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Recessionary design: A boom time for creative energy
By Alice Rawsthorn (Herald Tribune)
LONDON. Recession. Depression. Slump. Crash. Whatever it's called, and however severe it turns out to be, the economic crisis is bound to affect design. The question is how? And there may be positive consequences too. Design has always coped well with austerity, and is especially well-equipped to do so now.
1. Learning from history. If you rewind through design history, many of the most exhilarating periods have been during economic downturns. Take the 1930s, when the modern movement flourished despite the depression. Or the late 1940s, when Italy emerged as one of the world's most dynamic design centers during its postwar reconstruction. Designers responded to the last recession at the turn of the 1990s by working with cheap materials and found objects.  Typical was the Chest of Drawers, the old wooden drawers bundled together by the Dutch designer Tejo Remy, to make a new piece. Similar themes are resurfacing in the survivalist design style of recycled materials and staccato shapes favored by young designers like Nacho Carbonell of Spain and Maarten Baas of the Netherlands.
2. Responding to change. But the main reason why design could benefit from this recession is because it always thrives on change, and every area of our lives is currently in flux. The economic crisis will not only transform finance and business, but the way we think and behave. Then there's the environmental crisis, and the realization that most of the institutions and systems that regulated our lives in the 20th century need to be reconfigured for the 21st century. At the World Economic Forum summit meeting last weekend in Dubai on the global agenda the dominant words were "change," "reboot" and "transformative." There was clear consensus on the need for fundamental change and for experimenting with new approaches to achieving it. Designers are adept at analyzing problems from fresh perspectives, and applying lateral thinking to develop ingenious solutions. They also excel at simplifying complex issues (and there are lots of those around right now), and collaborating with other disciplines.
3. Redesigning businesses. This means that designers will be called upon to advise recession-struck companies on how to cut costs without impeding efficiency. They will also be asked to exploit the entrepreneurial opportunities offered by the recession by developing austerity-friendly products and services. Designers will also help to develop recession-friendly business models, including rental systems, such as the bicycle services in Paris, Montreal and other cities. These projects not only involve old-fashioned product design, but a systemic approach to planning how they'll work. As the environmental crisis deepens, sophisticated new forms of renting - or "rentalism" as it's called - may emerge as popular alternatives to owning things that we'll only use for short periods of time.
4. Redesigning social services. A similar mix of systemic design thinking and traditional design techniques is enabling designers to address social problems, such as aging, crime and unemployment. Some of these problems may worsen during recession. The British government has already commissioned the service design consultancy Live|Work to expand its Hot Products program of designing ways to help teenagers prevent the theft of their cellphones and other portable devices.
5. "Design-Art" R.I.P. Resilient though some areas of design will be, others have already been hit by recession. One is "design-art." Half of the lots at Sotheby's design auction in London last month were unsold, and dealers are nervous about the prospects for next month's Design Miami fair. But what's the most exciting role for design? Developing new business concepts and cracking social problems, or making expensive, uncomfortable furniture?
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