crossing the great divide, by ian grout, glasgow school of art

Hobart / Tasmania / 2009 © Ian Grout / September 2013DESIS / Lincoln

Crossing a Great Divide The Changing Nature of Life, Work and Education

Introduction:

• Exploring the educational and professional potential of a more holistic attitude for design, designing and designers; in particular those of empathy, humility and respect

• An ongoing activity seeking to propose progressive and sustainable educational models with and for professional design activity within a society in transformation

• Championing the value of an expanded lived experience as a key element in proposing roles for future design activity

© Ian Grout / September 2013DESIS / Lincoln

Two Project Case Studies


For the Greater Good



Introduction: In the Autumn of 2012 we undertook a third Design for Social Enterprise Project.

• 5 weeks, 18 students, 6 Social Enterprises:

1) Galgael

2) Prince & Princes of Wales Hospice

3) Impact Arts

4) The Bike Station

5) Kibble

6) The Coach house Trust



Context: By being embedded in a social enterprise students work in concert with Social Enterprises to explore the nature of their business and to co-propose detailed design opportunities for their further development.

Objectives:

• To broaden, develop and refine design practice and in particular the empathic and creative point of view of the young designer

• To understand the requirements of and to enact design activity within a Social Enterprise and construct design outcomes specifically for the benefit of an audience with broad social needs



Objectives:

• To work closely with a wide range of stakeholders and users and to co-enact design outputs in concert with them • To enable the communication of a wide range of design outputs to a broad audience of stakeholders operating within the field of Social Enterprise and/or associated with it



Value: In these projects much has been learnt about the nature and rhythm of working between Social Enterprises and Education:

• Significant time must be spent embedded in the organisation to understand, what it does and what it may do differently

• Educational timeframes do not necessarily work with those of Social Enterprises

• There is, relatively, still quite a traditional view of design held in Social Enterprises

• Whilst engaging in socially important work Social Enterprises tend to be mired in day to day survival



Affordance: In the longer term development of working with Social Enterprises it would be worth considering:

• Setting tighter (deliverable objectives) if projects are short term

• Creating long term projects and relationships – drip feed / multi year/

• Creating breathing spaces with Social Enterprises to afford opportunities for future development


• Co–authoring futuring strategies to the mutual benefit of both creative education and Social Enterprise and creating the time to properly do so

Get Go Glasgow & The Audi Design Foundation



Introduction: In 2010, GSA won The Audi Design Foundation Competition, Sustain our Nation for the design of a social enterprise.

Context: In engaging with the community of Wyndford (North Glasgow) Masters students identified that, in order to create something truly sustainable, the community had to be a fundamental part of the process and that trust had to be reciprocal between designer and community.



Value: In this project much has been learnt about the role of the designer in developing social enterprise alongside communities:

• Community champions are essential

• Trust is imperative

• Consistent engagement over the long term must become the norm

• Presumption and assumption have no place in these designers vocabulary

• Empathy, humility and respect are traits to be cherished when working with people in their own communities

• Co-Designing has limits



Affordance: In the longer term relationship with the Wyndford (3 further years from winning the competition) we are learning how to engage better as designers and also the extended roles of responsibility inherent in social engaged design.


Overall, these kinds of projects have value in evolving the idea of how one might create extended value for design, designing and designers.

They are by no means perfect, nothing ever is, but one could propose that that is also the nature of living in the flow of life.

You live; you learn.

it may be said that these activities have extended current best practice in their approach and also been of use to those that use them.

Reflection:


Reflection

• A highly developed antennae for the changes in our economy, ecology and society

• A willingness to challenge and transform traditional design roles

• An ability to generate a rich field of opportunities for the development of design within our changing society

• A strong belief in and skills for working across disciplines

• A desire and ability to use design in a more holistic and co-participative framework


Young designers are being seen to develop:

There is a sense in the previous projects (and others) that, by co-design, we maybe designing designers out and that would be inevitable if design were not to further revalue itself.

We also have begun to understand that the activity of designing in this way is not likely to be of sustained future value.

Seeing the Wood for the Trees


What we were left with was a sense that we were still designing too closely within the context we are trying to transform.

In response to this we designed and then started, a Master Degree in Design and Citizenship constructed as a permissive space in which to be better able to explore the future issues facing a society in transformation and designs role in that transformation.


MDes Design and Citizenship



Introduction: The programme started in 2012 and 2 weeks ago our first students graduated.

Design and Citizenship shares a platform with Service and Environmental Design.

It’s a one-year taught postgraduate programme offering students the opportunity to confront directly their current professional experience and to explore social, ecological and economic contexts and their impact upon future lived experience.



Context: Design and Citizenship seeks to explore the relationship between design practice and contemporary society by indentifying ways in which design may respond to present social, environmental and economic issues and create opportunities to inform future living.

The programme asks the design practitioner to step beyond their traditional professional roles and to consider the broader application of design practices, methods and tools as a means of formulating and articulating purposeful meaning for living in a world undergoing profound social change.



Value: We intend graduates to embrace challenges within areas as diverse as public policy, private sector enterprise, citizen or social advocacy, public sector service provision, social enterprise and/or the voluntary sector.

We believe the designer as citizen will become a reflective professional who is as intellectually adept at formulating a new design opportunities as he or she is at creating an innovative response to such opportunities.



Reflection and Projection: A year in and this is evident:

• A fundamental reconstruction of design practice and education well is overdue

• Looking just to current modes of designing is limiting progression

• Economy is a change tsunami

• Philosophy and purpose are key elements

• Economy, ecology and society linked to the lived experience is the terrain

• Resilience, Conviviality and Co-operative Reciprocity are key qualities


Resilience

Conviviality

Co-operative Reciprocity

Understanding the Lived Experience

Designing in the Flow of Living

The Designer as Citizen:

Context Qualities


“The great thing about the dilemma we’re in is that we get to re-imagine every single thing we do . . there isn’t a single thing that doesn’t

require a complete remake.

Paul Hawken / The Ecologist / September 2007

There are two ways of looking at that. One is: Oh my gosh, what a big burden. The other way, which I prefer,is: What a great time to be born!

What a great time to be alive!

Because this generation gets to essentially completely change this world”

(Hawken)


Ian Grout

Subject LeaderMdes Design & CitizenshipGSA Scotland

0044 141 353 47160044 790 063 [email protected]

© Ian Grout / September 2013DESIS / Lincoln The Art of Looking Sideways

crossing the great divide, by ian grout, glasgow school of art

Technology

social engaged design

greater good ian grout

design practice

broad social needs ian

future development ian

social enterprise students

social enterprise project

day survival ian grout