"What designers do really well is work within constraints, work with what they have," said Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art. "This might be the time when designers can really do their job, and do it in a humanistic spirit."
A few articles have come out recently on designers' roles during a depression:
Design Loves a Depression [Michael Cannell, NYT]
The Antonelli quote above comes from Cannell's look at the designs that have emerged--and endured--during rough times. The Modern design that came out of the Great Depression and WWII benefited from cheap materials and informal home life; today's economic crisis will likely focus on call for less less manufacturing waste and fewer products heading to landfills. Cannell predicts that new designs must be affordable, durable, and sustainable in order to sell during lean times.
Creative Solutions in Tough Times [Alice Rawsthorn, IHT]
Rawsthorn focuses on the design community's ability to concentrate on "service" or "social" design intended to address worldwide concerns, including poverty, global warming, technology infrastructures, sustainability, and economic caution in general. (Rawsthorn has also covered the decline of design-art and other opportunities and consequences for designers in crunch times in earlier articles.)
Designing Through the Recession [Michael Beirut, Design Observer]
Beirut offers a veteran designer's perspective on what happens in creative fields during a downturn--and what designers can do to work through it.
And on the architecture front...
It Was Fun Till the Money Ran Out [Nicolai Ouroussoff, NYT]
Ouroussoff notes that starchitecture, design-art's cousin, must fade away in these tough economic times: until now, "serious architecture was beginning to look like a service for the rich, like private jets and spa treatments," but wary developers unwilling to invest in new project leaves architects to tackle social problems like schools, highways and public housing.
A Letter to the New York Times [Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr, Architecture for Humanity]
The co-founders of Architecture for Humanity posted a rebuttal to Ouroussoff's article noting that architects are indeed already working on projects addressing the social issues above--we just don't recognize their names (yet). He says that starchitects are probably least suited for this kind of work, since their overwhelming buildings lack the sensitivity to environmental consequences and energy issues that characterize the challenges ahead.
All interesting reads.
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