Design your world for the every day and the occasional

We are all designers, and the world around us is the collective project.

As human beings, we are by nature social animals that dwell together on this planet. We take part in and experience our surroundings through our senses and our social interactions and the practice of everyday life. We are also custodians of our world, our fellow human beings, the natural environment, and our planet’s resources. As such, regardless of profession, we are all, in ways big and small, actively engaged in imagining and shaping the world around us. Within this context, let us take stock of the design challenges facing us today, as the first half of 2020 draws to a close.

Our 2020 vision needs a new prescription

Midway into the year, 2020 has already proven to be a year that has challenged how we see the world around us. In the first half of 2020, our communities, our country, and our world were suddenly thrust into a state of change and uncertainty. The shock of recent events has forced us to adapt to changes, and take a hard look at the systems in place in our homes, workplaces, communities, and governments, and to re-imagine the world we want to live in. In many ways, we are all challenged to pause, take stock, and rethink our situation in this world.

The COVID-19 global pandemic and the onset of the new normal of social distancing and home isolation have resulted in unprecedented changes to the way we live and work. Offices are now closed for the time being, and organizations across the world have embraced remote working, and are faced with re-examining their work cultures and policies. Those of us who can work from home find ourselves working longer, taking video calls at all hours, as one day often blurs into the next, and the boundaries that separate work and life, days from evenings and weekends, have become muddled.

Staying connected with extended families and friends requires renewed effort, as in-person gatherings are no longer possible. Those of us with children have found ourselves performing double duty homeschooling our kids due to school closures. Balancing work and family life poses new challenges. At the same time, many parents may be struggling with the need to provide adequate stimuli and engagement for our children.

For those of us directly impacted by the virus, whether contracting it directly, or with family and friends who have contracted it, or where the virus has raised the stakes for those with other health concerns, the pandemic has created a heightened sensitivity towards health and wellness, and lent urgency and priority to our time spent with our loved ones.

Stepping out beyond our homes into our communities, we find that public spaces have been closed. Social distancing signage, and markers, caution tape, fences, and law enforcement impose restrictions on the usage of public spaces. Travel and public transit have also become greatly restricted. Gatherings in groups, including places of worship, restaurants, bars, sports, entertainment and other social venues are no longer safe. Shared social, cultural, and spiritual experiences of different scales have been put on hold.

Service workers are forced to risk their health and that of their families to provide basic necessities for those of us sheltering at home. Many businesses have been forced to lay off workers, and many small businesses, especially those requiring close contact with customers have been forced to shutter.

The pandemic has also laid bare long standing social and economic inequalities that exist within our society. In the United States, the virus has taken a disproportionately large toll on lower-income neighborhoods, many of which have large African American and minority populations. This, combined with a series of acts of police brutality against African Americans during this period, and the violent deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks brought to a head underlying problems of systematic racism and social injustice. In recent weeks, this has resulted in boiling over of civil unrest and the rise of mass protests, as tens of thousands of protestors have taken to the streets in cities across our country and around the world.

On another front, the momentary pause in economic activity earlier this year caused by the pandemic gave our natural environment a moment of respite that exposed plainly the detrimental effects that our global economy and its polluting byproducts have had on the environment. For a moment during quarantine, as humans retreated within their homes, wildlife including populations of endangered species saw sudden revival. A variety of animals could be seen returning to places where they had not lived for years. Major cities in India and Asia saw dramatic improvements in outdoor air quality.

Maslow’s Hierarchy vs. Raworth’s Doughnut

The recent events of 2020 have brought to the fore the need for better systems to solve for the necessities of people in our society. The systems we create will require efforts in a variety of disciplines, including industry, design, artists, government, healthcare, science, finance, law, non-profits, care-givers, entrepreneurs, educators, and small businesses. Two models which may provide a lens through which we can measure the success of our systems are Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational model in psychology which is composed of 5 tiers of human needs, sometimes depicted as levels within a pyramid. The bottom tiers are basic needs and include physiological (including air, food, water, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction), and safety (personal safety, employment, resources, health, and prosperity). The next two levels in the hierarchy are psychological needs consisting of belongingness and love (intimate relationships and friends), and esteem (prestige and feeling of accomplishment). The top level in Maslow’s model are self fulfillment needs or self actualization (achieving one’s full potential including creative activities).

On an individual level, how will systems in our new world support our human needs for basic physiology, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization?

Where Maslow’s Hierarchy helps to identify fundamental needs at the level of the individual, Kate Raworth provides an economic model for well-being on a larger scale. Raworth’s Doughnut Economics challenges historic macro-economic models which over simplify performance as a function of global GDP growth. Raworth instead defines the economy as a function of numerous factors, all of which are important for the well-being of our society. Raworth arranges all of these factors in a ring, like a doughnut. The circular band of the doughnut represents “the safe and just space for humanity” where optimal levels are achieved. For Raworth, the goal is to achieve a level of sustainable and inclusive economic development falling within this space. Underproduce, and society falls within the center of the doughnut and has a shortfall, failing to meet our social foundation. Overproduce, and society lands outside of the doughnut, exceeding our ecological ceiling and risking safety.

On a macro-economic level, how will systems in our new world provide for essential needs of food, water, health, education, income & work, peace & justice, political voice, social equity, gender equality, housing, networks, and energy, while striking the right balance against ecological constraints?

Despite its many challenges, the “great pause of 2020” has offered us an unprecedented moment of reflection. It is as though the great capitalist economic engine suddenly cut power and the world has been for a moment in a state of drift, gliding on black ice as the scenery rolls by. We are being propelled forward by an uneasy momentum along an uncertain trajectory, skidding across political, economic, social, and environmental frictions.

Where will we go from here? What new innovations, new ways of living will we invent to respond to the realities of 2020? How will the challenges of this moment propel us to create a better, more equitable, safer, more livable, and more sustainable world?

if you want to change the world, start off by making your bed

Every one of us plays a part in shaping the world we live in. Making changes in the world can seem daunting, sometimes the changes we want to see in this world seem too big, the task insurmountable. It may feel like what happens in the world is beyond our control. But the world we live in is not always defined by the epic things. It is often made up by the everyday little things, as much as the occasional big things. The little things matter.

Sometimes I like to think about our world as existing on a spectrum between the everyday and the occasional.

The everyday is that world we live in, in our day to day of lives. We are all active participants in designing and making the everyday world around us. It is comprised of the communities (our families, our friends, our teams, our neighbors), everyday places (our homes, our workplaces, our neighborhoods), everyday objects (products and services we use, the tools, the everyday systems around us), everyday stories (the day to day conversations and interactions with our families and friends and neighbors, workmates), and our everyday lives (those day to day routines and events in our lives). In 2020, how will we re-imagine our everyday lives? What communities will we build? How will we redefine the places and things around us everyday to adapt to the changes happening around us? What stories will we tell?

The occasional is the world of representation. Beyond the day to day, occasionally there may be times that we feel compelled to shape our world by getting involved in things bigger than our everyday lives, through shared projects with others, through the things that we make, or through our participation in movements bigger than ourselves. What movements will represent the change we want to see in the world? What monuments will define what our society represents? What art will we create for this new world? What histories will we make? What are the festivals we will celebrate?