The Taxonomy of Trends
The power of design is in its ability to interpret and also to create trends. Design relies on trends because it relies on people’s understanding of and desire to use an object or interface. But one of design’s primary objectives is to craft a different or better way to use the object or interface, which hopefully people also want to use; in other words, to drive trends.
I think the most important thing about understanding trends is the ability to understand the forces, both large and small, that shape the information and aesthetic space in which tech and design operate. This is useful in all industries, but this blog is about design, which is very much a product of and influence on cultural mindsets.
The species
Surprisingly, there are three types of trends. While we normally think of trends as violent and fleeting, the larger forces that shape society also create stickier, more deeply embedded trends. The types are:
- Structured trends: a long-term trend based on fixed, stable forces that pushes change in a certain direction, often as a result of legislation, “game-changing” technology (no, not like your friend’s new app but like the concept of the Internet), or changes in demographics. An example is the development and adoption of electricity starting in the late 19th century.
- Macro trends: a widespread change in belief or behavior based on changing cultural or social conditions. It doesn’t necessarily go away either, which is good in the event the trend makes peoples’ lives better, like the pedestrian movement’s effect on obesity.
- Micro Trends: this is the type of trend that comes and goes. They typically last 1 to 5 years, but everyone might not be aware of them because they can affect only part of the population. Examples include the Lululemon trend among upper middle class women, or avocado as a good color for kitchen appliances in the 70s.
Let’s take a look at a trend in detail.
A specimen
Green places in urban spaces have really caught fire in the last ten years (only literally in California). Community gardens, pocket parks, green construction, other types of urban agriculture, and development of parks in unexpected places are being constructed in cities as major centers of activity with a host of side benefits. These spaces build community, better facilitate pedestrian access, host carbon dioxide-scrubbing greenery, and create more produce in the case of community gardens.
For example, rehabilitation of waterways in the city of Houston provide pedestrian walkways under the highways throughout the entire city and create a park in previously unactivated space. The canals used to be abandoned industrial drainage clogged with trash and hypodermic needles. Now in addition to all the benefits listed above, they prevent flooding as the natural drainage canals of the city and host various interactive art projects, like the LEDs pictured that change configuration with the phase of the moon. The project is in the process of completion. Other parks on their way to completion are Atlanta’s Belt Line park and the High Line in New York City, both of which are built on unused railroad beds. For other parks along the freeway, a good one is the Big Dig in Boston.
Another example of a park in an underutilized space is the cap park in Seattle across I-5. It creates a pedestrian bridge across the freeway, and a novel way to get greenspace in unused vertical space. The landscaping absorbs rainwater and decreases runoff in a rainy city.
Urban farming is also exploding, both in the U.S. and many other countries. Brooklyn, NY, for example, has a Grange chapter (for those who didn’t grow up in Idaho, the Grange is an agricultural organization that promotes community and collective bargaining on agricultural products). Rooftop gardening is also big in China — even the government is encouraging development of more rooftop gardens. Local food production has even led to startups like Window Farms, an open-source urban window farming solution by New York Entrepreneur Britta Riley.
Under the microscope
This is not the first time in history when parks and green spaces have become very important. When urban planning first arose as a science in the mid-19th century, planners in England and the United States like Lewis Mumford and Ebenezer Howard wrote and designed extensively for incorporation of green space in urban environments. In the early part of the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt began establishing national parks, and as planning in the west took off in the 1920s and 1930s, parks and gardens all but took over cities. Later in the 20th century came the movement for environmental movement conservation, which spawned Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
As such, the reemergence of green space is best characterized as a macro trend. Through LEED’s excellent marketing (and it’s international counterparts like BREEM in the UK and the IGCC), green construction and architectural design have become more present in the cultural consciousness. A widening income gap and urban food deserts cause urban agriculture to make more sense. Better technology and the recent recessions lead to higher demand and development of better, smaller, cleaner cars. After the prosperity and conservatism of the 80s and prosperity and hedonism of the 90s, it makes sense that people’s views on the environment and nature moved in the opposite direction. People love novelty, and there is nothing more new than an opposite.
The more practical it gets for people to be “earth-friendly”, the more likely the greenspace trend will continue. If technology supports cheaper, cleaner green construction, better substitutes for gasoline, and smaller living spaces, perhaps people will continue to “think green”. Perhaps the side effect will be that people want open space close to live closer to their environment, and perhaps the macro trend will move towards being a structured trend. Lasting trends don’t depend on what people like but are built on what changes the cultural consciousness or what fundamentally changes how people live. It is also interesting to note that once a trend gets larger, it may die out but can never go back to being a less impactful trend — its impact is permanent if not chronic.
As such, perhaps people will grow to love living closer to nature and having a place to walk their dogs. Or perhaps people will rid themselves of the outdoors and go back to the unbroken concrete jungle in search of something new again. Either way and whether we want them or not, the changes we’ve made during this trend will stick in the cultural consciousness. This won’t be the last time.
