Design & Focus Alessandro Biamonti

Key Words: Design Research, Design Practice, Knowledge, Network Society, Meta-Project, Focus.How to design in a new research paradigms.

AbstractOur contemporary Network Society is characterized by the new paradigm between Knowledge, Time and Space;where Knowledge and Speed become even more important and critical.

Within this framework, it’s emerging a gap between Research and Practice, which drives to a debate about DesignLevels (Design Research, Meta-Project, On-Line Design), their characteristics and relationships.

This paper would suggest a scheme based on Variable and Time, as an instrument to manage the relationshipbetween Design Levels, defined through the Project’s Focus.

Network Society

The Network is an open structure, based on Nodes connected by Links, free to expand itself by the integration ofnew Nodes, according with their possibility be connected to the whole system. The Links represent the supportingstructure of Flows, which run throughout the Network.

“The networking form of social organization has existed in other times and spaces”1. In spite of that, accordingwith Castells, we can note how during the last part of the XX Century the big change of technology, from thepure data elaboration, to the Network Technology, it brought deep changes within the morphology of oursociety. In fact, we can note how the definition of “pure network”, made by Kevin Kelly, “distributed,decentralised, collaborative and adaptive”2, is adaptable to the technology platforms, as well as to themorphological model of our society.

Within the Network Society there is increasing evidence of a new relationship between communication, time, andspace: the connections created by the informational flows, which represent the productive base of advancedeconomical systems, are not related with the geographical position of nodes.

According with Negroponte, it is possible to say that digitalisation is more than simply reducing costs andincreasing speed: it’s a “change in the distribution ofintelligence”3 within the framework of a kind of virtualubiquity.

From the designer’s point of view, the changes of theNetwork Society, are visible in the emerging of thefollowing concepts:1. Product System: product + service + communication,

an hybrid artefact that include all the element4

2. Knowledge economy: the most valued raw material inour age is the Knowledge, on which it is based thebigger part of the element which built the competitiveposition of a company5.

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Toward a Knowledge Constellation

The way of creating value of the elements of the Network, follows some peculiarities: all the elements, nodes,flows and the whole network, increase their value with the increasing of interactions. That represents afundamental innovation about the relationship between the use of a system and the value of the system itself.

From an economical point of view, that phenomenon evidences the big change of the paradigms of thecompetition6: it’s emerging, in opposition to the historical specialized competition, a strong interest oninterdisciplinary collaboration, a sort of “harmonizing”7.

Richard Normann illustrates8 how the positioning along the value chain shouldn’t be the focus of a contemporarystrategy. In fact, in our age the value is a result of a co-creation of different economic factors working not just toadd value, but to reinvent it, on a networking context: the Value Constellation.

Paraphrasing Richard Normann, and considering theknowledge one of the bigger values of our age, it’spossible to note how a big difference is emerging withthe rise of the network society: from a knowledgechain (transmitted just in a linear way from master topupil, where position is more important than ability) toa knowledge constellation (no hierarchic position,open source, big amount of signal to transform ininformation).

Complexity

The high complexity of our contemporary society needs high complex products: hybrid, multi-logical, multi-local.Products which, including the characteristics of our age (think about the big question about local and global), arefull of new questions and challenges. Not just competitive products, but products that redefine their markets

and often transcend their original program goals tocreate new market.

Within this framework it’s important to underline theconcept of Breakthrough Product (BP)9. Cagan andVogel define BP through the Value OpportunitiesChart10 as well as the importance of the so-calledFuzzy Front End: the part of product developmentprocess that starts with the general goals of theprogram and covers the early stages of new productdevelopment11.The integrations of disciplines, the importance ofuser’s interests on critical decision making, theemerging of style and technology, the managing ofthe Fuzzy End Front, all that represent the structure ofa Breakthrough Product.

Breakthrough Products are products designed to answer to the needs of contemporary society. Scenario Building,ethnography, ergonomics, as well as several lifestyle references, are required during the development of suchcomplex product. Cagan and Vogel underline how, with a “free fall”, product succeeds only by chance. It doesn’tmatter if there is a technology core and capital: new product development is a climb, not a free fall.

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Gap R/S

More than an answer to contemporary needs, designshould be a visionary activity finding solution for futureneeds12. In front of such new question it’s good toconsider design as a language to provide new answers,to find solutions (more than one. In fact, in our time,one solution is usually not enough).

The way of working, for most of the main big Designmasters, was to develop a project starting with aresearch, in the same process, within the sameknowledge (and space). The project’s process includedthe time to develop a research focused on the project’ssubjects.

The increasing speed on industrial process, within the

“time to market” concept, it defines, related to some productive aspects, the speed itself as a quality13. Design is called to give solution almost in real time, pushing the professional job toward a concept of “on linedesign”. Nicholas Negroponte14 suggests us how, with the development of the new communicationtechnologies, a software project could literally move around the world from east to west on a twenty-four-hourcycle, between different persons, different groups, turning work and rest time according to their geographicalposition.

In our time, the opportunity to develop “on lineproject” represents a historical acceleration of thedesign process. This leads us to have a extremely shorttime to give solutions, too short to elaborate anadequate research.The need to become increasingly faster in providingDesign solutions, causes a gap between Researchand Practice. On one hand, Research is working out ofa timing, whereas Practice, is working under pressure,almost in real-time.This gap is at the same time conceptual and physical.Indeed, Research and Solutions are developed indifferent places, from different people, in a differenttime and with a big flow of Knowledge which goesthrough these differences.

Variables/time/focus.

Starting from the consideration that every project has the goal to develop a solution (that could be relative, forthe following steps), the development of a design solution implies the management of a certain amount ofInformation, in order to create a Knowledge. This occurs according with an adequate balance and a filter of twocomponents: Time and Design Variables.

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The scheme I refers to, it considers Time and DesignVariables as main polarities-axis in defining the Designlevels.Within the scheme, the area of Possible Solutionscould be considered as the place where DesignVariables meet Time, in the right balance. The rightbalance between the two components dependsprimarily on the project’s focus. Outside of the Possible Solution Area we would findprojects with too many variables that have to bemanaged in a too short time, which drive to theimpossibility to get a solution, or projects with toomuch Time, which drive the project to loose thegeneral focus and to waste energies.

Design Levels

Using the defined scheme, it’s possible to define threeareas. Different areas based on the differentrelationships between Variables, Time and Focus.Different Design Levels.

Design research. It’s the level with the greatestamount of Design Variables, as well as an adequateTime to manage them. It’s allows one time to re-consider the discussion’s platforms, or to build newones. The main activity within this level is aboutproblem setting15.

Meta-project. This is an hybrid level16, which assumesthe discussion’s platforms - of Research - as base, toexplore the Design potentiality17, without animmediate productive outputs.Meta project, as hybrid level, could be considered inrelation with the other field in which the term meta isused18, that drive us to the definition of “a project of aproject”.

Design on line. This level is strictly related toproductive realities. The amount of Design Variables isadequate to the very short time provided for DesignSolutions. Is the level where design team has toprovide solution to the market.

A proposal: S=K∫(T, V)

The core of the proposal it’s to put in evidence how areal solution depends on the right balance of Timeand Variables. On the Time’s axis it’s considered the time of durationof a project. On the Variable’s axis we have two kind ofrelations: on the first part of the axis the number ofvariables increase inside the field of the project, in thesecond part the number of variables could be extendedto all the fields.

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The scheme it could be read as well in the followingway: S=K∫(T, V), where S is Solution, K is theKnowledge, T and V are Time and Variable as abovementioned. On other word, better, on word it meansthat to provide a Real Solution it depends from theKnowledge of the platform in relation, a kind ofmathematical function, with Time and Variable.

At this point it could be interesting to try to figure howto read the scheme as well, and so a new question itcould emerge: the focus drives the universe of the realsolutions, helping to make clear the limits over which itwould be wasted time or energy; or is this limits,defined through several probes, which help to definethe focus of a project?

AcknowledgementsI wish to express my gratitude to: Andrea Branzi, Ezio Manzini, Giulia Birindelli, Ilpo Koskinen, Jan Verwijnen,Joseph Pine, Pekka Korvenmaa, Peter McGrory.

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Notes1 Castells, 19962 Kelly, 19943 Negroponte, 19954 Mauri, 19965 Nordstrom and Ridderstrale, 20006 Nordstrom, 20007 Negroponte, 19958 Normann and Ramirez, 19989 Cagan and Vogel, 200210 The schedule proposed by Cagan and Vogel, in order to differentiate a product and contribute to the overallexperience of use, takes in consideration the following values: Emotion, Ergonomics, Aesthetics, Identity, Impact,Core Technology, Quality, and Extra11 The main point of the Fuzzy Front End are: Identifying (emerging trends), Understanding (holistic productdefinition) , Conceptualizing (multiple concept), Realizing (product proposal for Program Approval12 The meaning of the Italian verb progettare is gettare oltre “to throw further”, thus referring to the actionof building a bridge between present and future13 Maldonado, 1986 and Branzi, 199714 Negroponte, 199515 Koskinen, 2001, and Southwell in McGrory, 199516 Magnaghi, 197317 DA, 199818 Meta-language: in logic and linguistic, every language, natural or formalized, which inquires and describesan other language assumed as subject. Meta-theory: in contemporary logic, theory that it has as subject another theory (said theory object)

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Alessandro Biamonti

V.le Montenero 29 – 20135 Milano Iabiamontiarch@iol.it

Architect (Politecnico di Milano, Colegio de Arquitectos de Valencia), specialized in design (practical andtheoretical aspects), has been consultant for several companies.

He is undertaking a PhD in Industrial Design at the Politecnico di Milano (Italy) where, besides to be tutor forseveral courses, he’s developing his PhD research (Learning Spaces – Toward an Environmental LearningSystem for the Faculty of Design) with professors Andrea Branzi and Francesco Trabucco. With SDI ofPolitecnico di Milano he’s involved in design research with the team of professor Ezio Manzini.

From September 2002 to January 2003 he’s been Visiting Researcher in UIAH (University of Art and Design –Helsinki), within the Product and Strategic Design Department.

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