Tag: Speculative Design

Critical of / for what?

This project embarks on an investigation of what it means to teach, learn, and practice criticality in design. Set against the backdrop of a neoliberal economic system and an industry constantly disrupted by emerging technologies, it takes a deep dive into the tension between education and professional practice. It examines how design, as a field increasingly seen as crucial to navigating the future, is being redefined—and whether “criticality” is being nurtured or neglected along the way.

Prior to the Fellowship, initiators Candice Ng, Justin Zhuang and Vanessa Ban had conducted interviews with 12 local educators and designers on this topic. The Fellowship supported the organisation of an invite-only panel discussion, hosted at the SAM residency spaces, to further explore the role of criticality in Singapore design practices and how it is taught in local design schools. The primary goal of the event was to foster dialogue between industry and academia and encourage a shared understanding and vocabulary to advance the teaching, learning and practice of criticality within contemporary design practice.

➜ Read more about the project at the SAM Design Collection website

 

#ADesignLibrary: Space Settlements (2019)

Masked up, isolated and confined in cramped spaces all day — life under lockdown feels very much like living in outer space. A deep dive into (or out towards?) Space Settlements (2019) by Fred Scharmen reveals the many parallels between constructing space habitats and on Earth. Examining a 1975 NASA study led by physicist Gerard O’Neil to design a space settlement, Scharmen reveals how the seemingly fantastical sci-fi endeavour was shaped by similar methods, concerns and solutions of 1970s modern architecture on planet earth. What is the spaceship but ”just an elevator with a higher top floor”? And the idea of “megastrucutres” advocated by Metabolists as flexible frames to construct cities were useful for space which had no ground. In fact, the empty slate of space only made apparent how much we take for granted when designing environments on Earth. Only by stepping out of home, can we see it that much clearer.

#ADesignLibrary spotlights lesser known design books, and invites public access to my personal collection of titles that focuses on Singapore architecture and design, Asian design, everyday design, critical and speculative design as well as design theory and philosophy. I welcome enquiries and physical loans.

#ADesignLibrary: Design and Violence (2015)

Design solves problems is one reason the field is so attractive. It was a reason I started studying it too. But I vividly recall the 2007 GOOD magazine cover where an AK-47 gun confronted me with the fact that “good” design could be “bad”. Such a contrary view is the subject of Design and Violence (2015), a print record of an originally online platform started by Paola Antonelli and Jamer Hunt. In 2013, they began uploading designs related to violence—defined as “a manifestation of the power to alter the circumstances around us, against the will of others and to their detriment”—and inviting commentators from a wide variety of disciplines to reflect on each. Online public discussions were encouraged too. Besides the expected, such as weapons and prisons, the project investigates lesser known ways of violent design. For instance, a ramp for killing cattle in a “humane” manner, genetically-modified rice that has strained ecosystems and applying design thinking in war. While the project focuses on facilitating discussion rather than making a stand, it is a painful reminder that design is good… for violent ends too.

#ADesignLibrary spotlights lesser known design books, and invites public access to my personal collection of titles that focuses on Singapore architecture and design, Asian design, everyday design, critical and speculative design as well as design theory and philosophy. I welcome inquiries and physical loans.