Towards Singularity…

Curious about the title, what’s up and where we’re headed in design, I made a trip to the Cooper Hewitt Museum in NY for an exhibit called “Design USA: Contemporary Innovation”; a retrospective honoring their design award-winners of the last 10 years. It was quite an experience, and I’m still mulling over the incredible collection of ideas, running the gamut from search engines to sneakers, physicists to plastics. Oh, foolish boy, if Benjamin Braddock only knew…

The categories themselves were intriguing: Craft, Experience, Technology, Materials, Method and Design Mind. Recognition that “design” is a very broad term, “space” is more than what’s between four walls, and “innovation” affects everything.

Of course, architects and designers were recognized, especially for solutions to meet changing spatial and environmental demands. There were imaginative “brownsite” redevelopments, most notably the High Line in Manhattan, and much emphasis on prefab technology, green design and sustainability. But equally lauded were those who think “outside the box” across the board. Nike has conquered sluggish feet with shoes weighed in grams; Aveda, a makeup manufacturer, was awarded for creativity in environmentally sound product and packaging as well as their third world economic contributions. The New York Times graphics department was noted for their interactive media applications- Sunday morning sections may soon go the way of milk delivery. Patagonia’s recycled plastic “fleece” has saved millions of sheep from the indignity of shaving, turning half liters into hoodies. The meeting of mind and material has made for innovations that are changing what and how we produce, and I started to think of how these innovations are shifting our concept and use of space.

Most intriguing were the “interaction” designers who have had such profound impact on all our lives, even for those of us whose only contact with technology is the touch screen at the ATM. Their connections between the digital and the physical realm, ubiquitous in those elegant IPhone applications, are radically changing our means of communication. Being of an earlier generation and far from technologically proficient, I only have the vaguest understanding of how this all works. But the good news is I don’t have to- someone very smart from MIT has my back. I just have to show up and use it.

Little mention in this exhibit of “space” as we think of it, but technological innovation is profoundly impacting how we live, and how our businesses and homes will respond to it. Yes, they are dealing with space as well- abstract space tied more tightly to time and less sensitive to place than we’re used to, but quite pertinent to any discussion of how we live. It’s “space” we didn’t really consider as little as ten years ago, and it’s changing how our physical space functions as well.

I think of my own connectivity; I am “linkedin”, “twittered”, “emailed” “facebooked” “googled”, and that’s before I pick up the phone. Not so long ago, I lost my daughter on a ski vacation and was terrified- now I could call her from the top of that mountain, assuming that she’d answer. I take a picture and email it while finding a restaurant on 145^th Street. All this communication can be intrusive, but it’s a powerful tool for connection, for building business and for exploring ideas. I can work from just about anywhere, talk just about any time- and there’s something quite freeing in that.

I was pushed headlong into my own technological Waterloo about four years ago when working on a project in Georgia. Time sensitivity and construction constraints forced me to make a leap I had for many years resisted- from hand drafting to CAD. The poor guys I worked with can attest that they pushed an 800 lb gorilla over a 10 foot wall- I had to change my entire way of thinking about space and form. Result? Four years later I no longer own a drafting table, having abandoned it for my little Mac Powerbook, and that roll of yellow trace has become wrapping paper. Many a detail was drafted on a Continental tray table and emailed from the arrival gate. The transition changed not only how I design but how and where I work. Coupled with the vast internet library a click away, my “office” has been downsized to any small surface and a chair; add my IPhone, it’s behind the wheel of my car (yes, I know). All else is extraneous clutter that I just can’t seem to help.

Demarcations are shifting and with them the spaces we inhabit. We work nationally and globally in our slippers on the coffee table. And how we design needs to respond to these changes- offices morph, organizing systems adapt, home and play and work intersect in ways we didn’t imagine, all changing the function of our spaces, how we fill them and with that, fundamentally, how we live our lives.

This shift to instant information and immediate response makes me wonder how long before we approach that hypothetical “singularity” where mind and machine finally merge? Doesn’t seem so far-fetched now, we’re only one small step into this world of technology. A generation ago my mother spent her Saturday mornings cleaning kerosene lanterns and went to church with heated bricks under her feet. I stand on a subway platform and plan a vacation, make a bank transfer and download a CD in seconds. And that’s me- what of the three year old recently in my office with her “Princess” laptop? For her it’s already there.

It’s all good, just different. Changing with the times, right? Something to be said for continued adaptation…keeps me young, at least at heart.