Design Unbound reflections

Earlier this month, I was introduced to the idea of complex or wicked problems during a sharing by a senior colleague. We were recommended to read a book called 'Design Unbound' by Ann M. Pendleton-Jullian and John Seely Brown.

Link to pdf brochure here.

I took up the challenge to read it as I was already working on a project where design thinking (DT) was being applied and I thought that the book would give me insights into design beyond what I was learning by doing or what I was being taught about realting to the DT process in a just enough and just in time manner. After reading the book, albeit taking about 2 weeks to do so, I would recommend others to read it too. Below are some of my main takeaways in case you need more reasons to begin reading the two volumes set.

For a book on design, it really walks the talk. Check out the contents page on the right. It has a truly unique design which suggests that one really does'nt have to read the book in a linear manner.

Here is a little excerpt from a summary I took off MITpress:
"In a world where causality is systemic, entangled, in flux, and often elusive, we cannot design for absolute outcomes. Instead, we need to design for emergence. Design Unbound not only makes this case through theory but also presents a set of tools to do so. With case studies that range from a new kind of university to organizational, and even societal, transformation, Design Unbound draws from a vast array of domains: architecture, science and technology, philosophy, cinema, music, literature and poetry, even the military. It is presented in five books, bound as two volumes. Different books within the larger system of books will resonate with different reading audiences, from architects to people reconceiving higher education to the public policy or defense and intelligence communities. The authors provide different entry points allowing readers to navigate their own pathways through the system of books."

Note how there are 2 volumes presented in 5 books and in fact I have only read the 1st volume but eager to start reading the 2nd volume soon. So, the book I read not only included theories, the authors provided a refreshing toolkit which would be particularly useful for designing in our VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world. I liked the analogy used about white water kayaking which evolved from metaphors like a small cargo ship to that of a sailboat before the vivid image of a kayak in the white water rapids was conceptualised.

As I was reading the book, I was busy typing little notes on my handphone till I realised that some full pages were worth taking photos of especially since the whole page was filled with nuggets of insights. Once the authors introuced the list of tools and metatools, the flow of the book was clearer as the following chapters elaborated on the tools and how they came about as well as how they were applied in a relatively recent real world scenario. However, the 1st book only included T1 to T6 with a closing chapter on MT1 as labelled in the set of tools seen below.

In my notes I wrote about how design was mentioned to be a visionary pursuit/practice. It is generally optimistic. 

The first 2 epistemological windows were provided by Newton (mechanis) and Darwin (evolutionary biology) who framed the world through a landscape of causality, cause and effect following one after the other, as a train over continuous rolling terrain. The 3rd window was framed by ecology theory which had a genetic code made up of autocatalytic mutualism (complex). "Autocatalytic means that the system is constantly generating an increase of energy and matter to sustain or grow itself from within. It does this by relying upon the mutual dependencies at work."

A political scientist David Ronfeldt looked at the long range evolution of societies in his TIMN framework where T refers to Tribes, I refers to Institutions and M refers to Market and N refers to Networks which work in an exponential way.

There were some interesting etymologies which got my attention and got me thinking about the words we use like how complex came from the Latin word 'placetere' which means to weave or entwine. Eco in Greek came from 'oikos' which meant home. In addition, ambiguity in Latin is 'ambigere' which was commonly translated to be in doubt, used to also mean move around or wander. Emergence came from medieval Latin 'emergentia' which means to bring to light/bring forth, a process of coming into existence.

An interesting quote was shared too "Imagination is like a muscle, the more I wrote , the bigger it got." - Phillip Jose Farmer 

Quotable quotes from the book 'in design, inquiry is the driver but making is the vehicle.'

'Forward movement in design requires the suspension of disbelief.'

'Over analysis leads to permanent or momentary paralysis.'

Criticise (fault-finding, censure) vs Critique (builds upon)

The latter is like baptism by fire, a moment of initation for beginning designers through which progress is made.

Skills required include mental skills, making skills, skill of entanglement (juggling++), empathy (considered a skills) be it emotional or cognitive empathy.

Empathy has 4 natures; empathetic concern, perspective taking, emotional contagion, and fantasy.

At the core, integrity and authenticity is needed. 

Within comlexity theory, simple interactions among individual parts/agents firm complex behaviours and patterns at the systems level. The movement from low level rules to higher levels of sophistication is called emergence.

The last few chapters dived into emergence as seen in snowflakes, corals, Venice and twitter. 

There was also a subheading linking emergence to complexity as 2 sides of the same coin. 

Design rules that are about relationships and processes of resource and information exchange between components and context.

Scaffold learning in the system. Stimulate interactions that function without central control. Must encourage flexibility of interactions and must inspire the creation of coherent packages of exchanges, communications and actions that can become building blocks at still more complex levels.

Not unlike designing strategic interactive game spaces. Emergent behaviours are like games in that they are all about living within the boundaries defined by rules but also using that space to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

I hope the notes above excite you enough but if not please do read the book anyway as my reflections and notations which is in my own organised mess may not fairly represent the interesting bits and juices of information featured in Volume 1 of the Design Unbound publication.