Form, Function and how we might grow infrastructures for impact
Design in motion
Here at GCSI, we have spent several years working alongside groups and organisations designing and implementing new infrastructures[1] for impact-related activities — including new kinds of ‘peak bodies’ (such as Social Enterprise Australia) or new forms of intermediaries to grow approaches to change (such as the proposed Nexus Centre). This work has both inspired and challenged us.
We are currently working with the Nexus Centre Foundation Partner (UQ, ANZSOG and CFI) as a Learning Partner for the design work they are undertaking. In addition to supporting their team through regular Critical Friend sessions, we will also be sharing two blogs focused on some of our shared insights generated along the way.
In the first of these, the focus is on an adage that GCSI and the Foundation Partner often heard from stakeholders as the initial designs for the Centre started to be shared — “we need to get the functions right — because form follows function”.
It is a position that we often hear when it comes to developing organisations or other kinds of infrastructure that have a focus on impact — whether it be a new intermediary, a social enterprise, or a new non-profit. Whilst we understand the sentiment, our hunch is that this adage is not really valid in the context of human infrastructure like organisations, where form and function often are much more entangled.
So, we got curious to explore how this adage (originally developed in the field of architecture) actually relates to the development of human and social organisations.
Where did the adage ‘form follows function’ come from?
“It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”
Louis Sullivan, 1896
The notion that ‘form follows function’ originated in the late 19th Century. First articulated by American architect Louis Sullivan (1896), it was a relatively simple idea — that the form of a structure or object should be based primarily on its intended purpose or function. Underpinning the idea was a commitment to utilitarian and rational design — that any design of a building should start from its purpose — that a design should be determined by a clearly defined function. So, there is an assumption that there is some kind of clear understanding of the function or problem to which a ‘designer’ (in Sullivan’s case, the architect) is responding.
What is hidden within what seems like a straightforward adage, even if applied just to the field of architecture, is that there is a singular, uncontested ‘function’ or ‘purpose’ that can be identified by the designer, and then responded to through a rigorous, rational design process.
Unfortunately, too often this leads to a top-down, expert-driven response — where the designer can make claims of ‘knowing’ (rather than assuming and then testing) what the real or true ‘function’ is, and can then build the appropriate form in response. It also, of course, assumes there is a clear-cut, definable ‘problem’ or ‘function’ that the experts can identify (which may be the case in architecture).
Contrary to this, when working with human/social infrastructure it is much more likely that the functions, problems and opportunity sets are intersecting, complex, uncertain, or unclear.
From these beginnings in the realm of physical design, ‘form follows function’ spread beyond the field of architecture — to become an unquestioned adage in diverse fields, both those influenced by design and beyond — like planning, organisational design, business, and management to name just a few (see for example, Batty, 2022)[2]. Increasingly we are also hearing it used in the context of human and social infrastructure.
What are the implications for designing and developing social and organisational infrastructure?
When it comes to exploring and designing human and social infrastructures — organisations, projects, initiatives, platforms — we are often working in contexts that are much less clear and solid. Sometimes we have a blurry glimpse of a problem space — for example, place-based approaches seem to have some promise to create equity and participatory ways forward for people who are not adequately served by traditional service delivery models — but it is mostly fair to say that there is as much that is unknown as there is that is known.
Mostly, human and social infrastructure is designed and developed in complex contexts — where there are different perspectives on what is going to be needed, what works, and how the functions should be reflected in governing and spatial forms. Further, because it is now increasingly recognised that we need to grow social infrastructure that is adaptive and capable of testing and learning forward rather than just adopting top-down programmatic and linear pathways of progression, we need to think about how forms and functions interact with context, and how these can change over time.
Creating social infrastructure means we need to see ‘form’ and ‘function’ in shifting contexts — and recognise that they need to be responsive not just to each other, but to the context itself, which includes the social and relational environments in which the design is grounded, which are also not stable, but change over time.
In addition, the contexts in which social infrastructure is developed are also shaped by and within certain constraints — that is, things like funding, policy design, procurement and contracting arrangements, that can either limit and restrict, or enable the design and development of the social infrastructures. So, we need to be able to design infrastructures that can adapt, advocate, challenge and shape-shift in the face of these constraints.
In effect, when it comes to designing social infrastructure we are often designing in motion — so seeing ‘form’ and ‘function’ in flow alongside context and constraint is much more reflective of what happens in the process. There is also much more motion — hence our illustration of all these elements in flowing water rather than as occupying solid positions in the Figure below.
When it comes to designing infrastructure — such as the proposed Nexus Centre — it’s important to think not only about ‘form’ and ‘function’, but also to recognise the contexts in which this entity is being designed (and in which it will start to be developed) and the constraints that could either limit or enable its development.
It is never the case that infrastructure such as this Centre is developed in an unconstrained environment. So, the task of the Foundation Partner is to navigate the constraints that have been defined by a range of different factors — like contractual obligations, consideration of viable business models, and expectations of potential funders — and with the possibilities that have been identified by an engaged, dynamic and diverse set of stakeholders in what is a growing field.
What does all this mean for designing national infrastructure like the proposed Nexus Centre?
The Foundation Partner has been working hard to connect with a diverse range of stakeholders from across sectors that have an interest in place-based work. They will soon share an initial design and then engage further to refine that design.
Like any piece of new national infrastructure, it’s unlikely that what will emerge from the first phase of this work will be a ‘perfect’ design that meets everyone’s wants and desires. The best case would be for the initial design to have enough flex and for the stakeholders to advocate for enough entanglement to enable it to grow into an agenda that can hold diverse functions and forms across different contexts. We think that there are at least four elements that could help create a design that could seed a positive future for a Nexus Centre:
- Designing ‘new’ national infrastructures necessarily will involve recognising and leveraging existing elements of the ecosystem, and this may result in stretching beyond singular notions of potential infrastructure configurations.
- Designing in principles and feedback loops that will enable the entity to adapt and develop in a way that is responsive to the diversity of stakeholders and their needs, whilst also providing some guidelines for how the entity should be governed and structured to ensure the primacy of public good in the first instance.
- Designing in a structure that will enable a degree of flexibility and open communication (e.g. a modular approach) will help to enable the entity to respond to a diversity of potential functions, and adapt as conditions change.
- Growing positive engagement within the broader ecosystem that will take the Centre forward into implementation, drawing on the resilience generated through diverse participation. Including the voices of a diverse and energetic body of stakeholders could help ensure that the Centre has the best possible opportunities to reach its potential as a space in which Place-based approaches can flourish in Australia. This cannot be ‘done’ by the Foundation Partner alone — it requires all of us who are involved in and care about place-based work and futures to participate, voice our opinion, questions and concerns, and continue to be involved even if the initial design is not exactly what we imagined.
What could this mean for place based impact?
Anyone who is working or has worked in a community context understands that it is wonderfully messy — layers of relationship and interaction; intersectionality of identities; small ‘p’ politics folded in to big ‘P’ Politics; and a myriad of interwoven and interrelated connections in, around and between community members and the wider context that influence life in a place. Community and place are examples of the extraordinary entanglements that make up complex social systems — and this in turn is what makes community so rich and what makes place-based approaches so full of potential as a way to reach people and generate better outcomes.
Community doesn’t end at 5pm, ask you to fill out an application form or put you on a waiting list — you are a part of something that is alive and where you are as much a member as a participant. Place-based approaches tap into a different kind of energy — one that sees people as contributors rather than clients, and one that enables participation rather than servicing. The reality, however, is that in Australia, such approaches are, at this moment in time, a little counter-cultural in a field that is dominated by welfare and service delivery.
So, any Centre that is developed to promote such work, and to find spaces for it in policy and funding arenas, is going to have to reflect, to a large degree, the value of more complex, entangled approaches to working in place. Such a Centre needs to be able to draw together a dynamic and interrelated set of functions and hold them together through forms that enable connection and change.
The design and development of social infrastructures and particularly those that are focused on impact is not simple, nor something that can be done in singular processes or events. It requires us to commit to working with entanglement (as illustrated in the Figure above) — to accept a degree of ambiguity, uncertainty, fluidity, and yet still actively participate to explore, co-create, and move forward step by step. This is one of the many reasons the Foundation Partner are working to design the Nexus Centre through a phased approach.
Perhaps the best outcome could be to become a partner in developing a centre of ‘excellent entanglement’ — a Nexus, of sorts — that helps the field of place-based work realise futures beyond the status quo of welfare and service delivery?
[1] ‘Infrastructure’ no longer refers to just ‘physical’ and ‘landscape’ related technologies — but to all the human, relational and organisational supports and scaffolds that hold relationships, interactions, actions and organising aspects of how we work and live together. See for example, Sharon Matterns work in https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/deep-mapping-the-media-city
[2] Batty, M. (2022) The conundrum of ‘form follows function’ (Editorial) in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science Volume 49, Issue 7, September 2022, Pages 1815–1819
