Cultural Aspects of Design

The Cultural Aspects of Design Network has as its aim to further the understanding of the inter-relationships between cultures and the physical environment, to improve knowledge of the impact of cultural and social factors on environmental design and planning, and to expand consciousness of the myriad of ways in which environments play a role in, and affect, the lives of people and other living beings. Members of this network are interested in research leading to culturally appropriate and responsive design. Current research interests include vernacular architecture, domestic space, housing, public space, cross-cultural variation in design, religion, migration of people and adjustments related to design, workplace design, native cultures, modern and hybrid cultures, power issues in design, symbolism, meaning, socio-cultural context of design. On the pragmatic side, members are interested in consultancy, policy, designing and planning communities with special consideration of culture, and in culturally appropriate, responsive and responsible design.

Reading the Evolution of Places

In: myurbanist.com

By: Ana Maria Manzo & Chuck Wolfe

"This article is a collaboration of two people who have never met, one, an architect in Venezuela, Ana Maria Manzo (reachable via her blog, the place of dreams), and the other, an environmental and land use lawyer in the United States, Chuck Wolfe, founder of myurbanist.

Below, they provide intercontinental guidance for reading urban evolution.

The evolution of place is far from a linear process. Rather, it is an interactive story which features the blending of many dimensions.

Time, of course, creates new and old approaches to the look and feel of habitation, workplace, and the transportation routes between. The elements of water and land interface and interact, sometimes together, with the built environment. Climate drives seasons and forms of building, access and the manipulation of light. And cultural approaches to ownership and stewardship modify these responses to climate, and create alternative forms of building on the ground.

Today, we are driven by a new sustainability ethic, necessarily systemic in scope. Carbon-neutrality is the rage, and location efficiency, clean energy and the return of neighborhood are the watchwords of change. Formulas and metrics, and new regulatory systems attempt results, and show the quest to measure how close we are to achieving ideal forms of location and development."

Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism?

By: Bruce Nussbaum

In: Fast Company's Co Design

"Emily Pilloton's Design Revolution Road Show, the physical embodiment of her non-profit Project H Design rolled into New York a few weeks ago stopping at Metropolis, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and ICFF. Yes, Project H is hot in U.S. and European design circles, almost as sizzling as IDEO, the Acumen Fund, and One Laptop Per Child.

And why not? Emily’s Project H is a pure play in using design to do good. It doesn’t get better than this mission statement:

Project H Design connects the power of design to the people who need it most, and the places where it can make a real and lasting difference. We are a team of designers, architects, and builders engaging locally through partnerships with social service organizations, communities, and schools to improve the quality of life for the socially overlooked. Our five-tenet design process (There is no design without action; We design WITH, not FOR; We document, share and measure; We start locally and scale globally, We design systems, not stuff) results in simple and effective design solutions for those without access to creative capital. Our scalable long-term initiatives focus on improving environments, services, products, and experiences for youth and K-12 education institutions in the U.S. through systems-level design thinking and deep community engagements. WE BELIEVE DESIGN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

So do I. But whose design? Which solutions? What problems?"

Activist architecture and transformative design in NY, Mumbai, Bangalore and the Mississippi Delta

In: Places - The Design Observer Group

Preparing Ground: An Interview with Anuradha Mathur + Dilip da Cunha

"Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha are principals of the design firm Mathur/da Cunha, based in Philadelphia and Bangalore. Trained in architecture and landscape architecture, at the Center for Environmental Planning and Technnology in Ahmedabad and the University of Pennsylvania, Mathur is associate chair of landscape architecture at the Penn School of Design. Trained in architecture and planning, at Bangalore University, the School of Planning and Architecture at New Delhi, Berkeley and MIT, da Cunha is on the faculty of the Parsons School of Design and the Penn School of Design.

In more than a decade of interdisciplinary practice, as designers, teachers and writers, Mathur and da Cunha have focused on the cultural and ecological issues of contested landscapes. In projects, exhibitions and books, they have sought answers to seemingly simple but difficult and indeed fundamental questions — what is a river? where is the city? Their answers often take the form of intricate and original visualizations — what they term "photoworks" and "photowalks," sectional drawings and collages that at once construct and peel away the many layers of complex landscapes."

A modern approach to creating place

From blog: PRAIREFORM: Every day excursions in the urban landscape

"Jacques Tati was a master of poking fun at hyper-austere modernist homes, their accompanying landscapes, and their followers. The infamous scene in “Mon Oncle” of his accidental pruning of two espaliered trees that had been depressingly planted along a blank wall is so pleasantly memorable in its deadpan-slapstick critique of modernism. It pokes fun not only at the excessive austerity and fussiness of the landscape, but also at the generic placelessness of it – particularly when juxtaposed with the rather hodgepodge, roughhewn landscape of the older part of town. In part what we love about “Mon Oncle” is not simply how funny it is, but how prescient it was. To this day, card-carrying modernist designers continue to create prototypical Mon Oncle landscapes, apparently unaware of the comically uncanny similarities they hold with the landscape of the film"