Conversation Cafe

Victor Margolin: 

The Future of Design

Design is undergoing a multitude of changes at present. Both the public and designers are considering new forms of activity and new situations that can be designed. These range from government institutions to hurricane disaster relief programs. There are also new proposals for more open design processes, both in terms of making design plans for new products available as open source material as well as involving more people in the design process, particularly when the object of design is a social system or activity. The panel will discuss these and other conditions of the new design situation.

Arifin Graham:

Design and the Survival of Our Species

Many scientists – and others – believe that we are heading toward a precipice of dangerous and fundamental changes to Earth's climate and ecosystems, and that those changes will endanger all of humankind. What role can design play for a species facing such a prospect? If our behaviour is at least partly responsible for this predicted future, design and the messages it carries has the hope of effecting change to those behaviours. Through concepts of empathy, wonder, our need to "just go home and watch TV" (Ignatieff, 1989) – and the urgency of reconciling our love of stuff with the survival of our species – Arifin Graham of alarisdesign.com and deciduous.ca will explore the possibilities for design to communicate, educate and ultimately inspire us to leave our descendants a world worth living in

Muftiah McCartin:

Designing legislation in a democratic legislative body is the art of compromise.  It is created out the tension among competing ideas, politics, and interests that spring from competing forces seeking such fundamentals as safety and protection, civil and other rights, well-being, prosperity, power, and knowledge.  The design of legislation is often painful and frustrating, and can distort one’s usual sense of design, but it is a process that can work.  Muftiah McCartin, who worked in U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years before becoming a lobbyist in a major Washington, D.C. law firm, will touch on the various components of the political/legislative process AND a window into the painful, frustrating, and sometimes quite crazy design of legislation under the American legislative system and spark an interesting discussion on why, for example, the United States is unable to pass immigration reform when a majority of the Americans, and a majority of Members of the U.S. Congress, support it. 

Garrett Thompson:

The philosophy of design usually characterises design as a way to solve problems. In its most advanced form, this idea consists in the claim that design is the solution of wicked problems. I would like to propose an alternative: namely that design is the creation of new opportunities. These opportunities consist in the reinterpretation of human desires in physical and social forms. This view of design tells us something important, interesting and new about the nature of human desire. 

Susannah Rosenthal:

What's Fun Got To Do With It?

From the start Susannah was enjoined by her

mother to "entertain the kids". This was a 

brilliant reframing of the job of taking care of her 5 younger siblings. The one qualification she added to the job desccription was to " never bore yourself." Later as Vice President of the world's largest toy company she assembled a stellar group of "kids" and they entertained themselves while making millions of dollars for the company. Play is the beginning of all culture ...and innovation and

important in the reframing of world problems into opportunities.