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Should we design for gratitude?
(questions about design practices and ethics)
I have written about initiation and invitation, and about the creation of abundant space (Enlivenment — Ažycciaŭlennie). Now it seems clear to me, that the trade of being a designer means that we are here to create space.
Here are some of the spaces we are designing to create:
space for things to happen
space for phenomena to occur
space for emergence
space for initiation to unfold
space for invitation to be practiced
space for communities to convene
space for togetherness
space for connections to form
space for participation
space for ideas
space in my mind for your ideas
space in my heart for your presence
Should we be designing for gratitude too?
I honestly don’t know. Designer ethics are a notoriously difficult issue to come to terms with. I have seen things designed that I thought were beautiful until I discovered by whom, or what for, or at which price the designer had brought their design into the world. Like many, I have marveled at the now legendary (and gracefully innocent) Michael Sorkin Architectures of Hope concept pages for a Gaza Reimagined (2017), see my piece on our Palestinian colleague Dana Abdulla. More recently, with comparable vigor, yet sheer astonishment, I have been appalled by the…
