Concrete Jungle: How Urban Landscape Influences Designer?

Material Theory

Design is an interdisciplinary study. As a designer, we practice theory from other subjects and practically realise the concept in the physical world. In 2021, the Master Industrial Design department of Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK), collaborated with the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University. By hosting a class mixed with archaeology and design students, we tried to discover the overlapping content between archaeology and design, ambitiously attempt to dig out and form a new archaeology-design study.

“Material is the mother of innovation.”
Maikel Kuijpers, 2019, ‘Material Is the Mother of Innovation’, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

In this program, we focused on the material. During the study, one of the material theories — material agency — took my attention immediately. Instead of considering things are passive, the material agency theory believes that materials and objects “act”. They influence people and situations. Another way to say, the interaction is double-sided. The word “agency” is defined as “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or exerting power.” Therefore, the material agency theory also explains that humans imbued their intention in their creation of objects, making things have aimings.

“People intentionally give these objects an agenda, and, in turn, imbue them with an agency of their own.”
Claire Russo, 2007, ‘The Concept of Agency in Objects’, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World, viewed 12 April 2021, <https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/materialworlds/1825.html>

I can’t help but wonder, does material use its agency to provoke human tendency even further? If so, what does that mean to a designer like myself?

Modern Designer

Before speculating how material triggers designer to create, we need to clarify what kind of designers we are talking about in this context. I prefer drawing the line around the mid-20th century when the term “modern design” was used to introduce modernism into the design field. Modern design is distinguished from the previous design movement, decorativeism basically. The most significant difference is modern design focus on functionality. Instead of delving into the final outlook, modern designers focusing more on the usability of material, involving ourselves actively in the material world, even publically.

“We live in a world that has much design consciousness, but little design awareness.”
Nigel Whiteley, 1993, ‘Design for society’, Reaktion Books, London, UK

However, due to industrialisation and globalisation, the issue we faced more than ever is where to position ourselves? Unlike the designer motivated by the Arts and Crafts movement, who determined to revive decorative arts, “form follows function” occupied the modern designer’s mind. A standardised, unified approach replaced making the statement by designing. The nonverbal identification of the designer as an individual, not as a brand, declined.

The design industry’s evolution is irreversible but finding a way to indicate ourselves through design object is not. What if we can design in a way that uses the material to exhibit personal pursue in an object? Is it possible to realise it by formulating the complex relationship between material and the human mind? Traditionally, we believe the inspiration comes from one’s previous experience. I would like to reference the material agency theory to specialise the contact we have with the material as “the” experience that inspired us in design. Designers are capable of visualising, materialising abstract concepts. Therefore, we are more likely to conduct the creativity by using our intuition as a human who experienced.

Surrounded by Concrete

To investigate the subtlety of material and its “act”, I started to look into my own experience, trying to conclude how the exposal of material in daily life affect the designer’s mental and emotional attachment. I was born and lived in Taipei City for over twenty-three years before I came to the Netherlands, so it is logical for me to focus on concrete — from which that nearly all Taipei’s buildings made. By reflecting on the subjective impression I have regarding concrete, I can gradually develop a proposal that might explain the subconscious relationship between material and the designer’s mindset. Perhaps adapt some of the declarations in material agency theory.

Concrete as a mainstream construction material in Taipei makes it hard to ignore them. (Not exaggerating, every glimpse you take in Taipei includes concrete.) Since visual is the directest way to impact, exposed to the concrete jungle, we unconditionally link an urban building’s style, such as function-orienting, stability, and neutrality, to the material itself. As time goes by, the material becomes the synonym when people describe the surrounding. Moreover, in Taiwan, we even use “cement” to designate all kinds of concrete. Eventually, cement directly infers Taipei.

From here, I started to understand how material act on people — via urban landscape. Especially for the city in the basin, like Taipei, people literally surrounded by concrete. Designers from the area also influenced by the material significantly. As object-creator ourselves, we can react back to the material in a creative way — designing. From what I experience and other Taipei-based designer’s opinion, we feel more intimate with concrete because it constantly appears in our sight. Ultimately, concrete can inspire, triggers us more than other material.

Landscape — Material — Designer

This diagram I made shows the active connection from the physical elements to the designer’s ability and creation. On the one way, the material collective becomes the landscape, which influences the designer who lives in that area. In my assumption, apparently, material drives the designer to use them in a certain way. Whether it is choosing the material in the first place or imitating the impression they have in their mind, all these reactions are likely the material’s agency’s results.

Meanwhile, from the other way around, the environment passively does something to display its existence. The outputs of their “act” come out through the designers, partially included back to the environment. It is an endless cycle that shows an invisible contact beyond the physical world and an individual’s contribution.

So, is there any actual design practice that developed based on this connection? The answer is yes. In architect Jen-Hsin Chien’s work “Cement / Recording Landscape” (2017), he speculated that concrete has some kinds of containing affordance that could document the land’s transformation. Thus, in his design process, concrete became a character who records human actions and mirrors the interactions between humans and nature decades-long.

“I imagine the cement as a tool for recording the changes in the landscape.”
Jen-Hsin Chien (簡任欣), 2017, ‘Cement / Recording Landscape’ (水泥紀錄器－礦場地變遷再造), Department of Architecture, NCKU (國立成功大學), Taiwan

Furthermore, he described the similarity between urban planning and concrete moulding:

“The building regulations and limitations within the city are like the concrete mould, gradually forms our urban and living space.”
Jen-Hsin Chien (簡任欣), 2017, ‘Cement / Recording Landscape’ (水泥紀錄器－礦場地變遷再造), Department of Architecture, NCKU (國立成功大學), Taiwan

In conclusion, so far, I boldly assume that the modern designer should revive self-identification through the material. By doing so, the objects we design are geographically marked, which subtly give the thing an intention to attach to the designer emotionally. On the other hand, the design we make become part of the physical world, continuously giving impact to other humans. From a monumental scale, the agenda is endless, the material agency eternally active as the part of human archive in the universe. Isn’t this romantic? Once we are aware of this, the grandness of design improves simultaneously.