09 November 2008

Design for the other 90%


Humanitarian design has always been a touchy field in the sense that it can be hard to save a life while not challenging a culture. In the past this field of design has been especially difficult for industrial designers. This difficulty has been due to the indoctrination we all experience in school and by the perception of our field by society that we must “create and design” new products. We are told throughout our careers that we are supposed to create new products that fix previous designs that improve people’s lives. I feel that while this can be done in humanitarian design, the best option we as designers can take in humanitarian design is to travel to disaster areas and provide our minds, and not our wares.

Industrial design is not just a field in which we develop and fabricate different products, for mass production, nor is it just a field in which we spend hundreds of hours making the most amazing chair. Industrial design is a field full of problem solvers. We are presented daily with different challenges, may it be what materials to use, how to create the right hinge, or analyzing and interpreting how certain types of people perform certain tasks.

The skills of the Industrial designer are extremely crucial to these types of situations; we become the product that is used to improve a situation. By depositing designers into these desperate situations, aid agencies would be able to save massive amounts by reducing the amount of supplies shipped to certain areas, which are not needed. Once on the ground design teams can work as anthropological teams gathering data from those suffering and discovering the supplies that are actually needed as opposed to those that were just an assumed need.

Designers can also be extremely useful in reducing the ecological impact of humanitarian design, by studying the common materials used by the society that was disturbed, and working with locals to use those culturally acceptable materials in new ways, which solve the problems of a disaster area. The use of local materials solves many problems faced by those living in these conditions. First, by using these materials there is less of a chance to offend or confuse a culture, due to its already familiar properties. Second, by using local materials these is not much need to ship many products into disaster areas, saving vast amounts of money in transportation costs, and reduces the possibility that certain political regimes would steal the supplies to sell on the black market. Third, by using local materials there would be a reduced amount of waste accumulated in these areas, due to the materials being used already belonging to the site that they are implemented on.

While it at times seems daunting to many to create a product which can truly help a people in need, as designers we need to step back in realize that the true solution to these problems may very well be not our products, but our minds. Our ability to understand the needs of others and our versatility in understanding how to solve these needs in a culturally appropriate way is the greatest key we hold in easing the suffering of those living in disaster areas.

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