what the future holds

17/03/2020

Week 6’s class talked of the future which is not only important to us as designers but as a society too. For students it held a hangover as it was RAG week after all but for others in the world it presented hardship, a need to survive either because of food scarcity, homelessness or even disease. Disease is a big part in our world today, especially as I write this the total number of cases for COVID – 19 on the island of Ireland nears 300 with no wall to stop it.

Being a designer can be about chance sometimes, predicting what society wants. What style it wants back or even what new fresh style it wants created. This I find to relate to the fashion industry more so than products with the 80s and 90s attire making a huge comeback. Berlin showing this especially with the vintage jumpers. I’m even wearing one right now!! Design is about seeing the world around us in a different light. Taking in what we see, hear and feel to mould a better future for our people. But this cannot make sense.

If we designed the world for the people and just the people (User centred design) then what would become of the billions and trillions of other living things on this earth? To design perfectly for the human population natural sacrifices must be made. Take the collection of timber for example. Can be used for heat energy, sculpture, construction etc. Humans like control over things. We like geometry, grid like areas and places for us to use our tools. Cars – roads, sport – pitches etc. You look at these from a human perspective and think an improvement for us all. Better connection between villages, towns and cities and improved community spirit with hurling or football for example. But what’s in it for the other species. From a wolf’s perspective the roads are barriers, slicing through its territory, a territory used for food and mates.

As I said before the future of the human world is up in the air as of now. Design can solve this but not in the conventional sense. Designing a system that can cope with the increase of cases or even better reduce the increase altogether is vital in stopping the coronavirus. Governmental systems have been put in place that can only better our futures as a whole. Educational buildings are inactive, pubs, event areas all closed and now even airlines such as Ryanair plan on stopping nearly all of the flights within the next few days. The way we design the present as of now can have a huge impact on our future. At the end of the day a few thousand cases sounds far better than 30,000 cases on just our island alone. Really these are all delaying measures until medical design finally happens upon a vaccine. This can take at least a year which can only demonstrate the importance of good design when it comes to governmental systems and even our own lives. (hashtag)stayathome is never to be taken lightly.