Age of Complexity
Greetings NextD Readers. In case you missed it, just letting you know we were delighted yesterday to see significant design community energy and progress around the subject of rising complexity and the need to rethink design! The very interesting, 2 hour virtual event; "Metadesign. Rethinking Design in the Age of Complexity" organized by Northeastern University, College of Arts, Media and Design effectively launched an exciting new stream of a growing community conversation.
We were particularly happy to see our recent book Rethinking Design Thinking: Making Sense of the Future That has Already Arrived included among those mentioned by Paolo Ciuccarelli in his introduction describing works that already exist around this increasingly activated subject that seems to be of growing interest to many.
Although Meta Design as a concept has been around the block a few times, several definitions exist, we believe there is an opportuntity in this cycle for it to get some traction in the design community, drive some much needed methodology related change in academia and take hold in the broader global marketplace.
Of course, the complexity arena is not an open landscape so the design community has its work cut out to find and make an effective place for itself there more broadly. It is not an easy arena to operate in and involves rethinking many aspects of design.
Paolo has asked Humantific to participate in this several part conversation and we are happy to do so.
While the academic community has for a decade been in a different place from the practice community on this subject that is near and dear to us, we appreciate the effort by Paolo and Northeastern University, Center for Design to see if efforts might be combined towards constructive new outcomes, recognizing a need for meaningful action, sooner rather than later.
We support this initiative and are happy to participate. There is much work to do!
A few screens from the event below:
Stay tuned for more information.