Reading Response: Sidewalk City

Is how space designed, layout and construed  simply a work on paper or is it more?

We delve into the article exploring how legislation and human activities affect how a city system is structure.

The author interestingly brings in her postmodern perspective, deconstructing the original intent of city planning as just a mere means of creating an efficient overall structure, and introduces the concept that “urban design has responsibility to ethnography”.

And from there we learn how to marge these two diverging paradigms into a harmonious design system, where human nature and instinct coincide and live abiding the rules.

An interesting dilemma brought up is how design, being mainly placed in the hands of the elite, is couched in deep-seated political inequality, due to ignorance or indifference, further marginalizing the poor, lower income groups who make a living on the public space, by taking that space away from them. The opposing idea is one of designing with social justice in mind, to create alternative space typologies that cater to every person.

However, designers have argued that advocacy planning; keeping in mind of social concerns, have often resulted in uninspiring designs and this causes designers to lose their core focus.

The reading also presents how “lab-based”, idealistic designs wouldn’t work well in the real world, for the real world is fraught with social issues and needs that need to be addressed in design.

“Intelligent design solutions require a deeper understanding of the design problem.” The writer makes a salient point by introducing how city states are an immigration hub, and design should transform itself from being native and local, to being international and cosmopolitan, to be able to suit a “heterogeneous public”.

But then so, how do we combine spatial analysis of serving the “heterogeneous public” and preserving “ethnography” and the essence of what makes the country’s sidewalks what it is?

The explanation of the solution is definitely easier than its execution. To build a spatial ethnography of the sidewalk, and integrate social relations and physical space, we need to use visual research methods, and also reconsider and restructure sidewalk paradigms.

This gets me thinking:

In Singapore, much of our history is erased or poorly taught and documented. This has allowed our infrastructure and sidewalks to be built representing an era post-historical baggage. This system, while efficient, does nothing to preserve whatever distinct cultural roots or local flavor that our nation has sorely lacked, and continues to come up empty with.

To preserve our waning culture, and to promote the growth of new ones, should we forgo Singapore’s deep-rooted virtues of efficacy and do some restructuring of the public space? Or should we continue on progressing towards greater modernity and not attempt to construct some space of belonging for our historical past?

 

Reading Response: Thoughtful Interaction Design

We live in a world of design and sytems, the article states, and it emphaises how important it is for us as designers to create a world structure that is easy for people to navigate.

How? Through detailed, thoughtful, knowledgeable constructs of design.

Previously through Jan Chipchase’s readings, we already know the importance of Signifiers and Affordances, and how they help us create designs that clearly bring about meanings and understandings.

But the article brings about the nature of “Good” and “Bad”, moralising design choices in relation to our objective law systems, bringing an interesting new and humane perspective onto the once otherwise methodical and impartial understanding of design.

 

A client may only be driven by his needs and wishes, but a designer is torn between many options. He has the power to change or influence the development of a society and this thus implies significant responsibility, one that “transcends the conditions of the contract”. In my personal opinion, the designer is also torn because he would wish to retain his own design sensibilities and integrity. It is difficult to measure client’s wishes, societal responsibilities and the call of integrity.

 

However, the article proposed a solution where the designer can open his perspective an see things in a different light, challenging oneself to increase “personal engagement” and “personal expression”.

I realise that applying oneself can help designers realise flaws in the existing system, and work on solutions to improve it, like learning how certain industry practises are unsustainable through personal engagement, incorporate social responsibility in his design, and create solutions through expressing himself.

In Singapore, where the design field is limited, because we do not manufacture a lot of our own products, I begin to wonder if we are truly able to manifest of designer’s social responsibility. If not, how much of our reach can we make and how much of a wider splash can we create?