There aren’t many design conferences in Europe which excite feverish speculation from enthusiastic would-be attendees, who count their cents and pennies in anticipation of making it to Amsterdam for this bi-annual event. One event that competes at this level is the annual Richard Saul Wurman-created TED (Technology Entertainment Design) brainfests, usually to be found camped in the spring sunshine of Monterey. Thackara is the closest Europe gets to its own Wurman, and he has added decorum, but TED draws on a still wider field of luminaries.

Doors has big ideas encapsulated in its one word titles (last ‘Lightness’, previous ‘Play’) and brings together some of the smartest heads in designland, many who are former presenters, others who may or should be in future. The big idea of Flow had many attendees anticipating discussion of Chicago sociologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theories on flow. Instead Thackara proposed a context in which “powerful and transformative technology is coming” and unlike the industrial age the benefits of technology no longer seem like an end in themselves.

Thackara argues that we need to ‘perceive flows’ (“in order to be able to do things differently we need to be able to perceive them differently”) and advocates “dashboards for cities and buildings” that will allow us to experience the systems and processes on which we depend. Building on this he argues for designing processes, not designing things. “Processes continue and so should design”, he observes, adding that designers need new metaphors for what they do.

In TED fashion speakers were given 20 minutes airtime, with a gong signalling end of broadcast. The three days were organised around progressive themes: I‘n what sense are flows a design issue? ‘How shall we design ways to perceive, experience, and understand flows? ‘How should we design, in the space of flows? Presentations within each theme were grouped around specific questions, with Thackara acting as interlocutor after each presentation, and at a panel comprised of each group of presenters.

‘In what sense are flows a design issue? was the theme of the first day. ‘Biomimicry’ author Janine Benyus argued engagingly that organisms in the bio-mass face many of the same design challenges we do and that we should learn to mimic nature’s, or more precisely evolution’s, ‘design’ solutions. ‘At another extreme of design issues Lars Erik Holmquist, a researcher at Sweden’s ‘Future Applications Lab, discussed the EU-funded Smart-Its project which focuses on small, cheap radio transmitters.

Day two addressed itself to the next question: ‘How shall we design ways to perceive, experience, and understand flows? and kicked off with Doors veteran, sci-fi writer, and author of the excellent non-fiction book The Hacker Crackdown Bruce Sterling, who presented a typically dystopic view of the future of pervasive computing. Marco Susani, US-based director of Motorola’s Advanced Concepts Design Group ‘presented one of his Group’s excellent research projects on mapping the shapes of communication. Hyper-cool Australian engineer and researcher Natalie Jeremijenko is another dystopic, though a few degrees separated from the Sterling model discussing the Feral Robotic Dog project, which turns industry created technology against its supposed worst aspects.

‘From the active to the reflective, Philip Tabor, a London-based professor of architecture posited the need for ‘a space for half-formed thoughts’, noting that “‘we can sharpen the outlines of thingsÉ when we feel our ideas are ready to coalesce”. Deepening the philosophical thread, philosopher Patricia de Martelaere noted that “we have become obsessed by changes and by the challenge of representing patterns of changes”, but contended that “change as such can not be represented”. This was one of the most remarked upon presentations at Doors, but left me feeling like the boy who remarked that the Emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes. Day two rounded off with digital artist Josh Davis, best known for his Praystation.com project. Refreshingly Davis did talk about real design projects, dissecting the inspirations and trains of thought behind one of this projects. While not profound it was valuable to see how ideas might flow into process and product. Refreshingly Davis did talk about real design projects, dissecting the inspirations and trains of thought behind one of this projects. While not profound it was valuable to see how ideas might flow into process and product.

‘How should we design, in the space of flows? was the question for the final day of Flow. One of the phenomena investigated by Italian architect and teacher Stefano Boeri is self-organising social structures in which people adapt spaces designed for one purpose to their own needs. Equally concerned with the built world is Doors alumnus Malcolm McCullough, who teaches at the University of Michigan, and is author of Abstracting Craft and the forthcoming On Digital Ground. His theme was that ‘flow needs fixity’. “You need to have some places that you really know how to play”, he elaborated. “Even nomads have rounds they do.” “Context not only shapes the usability of design”, he concluded. “Ideally it ‘is’ the subject matter of design.”

The theme of sustainability flowed through the conference, and while its high priest in the diocese of design, Ezio Manzini, ‘Professor of Industrial Design at Milan Polytechnic, delivered a familiar sermon his other comments were less dogmatic. It is assumed that flow is fast, he remarked, but this isn’t necessarily the case. “If we lose the idea of slow flow we lose the idea of quality”, he observed. “Nothing is quality unless you have a community that produces quality. You can have an idea quickly, but this needs a community to produce it.” New York-based writer and consultant JC Herz presentation ‘Gaming ‘and the art of innovation’ perhaps most successful mediated between contemporary observation and theory while proposing practice that might be useful for designers, arguing that “the world of Web services will be closer to that of the Sims than the client server models discussed now”.

‘‘Humanising technology’ is project initiated by the Design Council in the UK, and lead by Ellie Runcie and Gill Wildman, which aims to re-define the role design plays in technology-driven companies. They advocate developing tools for clients to use “not so they become designers but so they can learn about bringing in design earlier in the process” and their continuing intervention in the business world appears to be demonstrating this.’ ‘This is the revolution for us’ was the provocative and encouraging title of MIT Media Lab Center for Bits and Atoms director Neil Gershenfeld. In a wide ranging talk he addressed configuration, a key issue in designing for networked products, arguing that it was the wrong approach to make people “go off to a computer somewhere else” for this purpose.

‘In a concluding presentation Massimo Banzi, associate professor of technology at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, pondered the nature of software development. Reviewing the evolution of industry practice he observed that there is a “need to add interaction designers who can think about users so we can make better software for pervasive computing”.

Along with the main presentations the conference also presented the Open Doors competition, which allowed twenty-two selected entrants the chance to present their work in a five minute ‘elevator pitch’ to the entire throng. This provided a valuable chance to learn about contemporary research and work.

Doors is one of the best designed conferences you might attend, and is also an ‘engine’ (in Herz-speak) for other initiatives. The event design and overall experience was very well considered, and at lunchtimes, and building on the Doors engine, two Interation-Ivrea students, Jason Tester and Chris Noessel, hosted ‘speed meeting’ events.

While Doors is a strange and generally wonderful beast, there is a contradiction at the heart of its programming, in which it attempts to present a big theme but doesn’t attempt to tie together these disparate and variably grounded contributions. The value of any presenters’ contribution would be enhanced if they were encouraged to build their talk around a rudimentary structure that encouraged them to provide some context for their ideas and connection to the interests of the audience. Presentations also tended to be light on analysis and context, and there was little discussion of economics or presentation of quantitative research.

A fundamental critique of the Flow programme made by one attendee was that the IDCA had grappled with the same question at its 1999 Aspen event. The ripples from that event don’t appear to have reached European shores, indicating the considerable problem of sharing design knowledge, more than a problem of inappropriate programming.

Doors is great event that has an unresolved contradiction at its heart, but still stands out from the design conference crowd. People’s needs for design knowledge and the ways they can be fulfilled have changed such that established conference forms are increasingly inadequate. Doors is adapting better than most but of course we still need and deserve better.

References

Conference Web site

Images

Images, including the wonderful ‘Flow Conference Pilot’ image by Remon Tijssen that is referenced in the text, are available at the Doors of Perception ‘Flow’ Web site.