Designs for life

Published in English, Ezio Manzini’s new book is “an Italian contribution to the international conversation”, marking a continuity with the success of national and social dimension of design.

Ezio Manzini, Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts 2015.

 

The Compasso d’Oro Career Award given to Ezio Manzini by the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale – ADI – coincides with the acknowledgement of a wholly original course of analysis and theoretical development that over recent years has been able to anticipate ever-widening spheres of action in design, as stated also by the jury.

After graduating in engineering and architecture, Manzini first came to the attention of the design world in the mid 1980s as one of the most attentive analysers of a world undergoing a process of artificiality. From then on followed a period of intense activity that combined teaching, research and industry, carried out between the Milan Polytechnic and the newly-established Domus Academy where he created and ran the research centre. These experiences led to the publication of La materia dell’invenzione (1986, Compasso d’Oro 1987), one of the international cornerstones of new design and materials, followed by Artefatti (1990).  

Ezio Manzini, <i>Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation</i>, The MIT Press
Ezio Manzini, Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, The MIT Press (on the right) and previous volumes by Ezio Manzini
Here Manzini questioned the possibility of creating a new culture based on a circularity of production processes and consumption in an “ecology of the artificial environment”, anticipating some of the methodological traits that would characterise subsequent lines of enquiry. For design it meant new fields of action, that assumed a radical change in ways of thinking and the adoption of an ethical dimension as a design horizon. He therefore pressed for the appearance of a metropolitan ecological imagery that accepts having to address new technologies and creates a dialogue with socio-cultural evolution in the new forms in which it is presented, stressing that “ecological design cannot be formulated without a picture of the overall, from the production of scenarios in which the individual designs and individual products can exist.”
Ezio Manzini, <i>Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation</i>, The MIT Press
Ezio Manzini, Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, The MIT Press
Outlining these scenarios is therefore a crucial aspect in the thinking and practice of contemporary design culture” He spoke of new urban scenarios just over twelve years ago, in the exhibition Quotidiano Sostenibile, set in the context of the XX International Exposition at the Milan Triennale, that presented to the general public ideas for eco-sustainable living – new and surprising hypotheses at the time, today mostly realised in areas such as mobility, food, shared economy… the idea behind that exhibition, the result of international work by the research group led by him at the Faculty of Design at the Milan Polytechnic (that then gave rise to the DESIS Network – Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability), was that transformation could occur only via a great social process of learning, to which also the world of design could make a contribution.
Ezio Manzini, <i>Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation</i>, The MIT Press
Ezio Manzini, Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, The MIT Press
Social innovation thus became the new challenge for design: and it is in this direction that Manzini’s subsequent theories and activities have been focussed, recently brought together in a book published by MIT Press, Design, when everybody designs. The new essay is constructed on two fundamental assumptions: one; design has shifted attention away from “objects” (products, services, systems) to “ways of thinking and acting” (methods, instruments, design approaches and cultures); two, the technicians (the experts of design) no longer have a monopoly on design, that returns to being a question that regards every individual in relationships with one or more collective dimension. These are statements that are rocking the foundations of the theoretical framework (and its variations in a practice that has remained the same from the industrial revolution onwards) in the world that we conventionally label as “design” not negating it, but directing it towards new goals.  
Ezio Manzini, <i>Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation</i>, The MIT Press
Ezio Manzini, Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, The MIT Press
The experts do not disappear, on the contrary, they have to redefine their action, that has to be more sophisticated and incisive, because it will imply awareness and studying the cultural background of each project; they are part and at the same time promotors of social change.
It is the life itself of humans, who are faced everyday with problems and opportunities, that becomes the protagonist of design: it is an invitation to rediscover the power of collaboration, that increases the capacity of individuals. From this rediscovery derive new forms of organisation (collaborative organisations) and new artefacts that enable practical solutions.
Ezio Manzini, <i>Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation</i>, The MIT Press
Ezio Manzini, Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation, The MIT Press
Design, when everybody designs is presented as “an Italian contribution” - emphasises Manzini - “to the international conversation”, marking implicitly a continuity not only with theoretical development and the national design successes but also the relational dimension of the sociality developed here. The book is encountering international success at a level that is almost viral (it has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Korean and talks are underway for a Portuguese/Brazilian edition) signifying that the most dynamic societies and/or those interested in change are the East, South America as well as obviously the English-speaking community; paradoxically however it is struggling to find an Italian publisher. It is as if the quantity of initiatives aimed at social transformation that are dotted around Italy - and whose ideas are brought together in this book – were invisible to most.
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