Social Design Essay

1833 Words4 Pages

Introduction

This article review forms part of a report, the intention of this literature is to review five articles namely; “Socially Responsive design: Thinking beyond the triple bottom line to socially responsive and sustainable product design” by Gavin Melles, Ian de Vere & Vanja Misic, published in 2011, CoDesign, Vol. 7, No. 2-4, “A “Social Model” of Design: Issues of Practice and Research” By Victor Margolin and Sylvia Margolin, published in 2002, MIT Press, Vol. 18, No.4, “Rethinking Design Policy in the Third World” by Sulfikar Amir, published in 2004, MIT Press, Vol. 20, No. 4, “Design for Children’s Behaviours in Daycare Playgrounds” By Nathan H. Perkins and George Antoniuk, published in 1999, Alexandrine Press, Vol. 25, No. 1, lastly “The Politics of the Artificial” By Victor Margolin, Published in 1995, MIT Press, Vol. 28, No. 5. By reviewing these articles this paper will expose the social responsibilities of a ‘product’ designer, by looking into the history and context of social design. This paper will further bring forth the “ideal” characteristics of a socially responsible ‘product’ designer, and look into participatory design as a methodology for the socially responsible design process.

The intention of socially responsible projects is to empower its user; the result seen in use within the intended system must satisfy the objective of helping the user and therefore providing the community with economic gain with minimal harm to the environment writes Melles et al
- (Melles et al, 2011: 152).

Background and Context
In the article entitled “Socially Responsive design: Thinking beyond the triple bottom line to socially responsive and sustainable product design” the authors refer to Victor Papanek as the man ...

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...ated on the processes social designers follow in order to derive an outcome that satisfies a human need, while benefiting the community, not harming the environment and ultimately contributes positively to the local economy.
Ultimately that lack of, or under-development of socially responsible design is as a result of educational institutions not facilitating and providing the necessary knowledge for designers to become active social designers.

Recommendations
In order to better understand the context of the paper, it would be beneficial to read “Design for the Real World” by Victor Papanek, furthermore, that lack of socially responsible design awareness at academic institutions is of great concern, in order to support the social design awareness, more research into where and how social design is taught, would add additional value to the claims in this review.

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