DCC2009: Water in our lives

DCC2009: Water in our lives

Prof. M P Ranjan

The year has started and another year of courses with new students from several PG design disciplines come to this course at NID. The first batch consists of four disciplines on the Paldi campus of NID and these include Product Design, Textile Design, Transportation and Automobile Design and Animation Film Design. The theme for this year is Water. Various facets of water in our lives are to be explored by these students and for the first Paldi batch we have three sub-themes that are listed below.

1. Water: Storage and Delivery
2. Water: Festivals and Sport
3. Water: Awareness of Issues and Methods

Image01: Blackboard with the preliminary discussions on What is Design? Using words offered by the students as part of the class discussion.

The black board shows the early discussions in the class when we tried to assess the current level of knowledge about design amongst the students of the batch and as the dialogue progressed the board filled up with the words that were used by the students to try and share their own notion of design and what they thought it is. Rashmi, Shashank and Ranjan were involved in these discussions by reacting and adding their own dimensions. We asked the students to think deeply about themselves and their lives to try and see when they discovered the idea of design and found it may be a career for each one of them. The discussions led to both sharing as well as an introspective journey that would continue for some time particularly for the students to discover themselves and find out a bit more about their own beliefs and positions in relation to a variety of human subjects, many of which are intangible and not usually a subject of either active analysis or discourse. What do you really believe and what would you do in a particularly difficult situation?

Image02: Group formation and bonding of groups in three sub-groups before the commencement of the formal brainstorming and structure building sessions that follow.

The action to these situations may reveal our deep seated fears and convictions which we may not be aware of at the surface of our consciousness and this would influence all the design decisions that we were to make in our careers ahead, therefore it would be useful to know, if it is at all possible to know all of it, which may not be possible till we are actually confronted with a particular opportunity or situation that would test this belief in some deep way. Ranjan used his slides as well as pages from the internet to share ideas about design and to introduce some of the key thinkers of the day along with their current ideas about design.

Image03: Books discussed this year in class. The students are also primed on the other resources that are available in digital format and on the internet and appropriate links are shown and provided in this session.

The scholars discussed included Dr Harold Nelson and John Heskett for their books “The Design Way” and “Toothpicks and Logos” respectively. Hesket’s book has been released again as a low cost edition in India under a new title called “Design: A very brief introduction” that is available from many book stores as well as online. Also discussed were the new books by Bryan Lawson with Kees Dorst called “Design Expertise” and another book by Dorst called “Understanding Design” and the teachers shared the long list of 175 attributes of design that is included in the contents of the book for students to look up as a direction finder for their own search for understanding of “What is design?”

We have asked the students to reflect on the question once again quite deeply and get back to the teachers with an email response to the question and this could open up the platform for any further dialogue on the new subject. Our finding from the various responses by the students while the black board was being filled up with words associated with design thinking and action was that they individually knew very little and even that knowledge lacked any conviction. So far three students have submitted their email response and we are sure the others will muster courage to make their offerings as the week progresses and they feel up to steam on the discourse on a subject as complex as design

Image04: Class presentations and group discussions in thumbnail views. The class is held in a large studio with flexible furniture arrangements possible with a lot of softboards available for the posters and visual material for the presentations.

We introduced the course by sharing a slide presentation that was made for the EAD06 conference in Bremen, which was a description of this course that was made for the first time by Ranjan since the course was formulated and conducted at NID over the past fifteen or twenty years. This course has indeed evolved from its origins in the “Design Methods” and “Design Process” beginnings in the early 70’s at NID and the name change to “Design Concepts and Concerns” occurred in the late 90’s and from a scientific and environment focus of the 70’s and 80’s the shift that we made to “Concerns” brought an element of relevance and ideology into the core consideration at the centre of this course offering. This is why we started looking at meta themes and we did shift away from micro problems and in the process removed the kindergarden from the basic design course at NID while keeping the quality of flexibility and the non-prescriptive nature of assignments that design education demands. Another major shift was the design assignments being handled by a team rather than being assigned to individual with the specific intention of encouraging team processes and attitude forming that could support such demands top deal with the typical conflicts that design tasks abound.

Image05: The theme and sub-themes of "Water" with a description of the process of discovery by the group to set the assignment rolling.

The structure of the assignments is therefore collaborative and graded through the following intentional stages.
1. Understanding oneself and ones beliefs through deep thought and articulation of the self.
2. Group processes in exploring a meta theme and discovering what one already knew about the topic so that it could be used as a platform for design action.
3. Outward exploration to fill in the gaps in ones knowledge by meeting and connecting with experts and with resources that are available both published and in the environment.
4. Understanding the processes of categorization and modeling leading to the building of external models to share and discuss ones deep understanding of the meat theme in question and to be able to see a structure that could depict the current understanding of the subject which is open to change through the arrival of new insights and new knowledge.
5. Sensing and discovering design opportunities that are worth doing and elaborating all the latent opportunities through a process of visualisation and discourse.
6. Building deep convictions about possible opportunities through a process of visual exploration and sharing with colleagues, while at the same time it is a process of learning to think and learning to act in design with a future focus on potential and optimistic outcomes.

To discuss this and other aspects of becoming a designer Ranjan talked about the “Design Journey” using the model and a copy of the paper that describes the various modes of thought that the designer had to use and this brought us to the first assignment and the forming of three teams with tasks as listed above. The presentation is expected on Thursday morning and each group woud be given one hour to make their presentation having explored the sub-theme fully through the process of brainstorming and categorization followed by forming structure and giving form in the shape of a suitable metaphor for durable recognition of the theme and its organization that would be reflected in the structure. The students have now started working on the task of finding structure and form of their sub-theme areas through the process that we described above. The group work is intensive through ice-breaking conversations, brainstorming and collaboration, categorization and arguments, finding structure and agreement with some compromises and last of all finding form through a shared metaphor that could show the level of understanding the the group has arrived at through this active process, a real learning by doing. We look forward to the presentations and the deep learning that can be used for future design projects as well.

Prof. M P Ranjan

A personal Journey

Image: Harini at Gandhinagar during DCC2008

This is a personal post based on my reflections over the past four years. I have had the good fortune and a rare opportunity of acquiring a glimpse both sides of the DCC coin- First as a student in 2004 and now, as assistant faculty in 2008. The journey has been tumultuous and exciting with each day bringing new learning and growth.

The methodology advocated by DCC has become a way of life and is being utilized by numerous people across various walks after having assimilated it into the order of every day things. Four years ago, groups converged in the studio spaces at NID to weave our ideas of the concepts and concerns of design around the theme of globalization and the new order of the world. At that time not many of us possessed the foresight that one small course at NID spread over the course of a few weeks would change and shape the way we would all reason from then on- both collectively and as thinking individuals. There is a clarity that emerges from all the confusion, which calls for a new kind of thinking, understanding, questioning and constantly revaluating opinions and beliefs.

Image: Harini discussing brainstorming and at the presentations with Gandhinagar students

A few days ago, soon after this new phase of my journey began; I rummaged around to rediscover the thoughts and feedback I had penned at the culmination of the course in 2004. This is what it had to say – “When I reflect back on the entire course and all the rapid exchanges and brainstorming sessions there were many thoughts that kept surfacing through my mind and striking home. Many of us grow up with an exaggerated sense of our own self-worth and intelligence. Our spectrum is narrow, our tolerance level non-existent and our motto in life ‘My way is the best way, if not the only way’. Eating humble pie (with unceasing regularity) is probably the best way of learning one of life’s bitter truths and what should have been the Eleventh Commandment-‘you are definitely not as smart as you think you are (or even as smart as others think you are!)’” In hindsight and with slightly more lucidity now than before, I believe that was the result of a first encounter from very close quarters of group dynamics in action.

I trust that each person we meet or come in contact with, whether at home, in the workplace or otherwise have a definite part to play in our overall education in the subject of life. We can never walk away empty-handed after any encounter with the feeling of not having learnt something new. To this end each person’s background and imbibed values areof relevance in enhancing the experience of others. One of the richest experiences that life has to offer is of meeting other people from different arenas of life and the reciprocal exchange that arise between them- it appears impossible that one should ever give without getting anything in return. There is something to be learnt, whether positive or not, from every interaction with another. It also helps us to realize that there are always people to help us out with our own deficiencies. Learning to work as a team, to work with a team- a very challenging, sometimes formidable task but always a gratifying one. A time to share your thoughts and experiences and a time to learn from others.

Image Harini at the group presentations in the NID Gandhinagar Atrium.

My impressions of my first day at DCC class is etched in my mind- a little nervous and apprehensive but very eager and enthusiastic –to learn, to make an impression and to meet and make friends and broaden my perspective of the world at large- a daunting task by any stretch of the imagination. Having heard a lot about the course from numerous friends and seniors I was geared up to face the storm. Upon reflection I now feel that the whole experience has been one of the most rewarding ones till date –the experience of rubbing shoulders with some very resourceful and enterprising people, the desperation in meeting last- minute deadlines, of debate and boisterous argument, the feeling of pride in a job well done, your own growing awareness of your increasing confidence in yourself, the feeling of being part of a team or making a presentation which you have slaved over for hours- these feelings to me are the essence of professional development.

Two invaluable lessons that I take back with me at the end of all this are-firstly, never to go into the battlefield without being fully prepared and doing your groundwork thoroughly and secondly, to be truthful while admitting your ignorance- it’s perfectly acceptable to utter the words ‘I don’t know, but I will find out’. The feeling of being cut down to size is very deflating, but it does serve its purpose-it teaches you a powerful lesson you are not apt to forget easily! The more dogmatic we are, we consciously close shut many doors of opportunities that we could experience, learn from, draw strength and courage to go on to be a better person. After than, can there actually be an individual who doesn’t require a second chance?

What is Design? What can we know about it and what can we not and why.

Design is neither Art not is it Science. So what is it?

Image: DCC Black Board of class discussion today with students from five PG disciplines at NID
Students are requested to send us an email written in their own words (about 500 to 1000 words max) as a response to the class discussion and their own understanding of the subject. Try and explaon the subject to a 12th standard student and use examples from your own discipline to illustrate any point that needs to be explained.

One of our students from the Bangalore Centre has sent me his views as a blog post and you can see the post on this link below:
Bellare Samir Deep has made the post on his blog "I talk about design! Sad but True.", take a look. Send a copy to Rashmi and to me and if you wish to your faculty as well. Kindly place the words DCC2007 in the subjectline for easy categorisation of your message in my mail box.

DCC in Bangalore: Retail Design and Digital Experience students begin the journey

DCC in Bangalore: Retail Design and Digital Experience students begin the journey

Image: DCC Black Board. Many insights about the nature of design and a discussion about its boundaries.

Image: A revised model of the Design Journey along with a discussion of the systems metaphor for design – the fire model and the responsibility of the designer.

Tomas Maldonado in his critique of Buckminster Fuller’s belief that “Revolution by Design” would be exclusively an act of technological imagination states that for its success design would need what C. Wright Mills called “sociological imagination”, that is both technical courage as well as social and political courage, to achieve real lasting results.

Design is expanding in scope and meaning and design education needs to stay in touch to be effective. In this opening post from Bangalore in great weather and from the brand new R & D Campus of the National Institute of Design I am sharing a few pictures taken with faculty and students of the Bangalore Centre.

Image: With faculty and staff at the NID R & D Campus in Bangalore.

Image: DCC class session in progress in the Board Room on day 1.

Image: Students discussing the first assignment of “Exploring the self”.
Download the EAD06 paper about this course and its assignments and the visial presentation from my website here. PDF paper (50 kb) and PDF presentation (4.1 mb)

What is Sustainability? What are the Design Opportunities for India?

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FOR INDIA
The issue of understanding sustainable design has had the five groups of students working very hard over the week and the weekend and we were able to complete all the presentations on saturday. Today I have been able to post on my advocasy blog called "Design for India" a note on Sustainability as a Principle for Design Action in India, take a look.

The presentations done by the students groups are shown below. The next stage would be in exploring the areas of uncertainity and the unknown by making some research moves into the field as well as into published resources using the present understanding of the group as a starting point. The purpose is to move forward and understand the finer details while getting a better grasp of the big sweeping conception of both global as well as historical perspectives that may apply to the task area and the sub-field that the groups is addressing. Sustainability is a very complex concept and it may be useful to get in touch with some of the published resources especially some good simple texts that could give one a quick entry into the concepts that are associated with this field. Based on this understanding the discussions with experts would be more fruitful. By experts we do not mean only those qualified by training or by having obtained a degree in some field, particularly a PhD! far from it, we mean that the students should try and make contact with people in the field who have a direct contact with the subject and some of them may even have a very current contact and therefore some useful insights that may be critical and contemporary and others may have had an extended contact through years of experience and would be able to give some historical perspectives as well. Others may be from the academic field and yet others may be from organisations that deal with the subject, such as the Centre for Environment Education in Ahmedabad or the Physical Research Laboratory, each with their own area of focus. Getting access to these Institutes may not be easy but with some diplomacy and a letter from NID many doors could open and individuals too could be open to share their experiences.

Presentation of the Food Group


Presentation of the Health Group


Presentation of the Play Group


Presentation of the Mobility Group


Presentation of the Learning Group


The very expressive metaphor of the ocean going ship in search of the learning experiences Click image to enlarge.

Understanding Design Opportuniities and Modelling in Design

Image: List of focus areas for sustainability explorations and modelling
Five groups are formed to explore the theme of sustainability as it would impact several areas of human activity in India in the DCC session this time. They are formed into groups and each group would explore one activity through a series of explorations as part of this course. Starting with the selected activity each group would try and plumb their own experience and living knowledge through an iterative series of brainstorming and categorisation sessions in which they would try to make sense of the context, the influencing factors and the various attributes and features of the chosen activity keeping in mind the emphasis on the need for sustainability as a design intention.

Using this approach they would propose models and a discovered structure for the explored space and share this in the form of a visually rich model that is supported by a metaphor which is memorable while the structure provides them with a framework to make the whole situation meaningful and understandable.

The areas that have been proposed for each group are Learning, Food, Health, Play and Mobility and they can interpret the areas in their own way and make their own emphasis to make it meaningful and understandable.

This new batch of DCC students include the Transport Design students of both batches, Product Design students as well as the students of Strategic Design Management from the second year. The blackboard from the class discussion yesterday is shown here below. The focus of the discussions was to look at design and design learning as well as to explolre the many intangible attributes of design thought and action.


We used the comparison between a chess playing computer and a human player as a method of articulating a set of qualities that would distinguish one and from the other and use this juxtaposition to try and discover the core activities in design that would be truly human and at the very core of the capability that we would value in design education as it cannot be delegated to the computer. A number of websites were shared during the class and the students were requested to explore the links on both the Design Concepts and Concerns blog as well as those on the Design for India blog as part of their preparation for this course.

The group assignment is designed to be carried out in several stages and the intention is to create a platform for first hand experience of using design processes to understand complex situations and tasks and to use the collective life experience of the group to first understand the situation and the embedded opportunities as well as to discover the areas of ignorence which could be supplemented later with focussed research and meetings with experts in the assignment that follows. During this assignment the students are not expected to go outside their group since we do believew that it would be quite productive to first map out all that is already known about the subject at hand however new the topic may seem we would have a substantial degree of knowledge and convictions or beloefs which would need to be addressed before embarking on an extended rersearch activity.

The intentions of this assignment which has been described in my papers "The Avalanche Effect"(download pdf 55 kb) (which incidently was written on invitation for the issue on India but was then rejected due to lack of space by Design Issues in 2004) and in my subsequent presentation to the EAD06 Conference in Bremen in 2005 called "Creating the Unknowable: Designing the Future in Education". (download pdf 50 kb) The visual presentation for EAD06 can be downloaded here (as pdf 4.1 mb size)

I had described this course as a abstract for the submission to the EAD06 conference paper and it is reproduced here for immediate reference:
I quote... "Design has changed rapidly in recent years. So have its agenda and manifesto for education. Dealing with layers of complexity in a mandate to surge beyond the production of products and systems to include the economic, ecological, and the spiritual. This new form of design is not as sharply defined in its deliverables by the once accepted parameters of aesthetics and function of the products that it produced for the marketplace. Today it has literally jumped out of its flimsy skin to locate itself in an impossible space between a rich context and the user groups and their environment that it hopes to serve. Our attention thus shifts from the artifact to the interface and further to the effect that it has on the future itself. These concerns led to the experimental development of teaching design processes and design thinking through a modified course that has evolved over many years. The complexities at hand are daunting in a developing economy. Most forms of problem solving are placed in the hands of the specialists in all walks of life, a legacy of the entrenched scientific management tradition. The need therefore for a broad based approach to design education was perceived by the group of teachers as a critical need. The Design Methods course evolved over a ten-year period, it is now called Design Concepts and Concerns and this paper is an attempt to articulate the lessons that have been gleaned, a sort of research through design. That Design as a process of informed synthesis through the articulation of models, diagrams and scenario visualisations that could match the complexity of the real world situations became the premise for assignment design. It is the belief of the author that the power of design lies in visualising the future, the unknowable, through the process of open-ended context driven investigations in design education situations. The ability to feel, to see, to discover, to think, to build and model, communicate and to evaluate, all form the core of design learning. This course includes all these stages in a structured set of learning situations that builds deep understanding and design competence. This reflection on history will look back over the evolution of this course and share cases and findings on the validity of the assignments and processes used to teach design." Unquote. EAD06 conference Speaker and abstract: Ranjan M P

The course has evolved further and now we have two forms that are offered at NID, one of five weeks duration for the undergraduate programme and the other of two weeks duration for the postgraduate programmes.

This assignment now has the following intentions and deliverables:

Intention:
To understand "Sustainability" as a concept as it would impinge on several human activities as a context for design.
Learning, Food, Health, Play and Mobility are the sub-themes taken for group exploration during this particular course.

Intention:
To understand group processes in design while dealing with complexity in a reflexive situation of diverse individuals who are grappling with an ambiguous and unknown area with the intention to bring some shared perspectives that are informed by their own life experiences and value systems. These objectives would be handled by a structured set of assignments and processes while workin g in the groups.
Brainstorming
Life experience plumbing
Exploring the known universe
Discovering the known and the unknown
Mapping issues, perspectives and opportunities
Finding structure through "Modelling"
Expressing meaning through "metaphors"

Intention:
To understand design at the "Fuzzy Front End" of knowing and finding "What to Do" and "Where to Look" and not just about "How to do". (see papers by Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders here)

To understand the process of meaning production and building context awareness in design thinking and design action.

The deliverables will include a presentation of the groups explorations, the brainstorming sheets, the informal and formal shared structure showing the hierarchy and relationships within the context as explored by the group and finally an expression of the groups understanding in the form of a memorable visual metaphor that could bew shared with the class at the presentation, a "show and tell" session from which the next assignment would be launched.

Design Concepts & Concerns Blog: An interactive platform for the DCC course at NID, India

Image: Fire as a Metaphor for Design

The Design Methods course provided the limited framework for discourse on design theory at NID and in the mid seventies the course went through its first metamorphosis with the appearance of the environmental agenda into the Foundation Programme being introduced by the then coordinator and teacher Mohan Bhandari and this layer has persisted over the years. I started teaching this course in 1982 soon after Mohan Bhandari left NID and by then I had started bringing in my own convictions to this course in some tentative way at first and later with a more definite value orientation that is reflected in my own engagement with design research and practise over these years in the crafts, bamboo and small industry perspectives and later in the domain of digital design all informed by the context that is India. The case material and the concepts being developed caused me to change the name of this course to Design Concepts and Concerns (DCC) in the mid nineties. In this period we also embraced systems design philosophies that came to be accepted at the senior years of the industrial design programmes at NID and its intellectual bearings came from the works of Stafford Beer and Gui Bonsiepe besides Buckminister Fuller and Victor Papanek. Bonsiepe’s books and documentations of the work in Argentina and Brazil continued the thought processes started at the hfg Ulm and brought a new perspective that of the difference between design in the West and that of the Periphery and its associated social and economic implications.

Image: Profile of the Designer

For me the Design Concepts and Concerns (DCC) course became a platform to revisit the domain of theory each year after several fresh and new experiences in research and practise during that year since all NID faculty are expected to teach, research and practise within the Institutional studio and professional practise framework. Design Concepts and Concerns (DCC) is about Finding, Knowing, Doing and Feeling, the last word of the quartet being the most important in my opinion. Which is why the name of my course was changed from Design Methodology that was used in the sixties to suggest that design was a scientific discipline and later on it was called Design Process to suggest that it was steeped in good management but now we understand that t is neither Science nor management and it certainly is not Art. I changed the name of my course without official sanction several years ago since NID gave a great deal of latitude to its teachers to experiment and evolve their courses as they too developed a better understanding of their subject. I am grateful for this liberty as a teacher but bemoan the fact that many colleagues do not read enough and pursue an intellectual debate to argue these positions nor do they understand these ideas fully nor support these views from a form of apathy that seems to permeate our intellectual landscape. My model for the “Profile of the Emerging Designer” that I use in my class to sensitise design students to the range of possible professional profiles was first published in 1994 at a seminar on design education at the IDC in Mumbai provided a framework to look at all design professions from this tetrahedral view of the skills and knowledge base of a design professional. (Ranjan 1994)

No one is comfortable when we talk about ourselves as designers in India and the role that we should, could, or would play as a designer in the Indian context. It is the context that gives us the shakes. We get perplexed at the sheer size and complexity and cannot see where to begin or we see the opportunities for our special skills at the comfortable and special end of the economy where about two percent of our population lives and push away our sense of guilt when someone asks us about the other 98 percent and our contribution to these people or even the middle 60 percent of India. However all our students know that design as we are discussing it in the DCC class is about looking, knowing and doing what needs to be done, however uncomfortable. Doing it thoughtfully, skillfully and with a great degree of empathy for the user. The value orientation in this class is deliberate and the model of the designer as a tetrahedron of vertices with Finding, Knowing and Doing as its base and the most important quadrant, in my view is the apex, which is that of Feeling. This is what we bring to our students each year and throughout their stay at NID.

Redesign of the DCC Course: Introducing the Macro-Micro design strategy
For the Foundation class of 2001 we were compelled to innovate our teaching strategy because our city of Ahmedbad was seriously affected by the continuous bouts of rioting that prevented the usual movement of students into the field for user centered studies. Therefore we decided to look at macro economic issues as our point of reference for this particular course in design thinking. The results wee startling to say the least. The “Concept Mela”, a sort of concept sharing exposition, which the students put up at the end of the course shared visualisations and explorations that the seven groups of students had created and each was the proposed framework for a sector specific initiative for design action in India. These explorations were informed by a series of brain storming sessions and the usual lectures and coupled group assignments that followed the structure that this course has been known for at the NID. This time however the young students were in the process of transforming India from a resource poor country to a self confident and successful economy that it can be since nobody told them that this was not possible, the skeptics were missing. They were told to research the various macro parameters and use the NID faculty and senior students as their immediate source of expert consultants. The groups formed went through a progression of assignments at building models of the economy with a view to discover structural relationships and functional proximities between related industries and economic sectors. Five groups looked at the same issues and discussed these with great enthusiasm and captured the major attributes of these sectors and their interrelationships by a process of brainstorming and discussion. The thus identified parameters were arranged using Post-it stickers into intermediate structures and based on a consensus within the team and amongst the consultants that they chose to involve.

The resultant structures were represented the form of presentation posters, each using a suitable metaphor for organising the elements. The five groups had five different models but several aspects of these overlapped and some models were more amenable to further manipulations than the others. However at this stage all the students were highly motivated and demonstrated a very high degree of clarity about these macro economic parameters and their impact on the National economy and its related issues and contexts. One group proposed a Ministry of Design and divided the economy into basic producers (primary), processors (secondary) and services. The representation was in the form of a city road map with a downtown circle that had the three forks, one for each category, which got further divided into a branching diagram that accommodated all the individual sectors identified by the group.

Another group selected to depict the economy as a Venn diagram with here major areas of economy, ecology and society with the interstices of these accommodating the critical sectors that needed inputs across these areas. Yet another interesting strategy was to look at the interrelationships between a few key-driving parameters and this was represented as an interactive wheel where the outer circle defined the individual sectors where design could and should play a critical role, and these numbered 230 in all.

Design Initiatives: Sector Specific Strategies
The efforts of the students and the resultant flow of ideas was further supplemented by a series of lectures by the author on the institutional frameworks that were needed to make this initiative a reality in India. I shared the work done for the two institutes dealing with crafts sector and the bamboo sector with the students and asked them to identify specific opportunities that they could locate for immediate action in the Indian context. The teams were further divided into seven and this time the students were permitted to join teams that they could align themselves with on a personal interest and ideology basis. The result was startling and the motivation levels kept these students active in groups on an almost round the clock basis in a seemingly inextinguishable flow of energy and creativity. Each group created panels that described the issues visually and built models to share their vision of the proposed framework for action, each in a small panel based exhibit that could be taken to the public. This time we invited the public into our campus, and over two days of intense interactions, the students got a great deal of feedback and critique from a large number of visitors. Seven sectors were selected from a larger list of possible choices and the Institutional frameworks developed to address these are as follows:

1. Badal (Monsoon Clouds)
Proposed as a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), the metaphor of the monsoon clouds is used to describe a process for strengthening micro-enterprises through the use of research, assimilation, refinement and delivery of know how to the micro-entrepreneurs just as the clouds perform a function of delivering rain to the people. This is way of understanding self-employment strategies of some successful people in one part of India and to be able to share these with the others in need.

2. Udaan (Flight of the Spirit)
A strategy for the empowerment, modernisation and for Information Technology enabling of rural India with a deep understanding of the needs of this particular community or groups of such communities distributed all over the country, each in their own environment and unique cultural and linguistic space.

3 Aavriti (A Platform for Change)
The child and its activities are the focus of this initiative. The design opportunities area of toys, games and active education are addressed in this framework. India does not have a single agency that is capable of embracing the design needs of children although they form almost 60 percent of the total population.

4. EDD (Education Design Developments)
The proposed network of designers would work towards improving the quality of education in India. The design needs of the education sector are both complex and fund starved at the same time. The use of the web and face to face strategies form the basis of this design scenario that could build a network of designers with teachers, students and other interested specialist contributors.

5. SEEDS (School of Ecological Design Studies)
This organisation fosters a holistic approach to issues of environment through education, research and action strategies that are unique to the problems of India. The belief system embedded in this proposal assumes progress through a two way learning process in building contemporary design solutions and in learning from the traditional wisdom of an established society.

6. Green Dots (Design Organisation for Sustainable Transport Systems)
Transportation strategies that do not damage that environment need to be innovated and made acceptable to our society if the quality of life in our cities and villages is to improve. This strategy includes the use of novel solutions and sustained information campaigns to build acceptable models with the involvement of people.

7. IID (Institute of Interface Design)
To supplement India’s software engineering strengths there is a need for the capacity to make products that are usable and appropriate for a wide section of indigenous users and for export needs. The proposed framework and associated scenarios fill a real need for value added approaches to enhance the interface design capabilities of our existing software industry.

This effort gave us a glimpse of concepts that were both necessary and achievable. The next stage in this course led to the development of scenarios by each student of one sub-opportunity that they individually felt could help precipitate the necessary investments or action in the sector of their choice. The fact that these explorations reached concrete action plans with well-defined objectives and a visual expression of the possible scenarios made it easy for visitors, senior students and faculty to engage in a deep discussion on the merits and risks of each specific approach. This is the hallmark of design thinking and action that is rooted in the domain of the visual scenario that can locate the discourse at the macro level and at the micro level simultaneously. The future of design too lies somewhere along this path and we can and must find new roles for design in the production of images that can inform decision processes, some of which are so complex that they need many iterations and political mediations to resolve in an amicable manner. Most importantly these design processes need the involvement and partnership of a multitude of stakeholders and such visualisations make the concepts, decisions and issues available for visual review in a transparent and understandable manner that fosters long term partnership needed to achieve the lofty results. Design at this level has the ingredients to create the avalanche effect, a great positive mobilisation, an overwhelming quantity of something hopefully new and beneficial, with a very small designerly effort.

Since this batch we started selecting a major theme each year and offering these as challenges to the batch of students through which they could experience the design journey of inploration and exploration using the tools and processes that were introduced during the course. Some of these themes, a few examples listed here , were introduced in the various courses of which some have been briefly documented at my website at these links below while the others will be added as time permits.

Theme : Globalistaion and Impact on Indian economy – Link: Documentation of the course in 2004
Theme : Khadi as a way of life for India and the World – Link: Documentation of the course in 2003

Theme : Child friendly services
Theme : Services across sectors
Theme : Food, Clothing, Finance and Entertainment as design opportunities
Theme : Creative Industries of the Future
Theme : Design Institutes for the States and Regions of India

The various concepts and concerns that inform design action as well as the theory of design have been expanded upon at other links here as well as on my blog called “Design for India” which will be updated with contemporary concerns and reflections in the days ahead.

Design Theory links:
Prof. M P Ranjan’s website and Design Theory links below
What is Design?
What is a Design Opportunity?
What is Design Knowledge?
What is a Designer's Profile?
Levels of Design
What is Design: Fire Metaphor