[Open Design] OpenDesign Digest, Vol 14, Issue 7

Wed May 22 12:18:42 UTC 2013

Hi Cindy,

thank you for asking for further explanations. My laziness pushed me to be
superficial :-).

I do not agree with that position and below i summarize why:

my first concern regards the problem that we all should face in academia:
some topics such as Open Design are complex and disruptive, so analyzing
them through the lens of one discipline it can be maybe not really
effective  ( i rather think that separation among disciplines is not really
something we should keep in schools, anyway.). Moreover, we are witnessing
the growing of a research discourse who has the problem of "irritating" the
well established disciplines, stimulating the new disciplines and also
creating the perception of a gap that should be filled with "new" research
things (of course, new research "things" are needed, but we should avoid
the reinventing the wheel process)

Concerning the paper: i think that it is risky to interpret Open Design
through the lens of DIY culture and DIY history. We all know that it is not
about non expert people making things by themselves accessing shared
repository of files. Printing cups with 3D printers at home is a
"manifesto" action that it is useful to communicate visions about the way
things will be produced and distributed and how designs will lose their
owners (and the contrary).

So, it is important to develop critical positions about Open Design in
order to foresee the weaknesses of an model that it can be considered right
now as a successful model.

But how stable can be a diy open design comparing with a professional
closed design is not one of the possible criticalities of Open Design...in
my opinion.

And the assumptions presented in the paper refer more or less to this
point: Open Design cannot be taken into account when "serious things" have
to be designed.

Open Design embraces already the design of serious things such as medical
devices or similar: we see scientists using open design tools for tropical
diseases diagnosis or DNA analysis. we see open source products that are
sold (3D printers) and that provide a good service to people (so this make
them "serious things" because people are paying for the  performance of
such designs). And finally i am sure that there are other many designs (and
things) that fullfil the needs of a business to business context (the
mistake is always to think that designers design just end users objects and
services...)

We all can find examples that demonstrate how the highlighted critical
point is not very critical. But anyway, providing examples is not really
effective because it means still stressing the discourse around a weak
consideration that see Open Design as an extension of diy culture and a
power of non expert people that make things because it is more accessible
now to do that.

Hope it is not a too long explanation :-)

have a nice day

Serena

2013/5/22 <opendesign-request at lists.okfn.org>

> Send OpenDesign mailing list submissions to
>         opendesign at lists.okfn.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>         http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/opendesign
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>         opendesign-request at lists.okfn.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>         opendesign-owner at lists.okfn.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of OpenDesign digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Crafting the future - European Academy of Design
>       Conference - track Making together (Kohtala Cindy)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 05:07:14 +0000
> From: Kohtala Cindy <cindy.kohtala at aalto.fi>
> Subject: Re: [Open Design] Crafting the future - European Academy of
>         Design Conference - track Making together
> To: "opendesign at lists.okfn.org" <opendesign at lists.okfn.org>
> Message-ID:
>         <74D9C2BF9C0D40429227378F101CAC1D64E64B19 at EXMDB02.org.aalto.fi>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
>
> Hi Serena,
>
> Thanks for posting these links, really useful.
>
> I was wondering about your opinion on the Cruickshank Atkinson paper - you
> say you don't agree with it or some of the arguments.
> What exactly? I'd like to hear more.
>
> Cheers
> Cindy in Helsinki
>
>
> On 19 Apr 2013, at 23.51, Serena Cangiano wrote:
> > i hope i am not crossposting, but i want to share with you the
> information about the conference Crafting the future -10th edition of the
> European Academy of Design Conference (Gothenburg, Sweden).
>
> ...
> > One article by the same author Paul Atckinson presents some critical
> issues of open design (that i do not agree with):
> > http://www.trippus.se/eventus/userfiles/39743.pdf
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> OpenDesign mailing list
> OpenDesign at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/opendesign
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/optionss/opendesign
>
>
> End of OpenDesign Digest, Vol 14, Issue 7
> *****************************************
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/opendesign/attachments/20130522/23e05c60/attachment.html>