Designing in a new real
Weeknotes 369. Designing in a new real. A short update weeknote on first endeavours in designing in the real. And a new real with new collaborations with other intelligences.
Dear subscriber,
Just a short note to let you know there will be no usual newsletter this week due to a short holiday break.
But I have a nice follow-up to last week’s post on the ‘Emerging from the in-between space of human and machine understanding’, where I reflected on the learning from making an AI Chair following the recipe of James Bridle.
Last year, Guido Stompff initiated an article for the 2025 NADR publication Applied Design Research: The Societal Impact, I was invited to co-author, together with Tomas Jaskiewicz and Troy Nachtigall. The publication was finally officially released this month. Guido wrote a post on LinkedIn explaining how the notion of a Fifth Order Design can inspire us to respect the value of collective learning and designing.
It is a plea for “open” design to enable collective learning with “designs” that are independent and continuously supplemented and adapted in the real world. Designs that invite people to think along, decide along and participate.
Referencing the famous call to design for the real world by Viktor Papanek, it is a call that “for the transitions, we must no longer design for the world, but IN and WITH the world.” The chapter (PDF) can be found here.
We were discussing intentions to dive deeper and publish a follow-up, and to connect this specifically to our relation with new intelligences and actors. In that conversation, the example of my experiences with making the AI Chair felt very relevant. Check this reflection by Guido on the missing design capabilities, as AI is not able to embody the real world as we do; it is all hearsay. Last week, I was sharing my first questions and was curious about what this experience reveals about our relationship with AI in the design process and what it tells us about our collaboration with AI and our potential co-performance. Can we build teams with AI, respecting our respectful capabilities?
As Guido mentioned in his reflection, this experience did not disqualify AI as useful. Still, it underscores again that we need to be thoughtful about how we build relationships beyond applying it as a tool. I am looking forward to diving deeper into the new openings from the conversations, building theories and practices, hopefully. We'll keep you posted!
PS: The videos and pictures of TH/NGS are up. And we had some nice reports by attendees, check them out here.
Have a great week!