The Dashblog

I’m not entirely sure what was said about it, but it’s great to see it out in the world.

Co-Design Pressure Cooker

Our new friends at Fabbo gave the Dashboard a write up. Check out their site for an insight into the brave new fabricated world.

Apparently some of the work done by the  Institute Without Boundaries is going to be preserved by the Canadian Center for Architecture. Included in this collection will be another plastic dashboard (the plans for which you can download from our website).  

It’s exciting that the Dashboard will be preserved for future, uninterested generations, but it also sets the stage for at least part of my weekend — 20 hours of printing and peeling and assembling.

In the Dashboard User Guide, we make a case for the the role of the designer at each position on our Interaction Slider: Prescribed, Menu, Co-creation, Assist and DIY. Yes even DIY. There the designer has a role, if only to observe. If only ‘only observe’ were so easy. Being open to DIY design means being able to continually see the world with fresh eyes. This kind of continual environment amnesia is brilliantly demonstrated in Jane Fulton Suri’s little book from IDEO called ‘Thoughtless Acts?’.

As the book tells us: “Thoughtless acts are all those intiuitive ways we adapt, explaint and react ot things in our environment; things we do without really thinking.” She’s captured a lot of them, all photographed and categorized. The fact that seeing this way isn’t so easy is born out by the necessity of staring at some of the photos for a while before the ‘thoughtless act’ makes itself apparent.

So I’m wondering whether the default position for designers shouldn’t be Prescribe or the increasingly trendy Co-create but DIY. In the User Guide we write for the DIY position: “Observe! DIY design rewards attention. Careful study enriches your own practice and enables one to become an informed participant, take another position on the Slider and actively design. So hands off, eyes open and enjoy.”

I wonder whether Jane Fulton Suri would agree? Check out: http://www.thoughtlessacts.com/

The Dashboard got a little plug on the designnotes blog. So if you’ve come here from there, welcome.

If you’re interested to hear what others are saying about the Dashboard, take a look at this blog which seems to compare it to some kind of military design weapon. Charge!

http://kunik-workbench.blogspot.com/

The current issue of Arbitare describes a series of projects in which architecture can be a form of political action. Perhaps we’ve fried our brains but it’s hard to read about these projects and not immediately plot their positions on the Dashboard.

Here’s just one example:

Arbitare writes about how the Edi Rama, Major of Tirana, Albania, “coloured the fronts of houses, palaces, entire blocks. In the beginning, Rama himself chose the colours – bright, sharp, clashing colours which broke with the grey paint of the ex-communist city. This urban performance took just a few weeks to achieve a form of success. People suddenly began to discuss publicly – in the street – about which types of colours to use. They were debating the public image of the city, about how buildings should present themselves and about urban life in general. And in this way the kaleidoscope wave invented by the mayor spread out – taking in new buildings and involving new “performers” – such as artists and international architects. In just a few months, the colour project transformed the apathy of Tirana’s citizens towards collective spaces – overturning the inertia of 50 years of communist government during which the public sphere was the expression of the power of an elite, censorship and violence. Tirana’s colours were not just a decalcomania to stick on some buildings, but a new form of social communication.”

This is a great story but also a super example of how selecting different Forms can generate creative results. They transformed an Environment by holding down the Communication button too. Of course, now it’s hard not to think about how Tirana might be transformed but selecting other functions on the Dashboard…