin­ci­ples of design. To under­stand the ele­ments around me I must pos­sess the skill to sketch. Not only should I be able to sketch, I must exhibit skills and con­tinue to prac­tice the art of draft­ing. Draft­ing is more than just lay­ing down a draw image; it is a process of dis­sect­ing, dis­as­sem­bling, and reassem­bling in order to gain a broad cog­ni­tive per­spec­tive of the ele­ment itself. Draft­ing is a tool to com­mu­ni­cate func­tion, and express construction.

Next, I must fol­low morals codes in terms of mak­ing solu­tions for the greater good of the world around me. Strong morals are moti­vated based on ideas of right and wrong, or eth­i­cal stan­dards. In order to achieve excel­lence and the desired out­put of good design, my design solu­tions must encap­su­late a high stan­dard of eth­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions. If I incor­po­rate a con­cise and well thought out plan to my design prin­ci­ples, then it is pos­si­ble to reach solu­tions that encom­pass a wide user scope. Good design ben­e­fits the masses – some­thing that mod­ernism teaches; say­ing that less is more. Mean­ing that through sim­plic­ity the func­tion of design is easy to under­stand and imple­ment. This is a chal­lenge I find value in.

INTERIOR DESIGN

My child­hood was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent than most of the kids I ran around with, more spe­cific my Sat­ur­day morn­ing tele­vi­sion view­ing habits. While most kids were busy eat­ing their break­fast to car­toons, my Chee­rios were served with Ore­gon Pub­lic Broad­cast­ing and the glo­ries of Home­time with Dean John­son and his rotat­ing cast of female co-hosts, fol­lowed by Bob Villa’s This Old House. I fell in love with archi­tec­ture, home craft and inte­ri­ors at a young age. This also had a lot to do with my fam­ily back­ground. My Mother worked for a cab­i­net shop, my Father sold floor cov­er­ing and coun­ter­top mate­ri­als. So I guess I was born into this. It wasn’t until my mid twen­ties how­ever that my infat­u­a­tion with design was real­ized. I began to grow tired of retail sales, my inner cre­ative designer began to knock down the door. I gave up the dead end of retail and embarked on a chal­lenge that nur­tured my cre­ative side – I found this in inte­rior design.

Inte­rior design is a pop­u­lar sub­ject now days. I am blessed to live in Port­land, a city rich in cre­ativ­ity and archi­tec­tural diver­sity. And while I believe Port­land is a great model for design, I feel there is still a need for new solu­tions to stale prob­lems. Specif­i­cally in inte­rior design, this is my design focus, this is my role.

Tak­ing morals into con­sid­er­a­tion, we as inte­rior design­ers owe a lot to ethics and moral stan­dards. One such facet of good morals is the inclu­sion of uni­ver­sal design stan­dards. In order for a design to be suc­cess­ful it should be uni­ver­sal to all intended users, but also per­haps most impor­tant the unin­tended. Uni­ver­sal design allows access for all – break­ing down social, phys­i­cal and eco­nomic bar­ri­ers, to cre­ate a solu­tion that is func­tional for a broad range of user abil­i­ties. My role as inte­rior designer must incor­po­rate these uni­ver­sal stan­dards in order to not limit my user scope.

Another con­sid­er­a­tion that must be addressed is the health and safety of the user. The built envi­ron­ment needs to be non abra­sive, and sen­si­tive to health. This means select­ing mate­ri­als and fin­ishes that are hypoal­ler­genic, and limit volatile organic com­pounds which cause health prob­lems over long-term expo­sure. I must also design with ergonom­ics in mind. The mass­ing of ele­ments needs to be com­fort­able to touch, grab, push and pull. The less obstruc­tive the built envi­ron­ment is, the more use­able it becomes.

To design suc­cess­fully incor­po­rat­ing uni­ver­sal design stan­dards it is imper­a­tive that I have a ref­er­ence to and an under­stand­ing of human fac­tors. Human fac­tors are dimen­sional require­ments and lim­i­ta­tions that a suc­cess­ful design solu­tion must answer to. How humans move in a space, height, width and reach fac­tors are impor­tant considerations.If human fac­tors are imple­mented prop­erly, then the design solu­tion is suc­cess­ful, because the over­all user scope is uni­ver­sal and with­out limits.

THE ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

My role as a designer does not begin and end with uni­ver­sal design and human fac­tors. It must also be sen­si­tive to the needs of nature and ecol­ogy.  It is almost impos­si­ble to go even an hour these days and not hear a con­ver­sa­tion or mes­sage about cli­mate and eco­log­i­cal issues. The topic is at upmost impor­tance and the issues are real. I love the out­doors and nature; in fact I strongly believe that nature is the best designer. I’m not sure that humans will ever reach the level of design that nature is. We will con­tinue to work on our built envi­ron­ment, but the role of design­ers must draw inspi­ra­tion from the craft of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment. Nature’s built envi­ron­ment incor­po­rates regen­er­at­ing life with struc­ture. The con­cepts behind the U.S. Green Build­ing Coun­cil and their LEED plat­form is to one day cre­ate liv­ing build­ings, and that is a tremen­dous goal. We must also be pre­serv­ing of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment in order to be suc­cess­ful at liv­ing in our built environment.

The con­cept of cra­dle to cra­dle ide­al­izes that what we take from the earth must con­tinue to live and regen­er­ate from one pur­pose to the next. The old ideas from the first indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion take from the earth and result in the grave – land­fills. This is unac­cept­able in prac­tice, and dam­ag­ing on a uni­ver­sal scale. It is time for the new indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion to take flight. My role as a designer must prac­tice the con­cepts of cra­dle to cra­dle oth­er­wise there will be noth­ing left to design for. As design­ers we are partly respon­si­ble to pro­vide the solu­tions needed to develop new means of indus­tri­al­iza­tion that nur­tures our nat­ural envi­ron­ment, start­ing with how our built envi­ron­ment inter­acts with the nat­ural environment.

The new indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion should not steal from the earth and it must be uni­ver­sal in its out­put for the bet­ter of nature and human­ity. Just as we would be care­ful to not waste the lives of the ones we love, we must be care­ful to not waste the habi­tat that sup­ports the world we need.

COMMUNICATING SOLUTIONS

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is per­haps the most impor­tant part to a suc­cess­ful design solu­tion, and as a designer my role is dimin­ished sub­stan­tially with­out the abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate my ideas. I use the word trans­late a lot when dis­cussing my design ideas with peers. To trans­late effec­tively, my ideas must be pre­sented in a way that peo­ple of many back­grounds can under­stand and make use of my ideas. Mod­ern design works for the masses by con­vey­ing sim­plis­tic solu­tions that are eas­ily imple­mented and repro­duced with­out the need of over­whelm­ing instruc­tions and tutorials.

IKEA for exam­ple is very suc­cess­ful over a large user scope because of the care and for­ward think­ing that goes into their assem­bly instruc­tions. They use images and sym­bols that are straight for­ward, and trans­late extremely well to all cul­tures and regions. It may not be entirely pos­si­ble to com­mu­ni­cate my ideas com­pletely by sym­bol­ism and images, but I must still take the same care to think about who is try­ing to digest my mes­sage. For this rea­son, part of my role is to be trans­par­ent in my com­mu­ni­ca­tion to bridge all social, cul­tural and regional gaps.

For the most part, much of design solu­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tion is done through pre­sen­ta­tion. Whether it is com­mu­ni­cat­ing from designer to designer or designer to builder, the pre­sen­ta­tion of my ideas should be cohe­sive, and sim­ple in order the move from one set of eyes to the next with­out any major set­backs. Finally the solu­tion must be pre­sented to the user in a man­ner that is easy to under­stand, and quick to develop into the intended use. Pre­sen­ta­tion is a way of short­en­ing the answer to a prob­lem into the sim­plest terms.

CONCLUSION

All of these ele­ments pre­sented are part of my char­ac­ter and orga­ni­za­tional respon­si­bil­i­ties to design. My role is defined by my abil­ity to strate­gize, con­cep­tu­al­ize, develop and com­mu­ni­cate solu­tions to iden­ti­fied prob­lems. It part of the solu­tion I believe in – to move past our stale design and pro­duc­tion habits, and re-think the process of indus­tri­al­iza­tion. The new indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion that Cra­dle to Cra­dle talks about is one that I believe in strongly. I want to be a part of the progress. I want to help break the mold and find solu­tions that empha­sizes uni­ver­sal com­pas­sion for all that is great in our nat­ural and built environment.

I think my role starts by set­ting down a strong foun­da­tion based upon moti­va­tion for change, com­mu­ni­ca­tion that bridges the gap, and moral empa­thy. Finally, sub­scrib­ing once more to the ideas of mod­ernism, my role can be summed up by employ­ing the prin­ci­ple less is more.

ANNOTATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ander­son, Eric. “Enhanc­ing Visual Lit­er­acy Through Cog­ni­tive Activ­i­ties.” 2002.

Abstract: As stu­dents become more and more depen­dent on tech­nol­ogy based sys­tems for design, cog­ni­tive under­stand­ing of how things work is becom­ing more and more unde­vel­oped. An old method to design is tak­ing new life — draw­ing and drafts­man­ship is mak­ing its resur­gence thanks to peo­ple like Eric Anderson.

About the Author: Eric Ander­son — Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor School of Design at Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­sity, USA

Braun­gart, Michael, and William McDo­nough. Cra­dle to Cra­dle: Remak­ing the Way We Make Things. New York: North Point Press, 2002.

Abstract: Cra­dle to Cra­dle focuses on the con­cept of what we take from the earth for pro­duc­tion of mate­ri­als must be able to be repur­posed or bro­ken down into its next life with­out wast­ing or pol­lut­ing in the process. Cra­dle to Cra­dle is a new indus­trial pro­duc­tion strat­egy, instead of pulling mate­ri­als out of the ground and putting them back into the ground, mate­ri­als are reused for new life.

About the Author(s): Dr. Michael Braugn­gart — Pro­fes­sor of Process Engi­neer­ing at Uni­ver­sity Luneb­urg William McDo­nough FAIA — Found­ing Prin­ci­pal of William McDo­nough + Part­ners Bul­lough, Edward. “‘Psy­chi­cal Dis­tance’ as a Fac­tor in Art and as an Aes­thetic Prin­ci­ple.” British Jour­nal of Psy­chol­ogy 5 (1912): 87–117.

Abstract: In order to under­stand our built and nat­ural envi­ron­ment we must dis­tance our­selves emo­tion­ally, psy­cho­log­i­cally and phys­i­cally. Then we can under­stand and appre­ci­ate aes­thetic qualities.

About the Author: Edward Bul­lough — British Philosopher

Neumeier, Marty. “Drafts­man­ship.” Cri­tique Mag­a­zine Fall 1997: 19–27.

Abstract: The art of draw­ing and knowl­edge of how things work is dis­ap­pear­ing due to com­put­ers and new approaches to teach­ing design.

About the Author: Marty Neumeier — Pres­i­dent of Neu­tron LLC and Direc­tor of AIGA Cen­ter for Brand Experience

Ostroff, Elaine, and Wolf­gang Preiser. Uni­ver­sal Design Hand­book. New York: McGraw-Hill Pro­fes­sional, 2001.

Abstract: This book is directed towards inte­rior design and the con­sid­er­a­tion of all peo­ple who use and inter­act with the space. It is impor­tant as inte­rior design­ers to develop spaces for all abil­i­ties, as well as users of all shapes, sizes. It con­sid­ers what’s beyond ADA guide­lines, in order to prac­tice design for the usabil­ity of all.

About the Author(s): Elaine Ostroff — Found­ing Direc­tor at Insti­tute for Human Cen­tered Design — Har­vard Uni­ver­sity Grad­u­ate — Bran­deis Uni­ver­sity Wolf­gang Preiser — PhD (Man-Environment Rela­tions), Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­sity 1973 — M Archi­tec­ture, Vir­ginia Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute and State Uni­ver­sity, 1969 — Ms.Arch, Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity of Karl­sruhe, 1967 — BArch, Vienna Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity, 1963

Ren­gel, Roberto. Shap­ing Inte­rior Space. New York: Fairchild Books & Visu­als, 2002.

Abstract: Shap­ing Inte­rior Spaces rep­re­sents a view of design that empha­sizes the impact design­ers make through their spa­tial com­po­si­tions and design manip­u­la­tions. Design virtues other than func­tion and beauty are stressed, with spe­cial empha­sis on the design’s role in pro­vid­ing appro­pri­ate amounts and inter­pre­ta­tions of order, enrich­ment, and expression.

About the Author: Roberto Ren­gel — MS Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor — Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-Madison Inte­rior Design Pro­gram Coördinator

Stacey, Mar­tin, Clau­dia Eck­ert, and Jeanette McFadzean. “SKETCH INTERPRETATION IN DESIGN COMMUNICATION.” http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk. 24 Aug. 1999. 1 June 2009 <www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mstacey/pubs/sketch-iced/sketch-iced%2799.pdf>.

Abstract: Design­ers need to com­mu­ni­cate their ideas to other design­ers, through sketch­ing, sym­bols and abstract ideas in drafted form we are able to inter­act and develop these ideas. This paper dis­cusses the impor­tance of indi­vid­ual ambi­gu­ity, dense sym­bols and sketched communication.

About the Author(s): Mar­tin Stacey — Senior Lec­turer Depart­ment of Com­puter Tech­nol­ogy Fac­ulty of Tech­nol­ogy, De Mont­fort University

Dr. Clau­dia Eck­ert — Senior Research Asso­ciate in the Depart­ment of Engi­neer­ing at Cam­bridge University

Dr. Jeanette Mcfadzean — School of Psy­chol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity of Not­ting­ham, UK

Rams, Dieter. “Omit the Unim­por­tant.” Mar­golin, Vic­tor. Design Dis­course: His­tory, The­ory, Crit­i­cism. Chicago: Uni­ver­sity Of Chicago Press, 1989. 111–113.

Abstract: Design is mask­ing the func­tion­al­ism of indus­trial design in cur­rent day design in com­par­i­son to design that enhances the use of the product.

About the Author: Dieter Rams — Indus­trial Designer, Head of Design: Braun

Def­i­n­i­tions

“Human Fac­tors.” Merriam-Webster’s Med­ical Dic­tio­nary. Merriam-Webster, Inc. 04 Jun. 2009.

“moral.” Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dic­tio­nary. MICRA, Inc. 04 Jun. 2009.

“mod­ernism.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Ran­dom House, Inc. 04 Jun. 2009.

USGBC. USGBC: Intro — What LEED Is. 4 June 2009. 4 June 2009 <http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1988>.